City Considers Bike Boulevard Concept

Posted on 25. Aug, 2010 by Tony Arranaga in News

A traffic engineer with the City of Phoenix says she wants to gauge interest in a concept called a bike boulevard. The concept would improve existing roads in Phoenix with signed routes designed for bikes. The concept was brought up during a Blooming Rock interview with City of Phoenix employees Kerry Wilcoxon (Traffic Engineer in charge of Safety in Neighborhood Traffic) and Joe Perez (the city’s Bicycle Coordinator). Wilcoxon says in addition to the signage, the bike boulevard concept would also involve painting pavement markings on the road and linking one destination to another.

What we’re really trying to do is use the existing infrastructure that we have to provide the jumpstart for people using bikes more as a commuter or alternative means of transportation as opposed to a recreational means of transportation.

The city would need to secure federal funding for the project. No word on when that may happen. Many bicyclists complain about the lake of dedicated lanes within city limits, however you would think differently looking at the City of Phoenix website. According to the site, Phoenix has more than 500 miles of ‘on’ and ‘off’ street bike lanes, routes and paths. Many of routes take the cyclist around our mountain preserves and along canals that stretch to the outlying areas. While there are hundreds of miles of bike lanes in the city as I noted above, it seems there are few lanes along the routes I normally share with vehicles in the central corridor.

As you know, bikes play a huge role in my car-free commute. The fact that the city is even talking about ways to improve bike commuting in Phoenix is wonderful news. However, I’m not a huge fan of the bike boulevard concept if it creates safe lanes away from the normal flow of traffic. My comment is waiting to be moderated over on Plans for the First Bike Boulevard in Phoenix.

Tags: bike, bike boulevard, Blooming Rock, commuting, Phoenix, safety