The Little Rock Board of Directors approved adding several road segments to the master bike plan Tuesday.
Before passing the updates to the Master Street Bike Plan, the board removed proposals for two downtown streets -- Center Street and South Louisiana Street -- after objections from David Knight, general counsel for Stephens. Inc.
The plan for consideration Tuesday called for adding a bike marking in the middle of the roadway to inform motorists that bicyclists might ride in the street. Shared-lane bicycle markings are sometimes referred to as sharrows. Knight said that his company favored that to designated bike lanes, but that Stephens Inc. still wasn't happy with the markings. Stephens Inc. is located on Center Street and has 1,200 employees enter its building daily, he said.
"These sharrows are more than just painting a bicycle on a street. It is a designated bike thoroughfare and this encourages people to cycle down that street," Knight said. "And what we are concerned about is over the long run you will get increased traffic along that street, which is already narrow."
Knight asked that the city remove Center Street from the additions to the master bike plan and take time to consider another north-south route for bike travel.
City Director at large Joan Adcock made that motion and amended it to also include tabling the inclusion of sharrows on portions of Louisiana Street at the request of Vice Mayor and Ward 5 City Director Lance Hines.
The board approved the motion 9-0 and went on to add the remaining updates to the master plan in another unanimous vote. City Director at large Dean Kumpuris was absent.
The inclusion of streets on the master bike plan do not mean that bike lanes or other markings will be added immediately.
"When there is work done on that particular street, that's when we would sit down and say, 'OK, this is on the master bike plan, does this make sense?' We are still going to sit down and look at each case. ... We are not going to go out and start re-striping streets because we don't have the dollars to do that," City Manager Bruce Moore said. "This is just as development occurs or resurfacing [occurs]."
With Tuesday's vote, the board added 12 street segments to the Master Street Bike Plan.
Some type of bike lane or marking -- whether that is a separate path for bikes only, a shared lane for vehicles and bikes with sharrow markings, or a side lane for bikes on a vehicular roadway called bike lanes -- are suggested for portions of the following roadways: Main Street, Chester Street, Ninth Street, Seventh Street, LaMarche Drive, Commerce Street, State Street, Taylor Loop Road, the former railroad right of way from Interstate Park around the State Fairgrounds, an area along Rose Creek near Third Street, an area along Coleman Creek near 20th Street, and a route from Hillcrest to the Fourche Bottoms through UALR.
Ward 1 City Director Erma Hendrix said she wanted Chester Street removed from the ordinance. Moore told her that no changes for the street were planned "for now." She took that to mean it wouldn't be included in the ordinance and asked staff to fix the language, but never made a motion to do so.
No change to the ordinance was made other than removing Center Street and Louisiana Street. Chester Street remained and Hendrix voted with the rest of the board to approve the ordinance as written.
Metro on 07/22/2015