4 SEPTEMBER 19-25, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Dumbest Bike Lane in Denver? WE ASKED, YOU ANSWERED. BY BENNITO L. KELT Y Biking in Denver is harder than it has to be. The bike lanes designed to safely guide cyclists through the city just don’t make sense to residents who like the healthy, en- vironmentally friendly commuting option. But frustrated cyclists can offer their two cents on Denver’s bike lanes, and the city is listening — for a few more days, at least. According to the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI), an interactive map of the city’s bike lanes is still online, and residents can submit feed- back through Monday, September 23. (The interactive map reveals the city’s ideas for improving biking in the city, such as connect- ing more of the city’s bike lanes and trails. It also shows nearly 450 existing bikeways and over 850 bikeways planned for the future.) Before DOTI’s feedback window closes, Westword gave Denver residents a chance to offer a slice of the kind of feedback the city may be getting. Readers were asked to select one bike lane as the dumbest of them all during a Westword poll that reeled in dozens of responses. Our question — “What’s the dumbest bike lane in Denver?” — received well over 150 combined responses on X and Facebook. Unfortunately for Denver, the most common answer (by a wide margin) turned out to be “all of them,” with twenty people claim- ing that the city isn’t home to a single well-executed bike lane. A few focused their complaints on downtown, with one Facebook user writing that “downtown has too many lanes that just end ran- domly and either push you into traffi c or onto a sidewalk.” Although there certainly are neighborhoods and parts of town that are harder to navigate than others, we wanted more specifi c gripes and examples. After parsing reader responses and the city’s extensive interactive bike map, we found that local cyclists had the following to say about specifi c streets and Denver’s dumbest bike lanes: Broadway On Facebook, Brad Evans wrote: “The $15m that the City of Denver recently spent on the South Broadway bike lane is probably the WORST because it goes no where and did nothing to improve the ‘place.’” Troy De Baca agreed with Evans: “That’s what happens when you give decision mak- ers who ‘ride’ the [lanes] $M’s instead of due diligence with the people who actually own bikes.” “Broadway. And it’s not even close,” wrote @sqwirrelofrage on X. “South Broadway by far,” @ southstands303 said on X. “Broadway in general. Bi- cyclists and motorists alike have yet to fi gure it out,” wrote Monte Aaron on Facebook. “I’ve seen a ton of people nar- rowly avoid death.” “I never take Broadway,” So- phie Scholl wrote in response to Aaron. “Bannock [Street] feels much safer.” “Broadway two-way is pretty dumb,” wrote X user @pixelform, referring to the two-way bike lane on South Broadway that was fi nished by the City of Denver in April after two years of construction. 15th Street On Facebook, Sophie Scholl wrote: “15th Street LoDo. When you’re not dodging tour- ists entering the hotel driveways, the lane suddenly ends at Larimer [Street] and you have to rapidly get over two lanes.” “15th street bc it just ends,” wrote @ citizenj _on X. Brittany Axner wrote: “I am not a fan of the protected bike lane on 15th [Street] downtown suddenly disappearing, that is on the south side, and then once it is gone bikes are supposed to share the lane on the far north side.” “It disappears at Platte River? I think they want bikes to move to the Cherry Creek path. You’re right though,” B Jean Clayton replied on Facebook. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard Aaron Wong posted on Facebook: “We have all these great east-west lanes at MLK, 26th [Avenue], 23rd [Avenue], Montview [Boulevard] and no easy safe connection to Cherry Creek Trail.” On X, @freeeeeeeda_bro called out “the unprotected [lane] from MLK and Colorado Blvd. towards Monaco given that you are taking your own life into your hands when using it.” Central Park Boulevard Monte Aaron wrote on his Facebook: “Central Park blvd going south because cars have to cross through the bike lane at multiple points to make turns at busy intersections. Kind of defeats the point of a protected lane if cars have to use it at the most danger- ous spots.” Federal Boulevard On Facebook, Alex Lin wrote: “South bound Federal past 6th right lane. Oh wait. That’s a death trap. My bad.” 29th Avenue “I love feeling safer biking in Denver and appreciate the bike lanes so much! I don’t love on 29th [Avenue] when crossing Speer towards Zuni,” Kelsey Barton posted on Facebook, “how the bike lane disappears into the car lane for half a block, it’s dangerous!” Grant Street “Are you absolutely serious? The dumb- est one is on Grant St that is only two blocks long and should go the entire length of Grant through Cap Hill,” wrote @rlyjohnconnor on X. Blake Street X user @TomDorsa wrote that in lower downtown, the bike lane that goes along Blake Street “abruptly swings all the way across 17th Street in the most dangerous fashion imaginable.” Bryce_Chandler agreed, writing, “It is so weird! I mean, I do like getting a chance to swing closer to Slice Works for a whiff of pizza, but it’s so bizarre.” 16th Avenue On X, @pixelform wrote: “16th street east of downtown is also dumb. Any lane that has those bumps to keep cars out also keeps bikes from being [able] to freely enter and exit when conditions require... like when ding dongs leave their trash bins in the lanes.” Eighth Avenue Niccolo Casewit on Facebook named “8th Ave parkway from Federal Blvd. to Knox CT rinkidink plastic bollards and all. Elizabeth Teng responded, saying, “Re- ally what were they thinking? Who felt good about getting paid for that?” Casewit suggested the lane could be a “pop up demonstration project photo op- portunity.” Check out Denver’s interactive bike map, provide feedback to the city and learn more about Denver’s changing bicycle network at bit.ly/denvermovesbikes. NEWS KEEP UP ON DENVER NEWS AT WESTWORD.COM/NEWS Bikes and cars can share the road on limited stretches in Capitol Hill. BENNITO L. KELTY Denver’s current bike map has huge gaps where the city’s bikeways end and don’t connect to longer trails or lanes. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
