West 29th Avenue has been a ribbon of mostly blank, black asphalt since city crews repaved it months ago.
Now, the city says it will finally get new painted lines, starting this week.
The initial layout of the striping plan will start at night later this week, according to Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Nancy Kuhn.
“Upon confirmation of the layout, long lines will go in Friday [Dec. 6] and the installation of intersection-specific striping will start Monday [Dec. 9],” she wrote in an email.
The street has been at the center of a fierce and hyper-local debate. City transportation officials had been waffling over whether or not to add protected bike lanes for the entire two-mile stretch between Zuni Street on the east and Sheridan Boulevard on the west. They ultimately canned the protected bike lanes on the western-most end of the avenue, much to the anger of the local bicyclist community.
But the ongoing discussions over the bike lanes weren’t the cause of the delayed striping job, Kuhn said.
“We finished paving the stretch a little earlier than we had originally planned,” she wrote. “Then, the contractor who is doing the striping was delayed for a few reasons including a materials delivery delay, a weather delay and some holiday staffing challenges last week.”
Residents have been complaining about the lack of paint in recent weeks and months. And this past weekend, two people were seriously hurt in a crash at 29th and N Lowell Boulevard. The police report indicates an impaired driver ran a red light at the intersection, Kuhn said.
“The report did not indicate engineering as a contributing factor,” Kuhn wrote.
