You may have seen by now, that bike sharrows have been added to Chippewa and Elmwood. Sharrows are street markers that signal to car drivers that bikes are allowed to share the road. On stretches of road where there is not enough space to accommodate a bike lane, sharrows are used so that cyclists know that they are welcome, and drivers know to respect the cyclists. In essence, the sharrows are meant to say, "Share the Road".
Earlier this year we saw sharrows added to Richmond Avenue, in along stretches where the road was not wide enough to accommodate bike lanes (between Bidwell and Forest). The sharrows act as connectors between parts of the city that have, or will have, dedicated bike lanes.
In other bike-friendly news, the regular and contra-flow bike lanes and traffic signals on Linwood Avenue have been installed and are operational. I spoke to a few of the cyclists using the bike lanes, and as expected they were thrilled with the results. One of the cyclists (photo below) told me that he normally travels to and from work on Main Street, but changed up his daily route to Linwood once the lanes were completed. I also spoke to a resident who said that there has been a noticeable change in post-work traffic patterns. "For years people have been using this street to race out of the city," he said. "Now they're either not coming down Linwood or they are going a lot slower... and that's a good thing."
Lead photo: Tommy Engelhardt
Unlike the Linwood project, I actually like this idea. Let bikes and cars "sharrow" the road instead of dividing it into, bikes over here and cars over here.