Russell from Denver writes, “What's driving you crazy? Why are the bike lanes on Yale Ave between University Blvd and Colorado Blvd designed like they are? The lanes are now very restricted, and oversize vehicles frequently are over the double yellow line. With plastic posts on each side of traffic, there is nowhere for a vehicle to maneuver out of the way of an opposing vehicle that is over the line. Additionally, the protected lane ends on the east bound side at Jackson Street dumping cyclists and scooter riders into the right lane for Yale Ave. It seems dangerous for people exiting the bike lanes. With winter on the way, will snow removal be a concern for the city now that it is much more restricted?”
There has been a bicycle lane on this section of Yale Avenue in Denver for many, many years. To be fair, the bike lane doubled as the parking lane, including when it passed McWilliams Park. I have Google Maps photos going back to 2007, showing a dual parking/unprotected bike lane in this area. At that time, the parking/bicycle lane was separated from the vehicle lane by just a single white line painted on the road surface giving very little space for bicycle riders. There were also middle-of-the-street left turn lanes at most intersections along Yale at that time.
Fast forward 10 years or so, the city separated the parking lane from the bicycle lane using new paint lines on the roadway, but the city felt like more had to be done. After hearing from bicycle riders and some residents, the decision was made to create a dedicated, protected bikeway. The city defines them as, “Bikeways on streets that have both a horizontal and vertical buffer between a person bicycling and motor vehicles and are typically built on busier streets with higher speed limits.”
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The horizontal buffer is a separated space between the bikeway and the roadway. Typically, the separation distance is 3 feet or more. The vertical buffer includes either plastic bollards and rubber curbs or concrete barriers that provide a physical barrier between bicyclists and vehicles. The city said, they create these protected lanes to “better organize the roadway so that people who ride bikes or scooters have dedicated space to travel safely.”
When I sent your question to the city for comment this was the response I got:
“The vehicle volumes on this stretch of Yale Avenue between University and Colorado call for a protected bike lane to support the safety and comfort levels of people biking. The vehicle lanes are within standard width and travel safety is further supported by a lower speed limit of 25 mph on that stretch.”
Looking back at street data, the 25 mph speed limit has been in place on Yale for at least 20 years.
The city said, this bikeway design also included changes at all the neighborhood intersections designed to slow down vehicle traffic, make pedestrian crossings shorter, and make it easier for all street users to see oncoming traffic. From my experience, the layout of the protected lanes does make speeding more uncomfortable, and as you pointed out, tough to stay in your own lane. The city told me, the future bike network plans would extend the bike lane a couple more blocks to Colorado Boulevard on both sides of Yale.
“We took the installation to Jackson Street, where wayfinding signs point to a neighborhood bikeway and safe north/south connection,” the city said.
That is where all of the protection of that bike lane ends. However the city told me, changes would need to be made to the intersection of Yale where it dead ends at Colorado. The city said, it would need to identify funds to pay for the reconfigured design and construction before the extension of the bike lane can happen. The city didn’t provide a timeline for the work that would extend the bike lane to Colorado Boulevard.
As far as winter and snow removal is concerned, along other roadways in Denver with a protected bikeway, the city will move snow out of driving lanes with a big plow and use a smaller tractor with a plow in the protected bike lane. Where there is a bike lane with just paint and no bollards, the city first plows the driving surface and then will come back at a later time to clear the buffered bike lane. What seems most likely to happen is the street plow will push snow into the bollards and subsequently into the bike lane and wait to bring in the smaller tractor to clear that snow, as well as the fallen snow from the bikeway.
Eventually the city would like to transform the entirety of Yale Avenue from just east of Interstate 25 to Downing Street.
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