City of Lakewood
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The City of Lakewood is receiving praise for its execution of the Bear Creek Trail improvement plan, which included a new bridge, reduced congestion and upgraded bathrooms along the trail and recreation-packed greenbelt that branches out from the South Platte River.
Bear Creek Trail is an extensive and popular area built around a creek, with the City of Lakewood estimating that over 450,000 people a year use the trail and 380 acres of greenbelt that surround it for running, biking, fishing and other non-motorized outdoor recreation. Over a seven-year span from 2016 to 2023, the city spent $3.8 million to update the trail and greenbelt, the majority of which was federal funding. Lakewood also received $500,000 from the Colorado Lottery.
Last month, the Colorado Lottery announced that the trail improvements earned a 2025 Starburst Award meant to recognize the best use of lottery funds, along with thirteen other projects, while Colorado residents voted the Bear Creek project as the 2025 People’s Choice Award winner.
The Colorado Lottery has been funding projects in parks, trails and open space since 1985 with revenue from scratch-offs and raffles for jackpots, like the Powerball and Mega Millions. Other winning projects this year included the restoration of Hanging Lake and Denver’s Green Corps workforce training, a program that trains people to work in park and open space improvement.
Bear Creek Trail Improvements
Following a renovation plan finalized in late 2021, the city began construction on the trail in April 2022. In February 2023, the city put in a 43,000 bridge over the Bear Creek connecting a trail head and parking lot to the trail. Lakewood also installed 12,000 feet of soft-side parallel trail, or a gravelly path, next to the existing paved trail. At one point in early 2023, a nesting owl moved in just off the creek, halting construction for a few months because federal law prohibits disturbing nesting raptors.
A trail study from 2016 commissioned by the city noted that cyclists and runners didn’t have enough room on the Bear Creek paved path, so the city added a soft parallel side for runners to use and widened the paved trail to ten feet in other parts. Most of the improvements wrapped in September 2023, when the full trail reopened, but the city continued updates, adding more bathrooms along the trail in 2025.
The trail, most of which is paved, stretches alongside a creek running east to west through southern Lakewood and Denver before reaching Sheridan and the South Platte River. Along the way, Bear Creek Trail passes golf courses, playgrounds, schools and neighborhoods and flows into Bear Creek Lake Park, a 2,600-acre open space with picnic areas, beaches, boat docks, campgrounds and miles of trails. It’s one of the few urban trails with fishing ponds, foot paths off the main paved road for longer runs or hikes and trails for horses.
