LAKEWOOD — City officials say the April 2013 arrival of RTD’s West Line light rail is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change the dynamic of how Lakewood residents live, work and play.
The Regional Transportation District says the line carries around 14,000 riders daily and will hit 30,000 in 15 years — more than the entire population of Golden.
And Lakewood knows that more people are using the walking and biking path that runs parallel to the track and up and over major streets like Wadsworth and Kipling.
“It really was a priority for Lakewood to do all we could to aid what was sort of an existing but not fully integrated bike corridor that went from Denver to Lakewood,” said Stacie Oulton, Lakewood communications director.
Like a citywide puzzle, Lakewood has been tying together pieces of land and building pathways to encourage the flow of bicycle and pedestrian traffic around the city’s seven light-rail stations.
In recent years, $4.8 million in federal and city funds have been spent on 11 projects around the West Line stations, and another $3.2 million is slated to be spent on seven more sidewalk, traffic and bike projects through 2015.
City planners envision residential, commercial and retail development at each of the light-rail stations, with Mayor Bob Murphy noting in his 2014 State of the City speech that 10 projects totaling 1,800 residential units along the West Line are in various stages of planning.
In one recent development, council members on April 14 approved the purchase of 10 small sections of private property to improve bike and pedestrian access to the Lakewood-Wadsworth and Oak stations.
Even though it’s not a straight line, bicyclists can travel paths and bike lanes the entire length of the West Line from Denver to the Federal Center Station.
On a recent Monday afternoon, Brenden and Jackie Clayton were biking a 10-mile loop that partially ran along the W Line.
The couple said they moved five years ago from Portland, Ore., a city known for its bike lanes.
“It’s nice to see them putting this together. We’ve biked to Denver and back quite a few times, but they still have a ways to go,” Brenden Clayton said. “You really don’t see many cyclists using the roads in Lakewood compared to other cities. The focus definitely still seems to be on cars.”
City planners say prior to incorporating 44 years ago, Lakewood was county land with minimum requirements on where sidewalks had to be built.
As a result, the city is missing sidewalks along many significant streets and will be playing catch-up with repairs or new sidewalk construction for years to come.
“Outside of what we have done with the light rail,” said city civil engineer Vince Casteel, “we only have $300,000 per year allocated for doing those sidewalks and, as you can tell, that money doesn’t go very far.”
Next up is a new sidewalk running from the Lamar Station to 14th Avenue on the east side of Lamar Street. A roundabout is being built at the intersection, along with traffic lights at 14th and Colfax on Lamar. Construction starts at the end of May.
Although it’s not part of light-rail connectivity, motorists can start expecting delays between 10th and 14th on Wadsworth this month as the Colorado Department of Transportation begins a multimillion-dollar road widening project on the four-block stretch. Lakewood is spending another $700,000 to build 10-foot wide sidewalks along the new roads.
Austin Briggs: 303-954-1729, abriggs@denverpost.com
