Denver Leaders Share Plan For Reaching Goal Of 125 Miles Of New Bike Lanes By 2023

(CBS4) - Denver is already a bike-friendly city, but Mayor Michael Hancock wants it to be one of the best in the nation for cyclists. He says the city plans to add 125 miles of new bike lanes by 2023 through the Denver Moves plan.

A lot of those new lanes will be in downtown Denver to encourage people to leave the cars at home and ease congestion on our roads.

"When there are more bike lanes and when they are better connected to each other, it becomes easy for people to take a look at what's available in their neighborhood and say 'I could get as easily on a bike as I could in my car,'" said Piep van Heuven, policy director for Bicycle Colorado which is working with the city on the Denver Moves project.

Many of bike lanes will be of the "high comfort facility" type -- separated from traffic by a barrier to keep cyclists safe.

The city also plans to slow vehicle speeds along those routes.

"Denver will be speeding up how we implement bike lanes in the city through a new approach. We're going to coordinate the striping of bike lanes when we pave the streets, add high comfort bike facilities that will serve as 'backbones' for future, large area bike network buildouts, and focus on the city's core where there's a lot of density and demand," said Heather Burke, spokeswoman for the city's Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.