King Street Bike Lanes approved unanimously

Yesterday, after 6 hours of debate, the Alexandria City Council unanimously voted to approve bike lanes on King Street. Congratulations to everyone who contributed to this effort. 

The debate focused mainly on safety, with those in opposition contuniung to espouse that bike lanes will lead to more crashes [while continuing to repeat falshoods such as the plan is to use bicyclists as buffers]. 

"Complete streets for our neighborhood include sharrows, they do not include dedicated bike lanes," adds [Lisa Beyer Scanlon of theTaylor Run Citizens Association]

Then there is parking

Scanlon also opposes the plan because it would mean parking spaces would go away. Originally, about 27 spaces would have been removed, but a compromise to add sharrows between Highland Place and Janneys Lane mean that 10 of those spots can be saved.

"Instead of getting rid of the parking, we think that parking is the safest part of the street and provides a better buffer for people riding on the sidewalk," she says.

There was also fear about crossing the bike lanes, or parking for the handicapped (I believe short term parking  - or stopping - in the bike lane will be allowed)

Update: The Post has a very good recap of the history and the issues. 

Bicycle-lane proponents, as well as the city’s police, fire and bus company representatives, supported Baier’s proposal, calling it scientifically and professionally well-based, but many area residents remained opposed.

Comments

[Steve]

Congrats and thanks to everyone who worked to make this happen!

[Daniel]

A couple of mistakes in the WaPo and other reporting: the original plan called for removing 37 spaces, but kept 10, which gets you 27 spaces. You might also hear the number 13, because Mr. Baier and staff added 3 additional spaces on side streets. In the end, the peak parking count was 6 cars and there are 13 spaces for them.

Another error in the WaPo article has to do with petitions. It mentions the neighborhood petition (about 400 sigs), but not the pro-traffic calming petition, which got over 900 signatures from Alexandria and hundreds more from neighboring communities (if you live in Fairlington in Arlington and you want to come to Old Town, this is your most direct route).

But all in all, still a good article by Sullivan.

[cyclistinthecity]

Thanks to all who helped out with this. We appreciate the time that you took to facilitate this project.