Durham cyclists riding along Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway and West Main Street are about to get a lot more protection than a few plastic sticks poking out of the pavement. The Durham City Council approved a contract on August 3 for concrete and vertical safety barriers covering nearly three miles of existing bike lanes, part of a construction push the city says will begin soon at locations across town.
The project covers 2.1 miles of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, running from Hope Valley Road to Fayetteville Street, and 0.6 miles of West Main Street between 9th Street and Buchanan Boulevard, according to INDY Week. The West Main Street segment runs directly along Duke University’s East Campus. The City of Durham says the more than $1.4 million investment is meant to make biking safer and more comfortable for riders of all experience levels, with the upgrades including physical barriers, pavement markings, wayfinding signs, and traffic calming features. Residents can find more project details at durhamnc.gov/3034.
Why These Two Corridors Made the Cut
Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway and West Main Street both sit on Durham’s “high-injury network,” a designation drawn from the city’s Vision Zero Action Plan presented to the City Council in March 2025, per the same INDY Week report. Vision Zero is the city’s effort to eliminate traffic deaths and severe injuries on its streets, and identifying which roads carry the most risk has shaped where the new barriers are going first.
Along MLK Jr. Parkway specifically, planned upgrades include concrete curbing, flexible posts, green pavement markings at driveways and intersections, and a redesigned protected intersection at South Roxboro Street, a spot city traffic planners have flagged as a high-risk crossing, the outlet reports. Those design choices target exactly the kind of conflict points where cars and cyclists most often collide.
Ditching the Flex Posts for Good
The new barriers amount to a quick-build pilot program meant to move Durham away from its longtime reliance on plastic reflective flex posts. City project documentation notes those posts came with high ongoing maintenance costs, offered only low physical protection, and were not particularly attractive to look at, according to the City of Durham. Design consultant AtkinsRéalis began engineering work on the pilot back in September 2024, well before Tuesday’s council vote finalized the contract…