The City of Phoenix implemented new bike lanes on popular streets throughout the city with the 3rd and 5th Avenues Improvement Project to address the community demand for specified cycling paths.
Biking is a popular, sustainable and quick alternative to traveling around bustling urban cities, and there has been an increased number of requests from community members to add designated cycling lanes to cities nationwide. With the Phoenix population constantly on the rise, there is a growing need for such routes.
Heather Murphy, the communications and public engagement coordinator for the Street Transportation Department of Phoenix, said that the safety of pedestrians is of utmost importance to the city.
“With people walking and bicycling to and from their work or entertainment venues, we need to accommodate them in a way that assures their safety,” Murphy said.
The project includes a wide range of improvements such as changing one-way traffic to two-way traffic on parts of both 3rd and 5th Avenues below Roosevelt Street, a two-way cycle track on Third Avenue, one-way bike lanes, and two enhanced pedestrian crosswalks at the Kenilworth Elementary School and the Great Arizona Puppet Theater.
“Whether they’re on foot, in a car, on a bike, skateboard, scooter, wheelchair, whatever device they use to move around the city, we want to make it a safe environment for them and improve the city as we continue to grow,” Murphy said.
Murphy said that the City of Phoenix is ultimately working on managing its growth in a responsible manner that reflects the needs and desires of its citizens.
While many residents agree with the need for bike lanes, there are other improvements that they said they would like to see that do not already exist in the 3rd and 5th Avenues Improvement Project.
The Roosevelt Neighborhood, located in the heart of the improvement project right next to both 3rd and 5th Avenues, is one of the neighborhoods most affected by these changes.
Andie Abkarian, president of the Roosevelt Action Association said that residents are concerned that the project’s budgetary limits constricted some of the main design elements they were looking for.
“It could be improved if the construction design had reflected the historic streetscape and landscape palettes, which is very lush and green,” Abkarian said.
According to the Historic Phoenix website, the significance of the Roosevelt Neighborhood is rooted in its early 20th-century architecture. It was also recognized as the first historic district in Phoenix.
The neighborhood is currently lined with great quantities of palm trees and soft greenery. With the city’s addition of rock mulch, brick pavers, and jagged plants in surrounding areas of the neighborhood, Abkarian said that residents are worried about the visual project alterations.
“Now it is very hardscape, it is gravel, it is plant materials such as desert spoon which is very rough and sharp,” Abkarian said. “There was a belief that the streetscape and pedestrian experience would be much improved – and it isn’t.”
Abkarian said while some Roosevelt residents have concerns about design and landscaping issues, most people who live in the neighborhood welcome both the addition of bike lanes and better traffic management that will come with the improvements.
Other concerns lie in the safety of the bike lanes, as they are located on heavily trafficked streets. Abkarian said that during construction, some bike lanes have been closed which ultimately led to cyclists sharing the street with traffic.
The improvement project is aimed at promoting the safety of these cyclists upon the completion of construction, so they do not have to share the street with vehicles.
The project graphics on the City of Phoenix’s website show that some sections of the cycling lanes will be protected by brick and decorative pavers, while others will only be separated by a striped lane.
Ram Pendyala, the senior sustainability scientist at the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation at Arizona State University and director of TOMNET- a Tier 1 USDOT University Transportation Center said it is intuitive that metropolitan areas should include bike lanes as a mode of sustainable and safe transportation.
“It would be even better to have dedicated bicycle paths that are physically separated in some way from vehicular traffic, but a striped bike lane is certainly helpful,” Pendyala said.
Implementing bike lanes into metro areas is something the city of Phoenix said they are working diligently on now and for future years to come. Projects such as the 3rd and 5th Avenues Improvement Project are a part of a larger vision set forth with the help of multiple city departments.
The Bicycle Master Plan Vision is a 20-year plan that, according to the City of Phoenix’s website, will transform Phoenix into a Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community. The plan states that within the next 20 years, it will be safe and easy to bike anywhere in the city of Phoenix.
Contact the reporter at mjmoor16@asu.edu.
