The City of Lincoln identified the N Street Protected Bikeway project in its Downtown Master Plan as a completion of the “last mile” of bike trails through downtown. Alta designed the two-way cycle track to connect key destinations through the heart of downtown.

The N Street bikeway is a critical link in the city’s 128-mile trail network and will help connect downtown businesses, the Haymarket area, Pinnacle Bank Arena and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Angle parking and one vehicle travel lane were converted to cycle track with a planted buffer. Alta also identified an opportunity to capitalize on additional project funding from the City’s Watershed division by designing stormwater infiltration planters in the buffer between the cycle track and parallel parking and in pedestrian refuge islands at each intersection. Alta performed traffic analysis, developed construction documents, and led the city through the Request to Experiment (RTE) process with FHWA for the project. Alta used SimTraffic software to visualize the effects of bicycle signal phasing, and modeled several scenarios for intersection Level of Service by approach with and without a two-way cycle track.