Los Alamos County tests first green bike lane on Diamond Drive

Drivers, cyclists and families headed to Sullivan Field saw a new bright green stripe on Diamond Drive Thursday as Los Alamos County installed its first green bike lane, a field test meant to make one of the county’s busiest crossings more visible and easier to read.

The county said the treatment is designed to highlight places where bicycles and motor vehicles may cross paths, especially on a corridor that carries students, commuters and people going to activities around Sullivan Field. The point is not to change the road’s layout, but to make the bike space unmistakable enough that drivers slow down, cyclists feel more confident and near misses become less likely.

Crews were expected to return the same day to add a second green lane at Diamond Drive and Canyon Road, another spot where traffic patterns can get crowded and movements overlap. County officials tied the work to Bicycle Safety Month and Bike-to-Work Day in May, suggesting the green lanes are part of a wider push to remind residents that Diamond Drive is not just a car route but a shared corridor.

The experiment also fits a national traffic-control framework. Federal Highway Administration Interim Approval 14 allows the optional use of green colored pavement in marked bicycle lanes and in bicycle-lane extensions through intersections and other traffic conflict areas, giving Los Alamos a tested design standard to work within as it evaluates the materials and the marking style.

The timing comes as Los Alamos County continues to emphasize bicycling in its own planning. The League of American Bicyclists renewed the county’s Bronze-Level Bicycle Friendly Community designation on January 29, 2026, after the county invited residents to weigh in on the renewal process in October 2025. The northwest corner of Diamond Drive and Canyon Road near Sullivan Field has also served in past years as a Bike to Work Day Energizer Station, a sign that this stretch of road has long been central to local cycling outreach.

Diamond Drive has already seen pavement-marking work and lane shifts in past county announcements, including bike-lane maintenance at Diamond and Canyon. That makes the new green lane more than a fresh coat of paint. It is a small but telling test of how Los Alamos may choose to manage one of its most heavily used streets, with an eye toward visibility, safety and broader multimodal changes ahead.