30th Street and Colorado Avenue Protected Intersection and Underpass

Learn what a protected intersection is and how to use it in this short video, or provide comments and questions below:

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What is a protected intersection and how do I travel through it?

Through their design, protected intersections physically separate people walking, biking, and rolling from vehicles up to and through the intersection and make it easier for these travelers to see and be seen by drivers.

Protected intersections include:

• Corner islands that extend the protected bike lane to the intersection.

• Increased space between the vehicle lane and bike lane that creates more visibility for people walking, biking, and rolling.

• A dedicated path for bikes through the intersection, painted green.

The project will:

• Construct a pedestrian and bicycle underpass fully separated from vehicles, providing a connection to three corners of the intersection.
• Construct the first fully protected intersection in Boulder.
• Create almost a mile of protected, separated paths for walking and biking connected to 30th Street and 28th Street.
• Reconstruct and improve existing transit stops.
• Install lighting, landscaping, art and other placemaking features.

The protected intersection is open for travel. The underpass will open on Fall 2023.

Construction for the project began in Spring 2021 and is expected to be fully complete in Fall 2023

As construction nears completion, people biking and walking can reference the routes in this map for a construction-free trip.

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30th Street and Colorado Avenue is one of the busiest intersections in Boulder. It is an important travel corridor for the community, including the University of Colorado Boulder:

• 30,000 cars and 1,500 bicyclists and pedestrians travel through the intersection in a typical day.
• 1,300 people board and exit RTD and CU buses using the four stops at this intersection.

The intersection is a top crash location in the city:

• 86 collisions took place between 2012-2016, 18 of those involving bicyclists.
• The existing on-street bicycle facilities create a high level of stress for many bicyclists. This leads some bicyclists to ride on the sidewalk instead, which is a common cause of crashes in Boulder.

The project area is growing:

• The Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan and the University of Colorado East Campus Master Plan forecast growth in the project area, which will result in more people traveling through this intersection.

Improvements to the area implement the 30th and Colorado Corridors Study and are an important part of the city’s Core Arterial Network (CAN). The CAN is a connected system of protected bicycle lanes, intersection enhancements, pedestrian facilities, and transit facility upgrades that will help reduce the potential for severe crashes and make it more comfortable and convenient for people to get where they need to go along Boulder’s main corridors.

Two related projects from the study will start in 2023 and 2024 and will connect to the protected intersection with new sidewalk-level protected bike lanes on 30th Street north of Colorado Avenue and on Colorado Avenue west of 30th Street.

• Core Arterial Network (CAN)
• 30th and Colorado Corridors Study
• 30th Street Corridor Multimodal Improvements Project
• 28th and Colorado Intersection Improvements Project

Funding for this multi-year effort is the result of a close partnership between the City of Boulder, the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG), and Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). The total funding allocated to this project is $15.9 million which includes: $7.95 million in city funds; $3.2 million in CU Boulder funds; and $4.75 million in federal Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) funds approved by the DRCOG and administered by CDOT. Additional ancillary costs are also born by private utilities (and thus not reflected in the city budget) to relocate utility pipes and facilities such as gas, electric and telecommunications lines. Among these private utility relocation costs is $2 million in utility relocation provided by CU Fiber, an internet/telecom provider internal to the University of Colorado.