Thursday, October 2, 2008

Constructing bike lanes costs $650,000 per mile

Thursday, October 02, 2008
Huntsville Times
Q. How much money would it take to build 3-foot bicycle lanes on any new roads or roads that are to be repaired, and why doesn't the city or state do that instead of allowing cyclists in roadways?

A. Steve Dinges from the City Planning department said the standard for bike lanes is 4 feet. Adding bike lanes to most existing roads would require additional right of way and would damage the value of adjoining property, he said. The cost of these bike lanes would be approximately $650,000 per mile.

Dinges said the city is planning to include bike lanes on new construction of city projects in the future, including Old Monrovia Road, Meridian Street, Church Street and Slaughter Road. Any roads built with shoulders will have pavement to allow bikes.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

with the 40 million over budget spent on the jail addition we could have constructed 61 miles of bike lanes it doesn't seem very expensive when put into those terms

Peter said...

I wrote back to the Times asking them to report on the cheaper alternatives such as sharrows where he expense of widening roads for bike lanes isn't even a factor. Hopefully, they will inform the public about this cost as well.

Bello Velo said...

Op ed them!!!

clintpatty said...

I think Jamie said she is looking at sub-$30k miles on those cheaper alternative.

Bello Velo said...

Yes but this needs to be addressed in the paper. the public will not go for this and frankly I am not sure I would.

Sharrows need to be explained.

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