Local bikers and others interested in creating more protected bikeways for Minneapolis will have two opportunities to help shape routes, starting Tuesday.

Tonight's meeting at Open Book , 1101 Washington Av. S., is scheduled for 5:30-7:30, with a program from 6-7 p.m. Part of the agenda is brainstorming routes for bikeways on Minneapolis streets, with participants divided according to sector.

What's a bikeway? Sponsors define them as any space where a biker can bike in separation from passing traffic or pedestrians, except at intersections. Bikeways can be protected from traffic by curbs, bollards parked cars or a different elevation.

The idea behind the concept is that more bikers of all ages will use bike routes if there's a physical demarcation of their space that's more than paint, according to Ethan Fawley, executive director of the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition.

The push for such bikeways is coming from two sources. One is the Bikeways for Everyone coalition of about 30 local advocacy groups. It is supporting a city set goal of creating 30 miles of bikeways by 2020 as part of its climate action plan.

Need examples of a bikeway? The park paths qualify, as does the Midtown Greenway. But more typical of on-street bikeways is the one added last year to the Plymouth Avenue Bridge, where plastic stakes separate the bike lanes from traffic. There's also the elevation-separated Loring Bikeway in the Hennepin-Lyndale bottleneck, connecting Loring Park and the Bryant Avenue bike boulevard. A new bikeway is scheduled to be installed this year on W. 36th Street, between Bryant Avenue S. and Lake Calhoun. The Portland and Park avenue bike lanes would be bikeways if they were protected with bollards or curbing.

The city also is seeking input on where to install more bikeways. That open house is scheduled for May 8 from 4:30-7:30 p.m. at the Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall. Maps showing ideas gleaned at Tuesday's Bikeways for Everyone session will be forwarded to the city as part of that input.

The push for bikeways comes as the city has run through its share of the money the Twin Cities got from the Nomotorized Transportation Pilot Project, a federal stream of money for biking and walking arranged by former U.S. Rep. James Oberstar.

That means that new bikeways likely will compete for transportation dollars with other city and county transportation spending. Fawley said that when bikeways are added as part of an already planned street protect, such as is planned for Washington Avenue, the extra cost is negligible. But bikeway advocates also hope to retrofit some streets not due for substantial improvements. For bollards, Fawley said, the cost can range from $20,000 to $100,000 per mile.

Where might bikeways be added? Fawley suggests 15th Avenue SE between Como and University avenues, which he called the street most heavily trafficked by bikers in the Upper Midwest due to its proximity to the University of Minnesota. His coalition also advocated earlier for protection for the Portland-Park lanes. Two other possibilities include 26th and 28th streets.

One detail the city will need to address is plowing bikeways in the winter. Fawley suggest that bollards could be removed seasonally, or that the city could plow only the most heavily used bikeways, as Montreal does, using smaller vehicles as the university does.

(Photo: A biker was killed in a collision with a truck in 2011 on 15th Avenue SE, one potential location for a bikeway. Advocates argue that a protected bikeway there would better define space for bikers and motorists.