Chamber Young Professionals seeking bike lanes
The Owensboro-Daviess County Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Technical Advisory and Policy committees heard a proposal Tuesday to create separate bike lanes in various areas of the community.
The idea came from the Chamber Young Professionals, which partnered with Bicycle Owensboro. The two groups began working on the bike project in the summer of 2022.
Jared Revlett, CYP community development chair, told committee members, which included Mayor Tom Watson and Judge-Executive Charlie Castlen, that a countywide public survey was returned with 209 responses.
The survey listed bike lanes as the top recommendation from the David C. Adkisson Greenbelt to areas of interest downtown.
“We didn’t want to just go out and start picking bike lanes, saying this is where we want that; we wanted to have some sort of strategy behind it,” Revlett said.
That strategy was reviewing the Green River Area Development District’s bicycle-pedestrian master plan created in 2018, which was done to look at reducing the community’s carbon footprint.
Revlett said five areas, which were mostly part of GRADD’s plan to be completed, were chosen to add the painted bike lanes on both sides of the street.
They include:
• Cravens Avenue to West 5th Street to Castlen Street/Hanning Lane to complete Greenbelt to English Park
• Hanning Lane to West 1st Street to connect English and Smothers parks
• Kentucky 54 from East Byers to Leitchfield Road to connect the Greenbelt to Chautauqua Park
• CS-1029 to Alsop Lane to East 4th/2nd streets to downtown (currently not part of master plan)
• Old Hartford Road to 22nd Street to Daviess Street to provide access for east to center of town
Castlen raised the question about losing on-street parking if painted bike lanes were added in those areas.
“I know when bike lanes were talked about years ago that was one of the big concerns that we had is the loss of on-street parking,” Castlen said.
That past conversation led to painted “sharrow” markings on city streets that indicate bicyclists and motorists are sharing the same road, according to city officials.
Revlett said separate, wider off-street paths similar to the Greenbelt would be another option to losing on-street parking.
“It could be a creation of more of those wide, dark paved bike paths like you see on the Greenbelt or coming out of Fisher Park along West 5th Street Road up to Carter Road,” Revlett said. “Those are just as great as actual painted bike lanes on the streets.”
Another part of the CYP’s bike project is adding bike service stations at 10 locations across the community. The current estimate is $18,575 for the Fixit bike service stations.
The proposed locations include:
• Higdon Road Greenbelt access point
• Moreland Park
• Smothers Park
• Kendall Perkins Park
• Greenbelt expansion near Owensboro Health
• Fisher Park
• Legion Park
• Dugan Best Park
• Brookhill/Heartlands Greenbelt access point
• Shifley Park
Revlet said the stations would have a bike repair stand along with a built-in air pump and tools to make repairs.
“All of these are bolted into the ground; they’re very difficult to destroy and take apart,” Revlett said. “… We’d like to see all of these because they’re high-traffic areas where the kids in our community go and hang out.”
No decision was made by the committee, but Castlen did inquire about what other communities have the bike service stations already installed.
Revlett said the closest is Evansville.
“Evansville has some, but Louisville has them all over,” Revlett said.
By Don Wilkins Messenger-Inquirer