At today’s packed City Council Transportation Work Session, Bike Charlottesville shared the results of the Bike Ballot, a survey that followed a successful Bike Summit last May. Bike Charlottesville plans to use the nearly 600 survey responses to craft an action plan for a more bicycle-friendly community.
Respondents said on-road bike lanes (82 percent), an increase in bike commuters (50 percent) and education (44 percent) are the three most important areas to focus on in the future. In terms of connectors between the city and Albemarle County, respondents want most to see improvements to Ivy Road and 250 West (50 percent), followed by routes from Downtown to Hollymead (35 percent).
As suggested by anecdotes in C-VILLE’s “Whose lane is it anyway?” cover story, West Main Street to University Avenue was voted the city road cyclists would most like to see improved (56 percent), followed by Emmett Street to Barracks Road (51 percent) and Preston Avenue (33 percent).
For the best way to improve cyclist-driver relationships, 52 percent of the survey votes went to “DMV promotion of courteous and law-abiding interactions between cyclists and drivers." Forty-three percent want the police to not only be educated on laws that deal with bikers, but also to be able to handle accidents between cars and bikers.
At the work session, Jeanie Alexander, city traffic engineer, reported to council that the results of the Bike Ballot were consistent with the feedback she has received from both the public and the Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Committee.
Some of the challenges the City of Charlottesville faces in attempting to make the bicycle system more user friendly are the width of the roads, on-street parking and the removal of parking on streets.
However, new ideas are circulating among city staff and the members of the committee. Among them: pavement markings and signs for better use of the roads by bikes, lane narrowing to give more space to bike lanes, and one-way streets.