If you're in a hurry (TL:DR) - click through and ask that the bike lanes extend south to Crutchfield St. More information below.
Protected bike lanes on Westover Hills Boulevard was one of the first projects I organized local advocates around shortly after joining Bike Walk RVA almost ten years ago. In that time, there have been numerous public meetings, community walks, and bike events to move these forward. The project was delayed once, in approximately 2016, in order to extend the lanes south through the signal at Forest Hill Avenue and tackle both phases at once, an effort to save construction funding. Little has happened since then.
The proposal now features bike lanes north of the Nickel Bridge, and the project has been renamed "161 Bike Lanes" to reflect that. This is great!
Here's the rub - and where we need you to weigh in. The new proposal does not extend far enough south to be useful. The Bike Master Plan calls for buffered bike lanes to continue south on Westover Hills Boulevard to at least Crutchfield Street, but this proposal only extends to 49th Street. This is a glaring omission in the bike network that fails to connect George Wythe High School, Crooked Branch Ravine, and the bike lanes on Roanoke Street.
Bike lanes that connect is THE ENTIRE POINT. Instead of building bike lanes, the proposal calls for sharrows on 49th Street that dead end at private property. Sharrows are not good enough, and every major bike/ped organization has reversed its support for them.
Extending bike lanes south connects a school, a park, the future James River Branch Trail, and another bike lane in the growing bike network south of the river. It's the right call.
Please complete the City's survey by Tuesday, February 28 to ask for the following:
Extend the buffered or protected bike lane on Westover Hills Boulevard south to Crutchfield Street.
Abandon sharrows on 49th Street until at some point that they would connect to something.
The City's survey is here: https://arcg.is/5CLTm
Thank you for your needed support for the bike network,
Brantley Tyndall
Director of Bike Walk RVA