DENVER — The City of Denver is considering a new plan to add hundreds of miles of new bike lanes in town.
It'll take months before the plan is completed and years to get the work done. Now, the city wants the public's help in deciding where some of these new routes should go.
"Bicycling should be fun and we're hoping to provide the streets that will do that," said Taylor Phillips, senior city planner with the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI).
Biking around Denver can take you down different roads — those with bike lanes and the many roads without.
But Phillips said they're working to change that by developing a new plan.
"We've got about 230 new miles of recommended bikeways, which is a lot," Phillips said. "So our goal in Denver is that every household is within a quarter mile of a bikeway so you have easy access to get to a safe and comfortable facility to take you all the way across Denver wherever you need to go."
Phillips said building a "core network" of bikeways around town will allow more direct, longer distance routes for cyclists around town, even including bike lanes on busy routes like Speer Boulevard.
Some of those high traffic areas will also include safety protections for those bike lines to ensure safe separation of bike lanes and traffic, like those already implemented on the bike lanes along South Broadway.
In a presentation to the community Wednesday, Phillips said they want people to weigh in on what's working and what isn't.
"Are there places that really stink that are really hard to get from A to B or feel uncomfortable that you don't like on our existing network?" Phillips asked the dozens of people on the virtual meeting.
They've already put that feedback into their plan, including adding bicycle and pedestrian crossings of major barriers like railroad crossings and interstates.
But don't fly over the bike handles over the plan yet.
This work would be spread out over 20 years. And it's not final yet.
"This doesn't mean that tomorrow, we're going to just build all these 230-plus miles of bikeways all at once," Phillips said. "This is just drawing those lines on the map, charting the course for what we want so then when we do get funding to go after design and construction of each of those individual streets and projects, we can hit the ground running."
Phillips said hopefully, over the years they'll build up a system that's safe and satisfying for everyone in Denver — whether you walk, drive or bike.
"By creating that density and the opportunity for everyone and access for everyone, we're really hoping to kind of move the needle on mode shift and get more butts on bikes is what I like to say here," Phillips said.
For more information on the plan, the proposed bike lanes and where you can weigh in, visit the Denver Moves Bikes plan.