Downtown Anchorage’s protected bike lanes going away soon ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Phase two of the Anchorage Protected Bike Lane project is wrapping up this month after three months in operation .
Brad Coy, the municipal traffic engineer for Anchorage, said the preliminary data in the city has shown increased bike traffic around events in the area, as well as the daily lunch hour.
Coy said Anchorage, as weel as other places have shown that traffic safety for bikes and pedestrians has gotten worse over time.
“Here in downtown, bikes actually are not legally allowed on the sidewalk, and so how do we accommodate them?” Coy said. “We need to do things differently, and so this — as a pilot — is an opportunity to learn as much as we can to know how do we go forward with it.”
That chapter of the project is coming to an end on Sept. 19, when Coy said the city will start breaking down the bike paths after spending the last few months studying the impact the routes have had.
“The purpose of the pilot was less about the ridership question, and more about implementation,” Coy said. “We now have successfully and safely implemented the temporary measures for the course of the summer.”
While the city has worked to gather public input from both drivers and bike riders, some residents, like Chris Gee, are not fans of the idea. They told Alaska’s News Source that the lanes take away a third of the road and create congestion […]
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