DENVER — A bill that makes it illegal for Colorado drivers to block bike lanes is headed to the governor’s desk for his signature.
HB26-1237, or the Transportation Safety Modifications Act, prohibits any individual from “stopping, standing, or parking a vehicle in any portion of a roadway designated as a bike lane.”
But that’s not the only provision included in the bill that aims to protect Colorado cyclists.
What’s your experience biking in Denver? Watch our special report about the dangers people on two wheels face:
HB26-1273 also updates state statutes related to vehicle or traffic collisions by replacing the term “accident” to “crash.”
Cycling and transportation advocates say that specific change in wording is important because it shifts blame from victims to those potentially at fault, according to Skyler McKinley, who provided testimony about the importance of the wording in the law to the Senate Transportation & Energy Committee recently.
“When a plane crashes, we don’t call it an accident — because we demand answers, and we demand it doesn’t happen again,” McKinley said. “This bill asks Colorado to hold car crashes to the same standard. It’s a plane crash, not a plane accident. It’s a car crash, not a car accident.”
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Pete Piccolo, the executive director of Bicycle Colorado, a nonprofit that has been lobbying for bicyclist safety since 1992, told Denver7 in an email that this law is important to cyclists across the state.
"The current state statute suggests it's OK to block a bike lane. This diminishes the value of biking and bicyclists, and undermines investments in bike infrastructure," Piccolo wrote. "This bill will correct this."
Piccolo acknowleged that while enforcement may be challenging, especially when lanes are obstructed for only a few minutes, "there are examples of lanes being obstructed for much longer periods."
"Additionally, although not yet implemented, Colorado statute allows the use of automated traffic enforcement to keep bike lanes free of obstructions," Piccolo said.
Introduced in the state House on Feb. 18, the bill garnered unanimous bipartisan support and quickly made its way through the legislature, eventually passing the Senate on a third reading last week.
