Transportation makes up the largest share of debt dollars in Mayor Mike Johnston’s proposed Vibrant Denver bond package: hundreds of millions for bridges, roads, and underpasses.
But advocates say the $935 million bond package doesn’t include enough funding for bike-specific projects like bike paths.
June Churchill, the finance chair of the city’s transportation advisory board, said Mayor Mike Johnston isn’t prioritizing the safety of bike riders.
She wants to see funding go to traffic-calming up and down 13th and 14th avenues, a bike lane on North Broadway and a Mississippi Avenue bridge over the South Platte River. If the city wants safe biking, it needs to focus on creating connectivity, she said.
The mayor’s spokesperson, Jordan Fuja, objects to the idea that there isn’t funding for safer biking in the bond. She said cycling infrastructure is included in larger projects.
“Mayor Johnston is committed to building streets that are safe for everyone, including bicyclists, and there is money for bike infrastructure in the current Vibrant Denver bond,” she wrote Denverite.
“It includes improvements to bicycle infrastructure and pedestrian safety at West 36th St., the 8th Avenue Viaduct, the GES Marion Underpass, the Santa Fe Art District's Street Scape, and the West 38th and Blake Underpass.”
But Allen Cowgill, the transportation board co-chair, said those dollars aren’t adding up to new bike improvements. He wrote, for example, that there are already bike paths on the 8th Avenue viaduct and at 38th and Blake.
Advocates like Cowgill and Churchill think the city is overspending on automobiles. The bond proposal includes $140 million for repairing and changing two bridges over Burnham Yard, motivated in part by potential plans for a new Broncos stadium there.
“To be blunt, it seems unfair that we are subsidizing infrastructure for a Walmart heir billionaire … and ignoring transportation projects that the community asked for,” said Cowgill. “The bridges they are redoing over there are not unsafe and were not on the priority list that the transportation committee came up with.”
City officials say that the bridges over Burnham Yard are critical infrastructure and would need repairs and renovations regardless of the Broncos’ plan.
“The city has previously sought funding to address these bridges, and without guarantee of federal dollars, we need to turn to the bond,” Fuja wrote. “Regardless of what happens at Burnham Yard, these bridges are critical to travelers to the city’s center, and they have to be fixed before they fail.”
In 2017, the city included $18 million specifically for bike infrastructure in the Elevate Denver bond package. Much of the city’s recent bike infrastructure expansion was funded by Hancock.
As Churchill sees it, the city under Johnston has been slow to build bike lanes, and has even removed some stretches of protected bike lanes downtown and elsewhere.
“They spent $200,000 on an outside contractor to rip out about 40 feet of the protected bike lane in front of the STK Steakhouse to make more room for their valet parking,” she said.
Fuja said the city is on track to deliver 20 miles of improved “slow and safe” streets with bike lanes this year and another 18 miles in 2026.
“Slow and safe streets are not in this bond project,” Cowgill said. “They are from the annual budget, of which the mayor has decreased bike funding to record low levels.”
The Denver City Council will debate the bond package on Monday and may make adjustments. Councilmember Sarah Parady anticipates adding bike infrastructure to the package and is still working out the details.
