Bicycle advocates want protection as Columbus embarks on new bike lanes plan

As the city of Columbus embarks on creating a new plan for an interconnected system of bike lanes, advocates are calling for more protected lanes.

"I think we need to prioritize a network of safe, protected bike lanes or off-street bike paths that connect to other lanes," University District resident Lauren Squires said. "I think this is long overdue in the city."

The city's planning process will last into 2024, said Justin Goodwin, Columbus' transportation planning manager. The city will ask for requests for proposals by the end of November for consultants to help with the plan.

He said a number of bike lane and bikeway projects are underway, and officials recognize the need to tie them together. The last plan was done in 2008.

"A lot has changed in the past 10-15 years, with the growth of the city, getting around," Goodwin said. "We're hearing loud and clear from the bicycling community that it wants a safer, more connected bike infrastructure."

Goodwin said the plan will include where protected bike lanes should be and where there should be a physical separation between the street and bike lanes where feasible.

The Downtown strategic plan being developed calls for protected bike lanes.

Ways to protect bike lanes include plastic or steel bollard posts, curbs, planters or even putting parked cars between traffic lanes and bike lanes.

Squires, who lives in the SoHud neighborhood near Hudson and Summit streets, said she generally rides her bicycle to work and back when weather conditions permit and the temperature is not below 30. She is an associate professor in the English department at Ohio State University.

Even while riding in the protected two-way bike lane along Summit Street between East 11th Avenue and East Hudson Street, Squires said bicyclists have to be vigilant to avoid getting hit by cars. There, the lanes are separated from traffic by posts and parked cars.

"Drivers don’t stop," she said. "Cars are very dominant. Anyone who gets around by other means feels danger from cars."

Arguments that bike lanes aren't used in the winter months or in bad weather are not enough to justify not having protected lanes, Squires said.

"I think the city is at a point where it needs to get serious about this stuff, not continue with half measures," she said. "It's an important enough basic service for the city to provide."

In June, the city modified a plan on Indianola Avenue to retain parking along a three-block stretch on both sides of Indianola between Weber and Midgard roads while creating bike lanes.

The city's original plan would have reduced the number of parking spaces on Indianola from 60 to 30, all of which would have been on the west side of the street. Business owners along Indianola objected to that, saying the elimination of so many spaces would hurt business.

Some bicycling advocates were upset by city officials' decision to hold an event about the planning process earlier this week at Studio 35 Cinema and Drafthouse, whose owner, Eric Brembeck, fought to keep parking spaces.

"They were very dismissive about our concerns about safety," Squires said.

Brembeck said the compromise was the "best we could expect."

"That’s what government is supposed to do. I don’t think people understand the process and what my opposition was," he said.

Michael Smith, a Northwest Side bicyclist and a member of the advocacy group Transit Columbus, said he rides the Olentangy Trail to Ohio State, where he is a student and graduate research assistant.

"The city needs to build a connected network of protected bicycle lanes. The city has only one mile of protected bicycle lanes on Summit," Smith said.

"The city hasn’t built protected bike lanes since 2015. Not addressing the needs of the community is a major disappointment to me," he said.

Goodwin said the city is planning to install protected bicycle lanes along Mount Vernon Avenue in the King-Lincoln Bronzeville neighborhood on the city's Near East Side.

Columbus public service officials traveled to Boston to look at that city's bicycle lane network, Goodwin said. This week, Goodwin and officials from the city and the Central Ohio Transit Authority traveled to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to look at the bike lanes and bus rapid transit systems there.

COTA wants to build a bus rapid transit system in Franklin County — the LinkUS initiative — that would connect with a bicycle network.

Erin Synk, vice chair of Yay Bikes!, a bicycle advocacy group, said looking at peer cities is important to see how they connect their systems.

"We don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time," Synk said.

mferench@dispatch.com

@MarkFerenchik

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Bike advocates want more protected lanes as Columbus plans system