A number of concerns were raised Thursday about recent changes made to reduce a stretch of Louisiana Street in downtown Little Rock to a single lane and add a bicycle lane buffered by parallel parking spaces.
More than 50 people attended a meeting on the recent re-striping between Fourth Street and Interstate 630, including a number who said they had serious concerns about the changes and wanted to see them reversed.
The remarking of the pavement, which happened last month, created from east to west: an 8-foot parking lane, a 12-foot driving lane, another 8-foot parking lane, a 3-foot buffer zone and a 5-foot bike lane.
Some said the single lane of motor-vehicle traffic has led to significant traffic congestion at rush hours, including difficulties accessing and leaving parking decks on the blocks, while others said the markings on the street are confusing and unclear.
One man said the protected bicycle lane actually makes it more difficult to see traffic at intersections and could lead to collisions. A woman questioned where in the driver's manual it details how to interpret the lines, saying she got a ticket when she was hit by another vehicle in a part of the street she didn't realize was not a through lane.
City director Erma Hendrix, whose ward includes the stretch of street in question, voiced strong opposition to the program and said the new layout is not appropriate for Little Rock.
"I think what we need to do is remove those lines across the street. Can I get a hand clap?" she asked, eliciting a somewhat louder applause than Public Works Director Jon Honeywell received when he responded and asked for those in favor of the bike lanes to clap.
"This is not New York," Hendrix added. "This is not California. We have to live within our means."
Eric Tinner, who owns the Sports Page and Sufficient Grounds on Louisiana Street, called the city's rollout of the new lanes "absolutely pathetic," adding the lane reduction and a removal of loading zones and parking spaces have hurt his businesses while the new layout makes visibility more difficult.
And he questioned the city's traffic estimate, which showed Louisiana Street volume is low and only needs a single lane, noting that downtown is developing and traffic volumes are likely to increase.
"Where are you guys going to run those cars?" he asked.
Others at the meeting questioned the city's estimate of traffic volume, which Honeywell pegged at 2,700 vehicles a day, guessing that a daily average didn't reflect the reality of a large spike in the morning and afternoon rush hours.
In a brief address before a question-and-answer session, Honeywell defended the changes as part of a pilot program that aims to better connect the city's bicycle lanes and to better accommodate multiple forms of transportation in any new development.
"That was a mandate we got from the city board a little over a year ago," he said, promising the city was planning to make some changes to the pavement markings to clear up confusion.
City Manager Bruce Moore, who had been in attendance at the meeting, ultimately stepped to the front of the room after one attendee asked whether the city was open to removing the lines or if opponents should ask Hendrix to sponsor an ordinance that would accomplish it.
Moore acknowledged the city "dropped the ball" on public information efforts, but said he'd take the concerns back to the city board so officials can craft a next step.
"I didn't call this just for the hell of it; I wanted to get input and so forth," he said. "There's a few things you can do. One, you can go back to a regular bike lane where you still have one lane and you have the bike lane next to the curb. You can go back to obviously the two lanes of traffic. But it's about a $75,000 proposition either way. And before I embark on that, I really wanted to get a sense of" what residents thought.
"We are trying to balance having a bike-friendly city but also having a safe city not only for pedestrians but for drivers and bicyclists," he added. "Are there options on the table? Certainly there are."
Read more about this story in Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
