The city's survey on Midway Boulevard closes October 19th

Midway Boulevard is the calmer way to get across Broomfield. While 120th does the heavy lifting, CDOT controls it. Midway is the neighborhood way across town: about five miles through the middle of Broomfield, from the Lake Link Trail to the Big Dry Creek Trail, past schools, parks, open space, churches and shops. It is the road that gets people to the places where life actually happens. Roads like Midway deserve more attention than they usually get.

Midway is finally getting it. In 2022, after about 1,800 public comments, Broomfield made a plan to rebuild the corridor to make it safer for people who walk, bike, and roll, and to make it a road for everyone. Then the city secured federal funding to design it, a huge win. Plenty of good plans retire quietly to a shelf. This one is moving.

It matters, too. Midway is where 20 percent of the city's severe bicycle and pedestrian crashes happen. A better Midway means a safer Broomfield, and the city is working to get there.

Now comes the design, where engineers move the project to the next stage. This is the moment to help get them right. It is also the part where more people need to engage.

What Is Actually on the Table

The city has been specific about what it wants to hear.

• Along the route, the 2022 concept proposes a bike lane and a sidewalk on each side for most of the corridor. Where it uses one shared path, it's on the south side. The city is now asking: if a multiuse path can only go on one side, which side should it look at first?

• Where people cross. Which crossings work, which ones are an act of faith, and where a new one is needed.

• What gets a closer look. Driveways, trees, bus stops, drainage, and snow storage and maintenance are all on the list.

Now the practical part. Federal money is paying for the design. Nothing is paying for construction. So the plan matters. What gets planned now is what goes in the grant application later.

How to Weigh In

Six questions and two maps. A few minutes. Less time than it takes to complain about it online.

• Take the survey: Midway Boulevard Design Survey.

• Pick a side, segment by segment: Multiuse Path Location Map.

• Pin a problem spot or a crossing: Design Feedback Map.

• Ask the project team a question: use the Questions tab on the project page.

The city's page lists October 19th as the deadline. Two neighborhood meetings are planned for November. Dates and locations have not been posted yet, and we will share them when they are.

One Opinion: The Winter Case for the North Side

For context: this section is opinion. It comes from riding Midway in every month of the year and even more so in the winter.

Midway Boulevard is being redesigned right now. The city wants to know which side the path goes on.

Midway Already Has a North Side Tavern. Here Is the Winter Case for a North Side Path.

Here is something you only learn the hard way. The south side of Midway from Ash to Lowell sits in shade all winter. Snow melts on the road, runs onto the south-side bike lane, and freezes there. It stays frozen for days, sometimes weeks. The north side faces the open street and the low winter sun, and it clears much better.

This is easy to miss while driving; when your car hits a patch of ice, you may not notice it. A bicycle hits the same patch, and the rider hits the pavement. A path that works eight months a year is a seasonal amenity. It is not a way to get around. Transportation has to work every day for the people who rely on it. The job, the school, and the store don't close until the path thaws out.

In winter, the paths and neighborhood routes are dicey at best; the plows make crossings hard, and anything in the shade, which is a lot, stays icy for days or weeks. 136th isn’t much of an option either because the snow gets plowed into the bike lane, so you have to take the lane most of the way and hold up motor vehicle traffic for long periods of time; this is what happens on Midway from Ash to Lowell when it's icy. At least when that happens on Midway between Lowell and Zuni, there are two lanes, so cyclists can take the right lane without impeding traffic.

Midway has real potential to be an east-west winter lifeline route for cyclists.

The 2022 concept puts a 14-foot multiuse path on the south side from Ash to Sheridan, about three feet from the fence line. In December, a six-foot fence casts around a twelve-foot shadow at noon, not to mention the trees and the homes, so most of that path sits in the dark and becomes a hockey rink.

Looking at the north side first, along as much of Midway as possible, especially from Ash to Lowell, is where winter hits hardest. One good path in the sun: a lane for pedestrians and a two-way bikeway beside it, as wide as the right-of-way allows. Broadway in Boulder, along the CU campus, already works this way if you want to check it out. The south sidewalk could stay exactly where it is.

None of this is without some struggles. 13 homes between Ash and Birch have driveways on the north side. People who live south of Midway would need good crossings to reach the path. Those are real trade-offs, but worth exploring for the benefit of a safer, year-round cross-town path.

A path that is an ice rink is a path nobody rides, unless they switch to their ice skates for a few blocks.

That is one view. If you walk or ride Midway and see it differently, good. Say so. The city needs to hear that too.

And for the record, the North Side Tavern near Lowell did not sponsor this opinion. The name is a coincidence. It is still a perfectly good place to pontificate about it after a ride.

The Bottom Line

As of this week, nine people follow this project on the city's site. Nine. Which means every thoughtful answer will carry real weight.

Whatever you think the answer is, the survey is where it gets counted.

Take the survey before October 19th.

Learn more at: broomfieldvoice.com/midwaydesign