Here's Columbus' new plan to remove Indianola street parking for Clintonville bike lanes

Monroe Trombly, The Columbus Dispatch
·3 min read
The city of Columbus has decided to retain parking on both sides of Indianola Avenue along a three-block stretch of the road in Clintonville after pushback from businesses.
The city of Columbus has decided to retain parking on both sides of Indianola Avenue along a three-block stretch of the road in Clintonville after pushback from businesses.

The city of Columbus has modified a plan that initially called for eliminating all parking on one side of Indianola Avenue in Clintonville to create bike lanes after receiving pushback from business owners.

The plan now is still to remove much of the parking along the east side of Indianola between East Arcadia and Oakland Park avenues in order to make way for bike lanes on either side of the street.

But in the wake of objections from Indianola business owners who feared the elimination of parking would hurt their bottom line, the city recently decided to retain parking on both sides of Indianola along a three-block stretch of the road where most of the businesses that would be affected by the changes are located.

What now will happen with Indianola bike lane?

The two-way left turn lane between Weber and Midgard roads will be removed, preserving 48 parking spaces on either side of the major thoroughfare that runs parallel to I-71. The city also plans to designate ADA-accessible parking spaces, loading zone spaces and bicycle parking in that corridor.

The original plan would have reduced the number of parking spaces on Indianola between Weber and Midgard roads from 60 to 30, all of which would have been on the west side the street.

"Losing 12 spots is doable," said David Lewis, who owns Elizabeth's Records along Indianola. "I think we'll lose it in some areas and gain it back in others. I'm glad they found a compromise.

"We certainly want the neighborhood to be bike-friendly. We get a lot of bicycle traffic through here," he added. "So we support the safety aspects of it. We were just worried about them taking away all of our parking."

Business owners along Indianola Avenue in Clintonville expressed concerns earlier this year about the city eliminating parking on the east side of the street for a bike lane, saying that it would hurt business.
Business owners along Indianola Avenue in Clintonville expressed concerns earlier this year about the city eliminating parking on the east side of the street for a bike lane, saying that it would hurt business.

Justin Goodwin, a transportation planning manager with the city of Columbus, said Indianola business owners requested the plan be revised to retain parking on either side of Indianola.

"Ultimately, the Clintonville Area Commission held a couple of hearings about this, heard from folks in the neighborhood who also were interested in maintaining the connectivity of the bike lanes through this area," Goodwin said. "The area commission requested the Department of Public Service look at alternative configurations in this section to see if we could find a compromise."

Eric Brembeck, owner of Studio 35 Cinema and Drafthouse, was one of two Indianola business owners who led an effort to collect and drop off at Columbus City Hall signatures from those who opposed the city's initial plan to eliminate all parking along the east side of Indianola. Brembeck, who could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday, previously told The Dispatch that more than 2,270 signatures were collected.

Bicycling advocates also wrote a letter to the city earlier this year, expressing their support for continuous bike lanes along Indianola from East Hudson Street to East North Broadway.

Under the revised plan, the elimination of parking along the east side of Indianola between Hudson and East North Broadway to create room for bike lanes will reduce the number of parking spaces from 299 to 126. The prior plan put that number at 108.

In addition to adding the bike lanes along the one-mile stretch, the city said it plans to add "high-visibility" crosswalks at Cliffside Drive, Crestview Road, Milford Avenue, Walhalla Road and all signalized intersections between Hudson and Oakland Park.

The changes will take place in 2024 and are part of the "Vision Zero" effort, an initiative Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther began in March 2020 that aims to reduce vehicular and pedestrian traffic deaths and serious injuries to zero by 2035.

According to Goodwin, the installation of bike lanes on both sides of Indianola will create seven continuous miles of bike infrastructure from Downtown to Morse Road.

A planned northbound bike lane between Hudson and Arcadia will connect to an existing bike lane on Hudson, and an existing bike lane on Arcadia will connect the Indianola bike lanes to the Summit Street cycle track, Goodwin said. Planned bike lanes will continue north on Arcadia to Oakland Park.

Monroe Trombly covers breaking and trending news.

mtrombly@dispatch.com

@MonroeTrombly

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus tweaks Indianola bike lane plan after business complaints