Traverse City Record-Eagle

Grand Traverse County

March 9, 2010

Compromise reached on Eighth Street

BY ART BUKOWSKI

TRAVERSE CITY -- It's too late for bicycle lanes on a section of Eighth Street, but a plan to mark the road for bicycle safety is "better than nothing" for area cyclists.

City Manager Ben Bifoss on Monday briefed commissioners about an $850,000 redesign of Eighth between Garfield Avenue and Barlow Street. The project, set to break ground in April, drew sharp criticism from Mayor Chris Bzdok last month after he discovered it didn't include bike lanes.

The project includes about $230,000 in stimulus funds through the Michigan Department of Transportation and officials weren't sure if adding lanes would jeopardize those funds.

Bifoss and Bzdok recently met with MDOT officials and learned it's too late to widen the road enough to install separate bike lanes, a move that would change the "scope" of the project and result in a loss of stimulus funds.

City officials now plan to paint large symbols on the road that direct motorists to share the full traffic lane with cyclists. The markings, called "sharrows" by some cyclists, feature a large image of a bicycle topped with an arrow.

They'll be painted intermittently along the road and coupled with "share the street" signs along the road.

The move is designed to accommodate cyclists without throwing a wrench in the project.

"I think all people now are coming together to say, 'OK, we know that we can't completely change the project, we need to really follow through with what stimulus is allowing us to do,'" Commissioner Jim Carruthers said. "I think we've come to a good compromise, and I think many people are happy."

Many residents and business owners along Eighth between Garfield and Barlow were concerned that uproar about bike lanes would sink the much-needed reconstruction project, Carruthers said.

Fred Schaafsma is an avid cyclist who serves as safety and education director for the Cherry Capital Cycling Club. He said the new Eighth Street plan is "better than nothing."

"I think we can make it work," he said.

The bike lane issue generated loads of discussion and e-mails to commissioners in the weeks since Bzdok publicly criticized City Engineer Tim Lodge's handling of the project.

The city's past and current master plans either explicitly or generally call for bike lanes and along Eighth and other city streets, as does a regional planning project dubbed The Grand Vision.

Bzdok was upset to discover Lodge didn't include them in the redesign. Lodge said several old growth trees along the corridor made widening the street impractical.

Bzdok wanted the city to find out if the project could be altered to accommodate bikers, though he didn't want to jeopardize stimulus funds.

Bzdok was on vacation and couldn't be reached for comment.

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