Salt Lake City to Install Nation’s First Protected Intersection for Bicycling

Salt Lake City is on track to implement America's first protected intersection for bicycling this summer.

By Angie Schmitt

3:35 PM EDT on May 6, 2015

Salt Lake City has plans to install the first protected intersection for cyclists. Image: Salt Lake City via KSL.com — This intersection design Salt Lake City plans to install minimizes potential conflicts between cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians. Image: Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City is on track to implement America’s first protected intersection for bicycling this summer.

The intersection design is based on a Dutch template that minimizes potential conflicts between people biking, driving, and walking. For example, it allows cyclists to make a left turn in two stages without crossing against oncoming car traffic. It will be part of a protected bike lane running a little more than a mile through a central portion of the Utah capital.

The National Association of City Transportation Officials said that to the best of its knowledge, this will be the first protected intersection design in the United States.

This intersection treatment is best known from Dutch streets. Last year, Portland-based Nick Falbo campaigned to introduce the basic template to America and submitted a protected intersection design to a competition at George Mason University. His video is a great introduction to how protected intersections work. Falbo and the team at Alta Planning + Design were consultants on the project working with Salt Lake City transportation officials.

The new Salt Lake City bike lane on 200 West will include just one protected intersection. Construction will start in August and will take about two months, local news station KSL reports.

The intersection of 300 South and 200 West in Salt Lake City is on track to be the first protected intersection in the U.S. Image: Salt Lake City

Hat tip to Jacob Mason.

Updated: (5/7/15 at 3:08 p.m.) to include information about Alta’s involvement in the project.

Angie Schmitt

Angie is a Cleveland-based writer with a background in planning and newspaper reporting. She has been writing about cities for Streetsblog for six years.

Bicycle Infrastructure | Salt Lake City

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