LR asks for input on wider bike lane

City: River Trail safety a concern

LITTLE ROCK -- Little Rock wants feedback on a proposal by the city's bicycle committee to reduce travel lanes on Riverfront Drive to make way for larger bike lanes.

The proposal calls for taking one travel lane in each direction of Riverfront Drive -- between Cantrell Road and Rebsamen Park Road in the Riverdale area -- and dedicating that to pedestrian and bicycle traffic only.

That would mean the current four-lane road would have two lanes for motorists -- one in each direction.

There are already 6-foot-wide bicycle lanes on each side of the street. Under the plan, those lanes would be expanded to about 13 feet.

"One of the primary goals is to make it a safe route for the entire family," said Mark Webre, deputy director of operations for the Parks and Recreation Department. "Currently it doesn't lend itself to a 7-year-old trailing his parents with traffic zipping past at 40 miles per hour. We want to make it safer for families to go through."

City staff will present the plan to the public at a 6 p.m. meeting Monday at Winrock International, located at 2101 Riverfront Drive. Residents who use Riverfront Drive or the Arkansas River Trail -- which follows along the road -- are invited to attend. The meeting will be in the Gary Green Conference Room.

Retrofitting the 6,700-foot section of the road will cost about $410,000. The city plans to apply for a federal Transportation Alternatives Program grant to pay for $325,000 of the work. If selected to receive the funding, the city would have to contribute about $85,000 to the project cost.

A railroad track runs over the portion of Riverfront Drive near Cantrell Road. The small section of the street between the tracks and Cantrell won't be included in the project. It would remain four lanes.

Webre said other options were explored, such as taking the landscaped median out of the middle of Riverfront Drive and putting an expanded bike lane there, but each of the other options posed challenges, including higher costs.

"The solution we are presenting to the public Monday is one that is still not cheap but is less expensive than the other alternatives. We want to have some input from the public so everyone can start getting on the same page here," Webre said.

A conceptual drawing of what the road would look like shows that there would be a 2-foot buffer between the expanded bike lane and the travel lane on each side of the road. Poles would be in the buffer to separate the pedestrians and cyclists from vehicles.

The bike lane would be 13 feet wide while the travel lane for motorists would be 10 feet wide. The landscaped median would stay in place.

Pulaski County keeps track of how many people use the Arkansas River Trail at the Big Dam Bridge, which is at the end of Rebsamen Park Road. A secretary in the county's Public Works Department said Friday that the person who keeps that total was out of the office and that the information wasn't available.

Webre said it's a "fairly significant" number of people but that he would wager fewer use the portion of the River Trail along Riverfront Drive.

"I think a lot of people would agree with me that the reason why is because it's not as safe. You can't take that 7-year-old behind you in this current configuration and feel comfortable that the child would be safe in that environment. I believe when it does become safer, you'll see the [usage] numbers increase," Webre said.

The city's Bicycle Friendly Community Committee came up with the project design. Chairman Jeremy Lewno, who is also the part-time bicycle and pedestrian coordinator, said the project will help with tourism because the Arkansas River Trail is an attraction to Little Rock.

He added that the reconfiguration is about safety for everyone, including motorists. Since there's a low traffic count on the street and it's wide open, vehicles tend to speed down the road, Lewno said.

"You've got moms pushing strollers the wrong way because there's no sidewalks out there either. All the people that live down there are trying to get to the better portion of the path over by Rebsamen and unfortunately they are put in a pretty dangerous situation," he said. "This project would help bring traffic down to the posted speed limit and create a safer environment not only for bikers and walkers, but for cars."

NW News on 04/26/2015

Upcoming Events