Palm Beach Gardens is weeks away from finishing something no other city in Palm Beach County has: a two-way bike lane physically walled off from traffic. The Burns Road Separated Two-Way Bicycle Track runs from Military Trail east to Alternate A1A, and the city expects it to be complete in October or November, according to its project page. The city describes it as the first bidirectional protected bicycle lane in the county.

If you ride Burns Road now, you share it with cars and hope for the best. Once this opens, you ride behind a curb.

What is being built

The design is simple and it is the simplicity that makes it work. The track is about 9.5 feet wide and sits on the south side of Burns Road. Riders going both directions share that lane, the way they would on a trail. Between the bikes and the cars is a concrete curb, about a foot and a half wide and six inches tall, so a driver who drifts hits concrete before reaching a cyclist.

That is the difference between this and the painted bike lanes most South Florida riders know. A painted stripe tells a driver where not to go. A curb stops them. The city also plans bike symbols along the track, with intermittent green paint markings to flag it.

Where it runs

Burns Road is one of the city's east-west connectors, linking Military Trail on the west to Alternate A1A on the east, and it passes the Burns Road Community Center along the way. For someone heading toward the shopping and restaurants along Alternate A1A, it is the natural route, and soon the protected one.

How far along it is

Construction started on April 13, 2026. Over the summer, crews repaved Burns Road from Military Trail to Ironwood Road, just short of Alternate A1A, working overnight, from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. Monday through Thursday, so the road could stay open during the day. With the paving done, the remaining work is the track itself, and the city's current target is completion this October or November.

What it costs, and who paid

The total project cost is $1,433,502.81. Most of it, about $1.3 million, comes from a grant through the Palm Beach County Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Florida Department of Transportation. The city covers the remaining $131,321.81 from its Mobility Impact Fund.

Put another way, the city is getting a first-of-its-kind piece of infrastructure for roughly one dollar in eleven of the cost.

Why a curb matters

For plenty of people, the reason they do not bike to the store is not distance. It is the cars. A protected lane changes who rides. The confident commuter in Lycra was already on Burns Road. The parent with a ten-year-old, the retiree on a beach cruiser and the teenager heading to a friend's house mostly were not. A lane with a curb is the kind of route those riders will actually use.

Two-way tracks also solve a practical problem. Because both directions share one side of the street, riders do not have to cross Burns Road to head the other way, and the city only had to build the protected lane once.

What to watch for

Until the track is finished, expect work zones along the south side of Burns Road between Military Trail and Alternate A1A. Questions about the project go to the city's Engineering Department at 561-804-7012.

When it opens, try it. A first for the county only matters if people ride it, and Burns Road is about to become the easiest place in Palm Beach Gardens to find out whether you are a bike person after all.