Needed: Better bike lanes

With high gas prices and the threats of climate change, people are becoming more aware of the environment and making more of an effort to ride bicycles.

But does Yakima have enough safe streets and bike lanes to accommodate bicyclists who want to get from point A to point B without the use of a car?

Some local teens and avid cyclists say it doesn't.

"We just need more lanes in good locations," says 17-year-old Evan Nilson, a senior at Eisenhower High School. "Some are there, but not where we need them."

Neil Barg of Yakima agrees.

"I think more people would ride if they just knew where to go," says the 55-year-old doctor, avid cyclist and father of an avid teenage cyclist. "The bike lanes we have now will go for awhile then suddenly disappear."

Barg says people can ride bikes safely in the city, but it's not necessarily easy. His son has a similar take on the issue.

Ben Barg, a 15-year-old sophomore at Davis High School, says the city does a fairly good job of accommodating bicycles and their riders. Although he says he generally feels safe, he also says he tries to stay away from busy streets without sidewalks as well as bumpy roads, which make riding more difficult.

"I think that people don't ride their bikes because it's too much effort," he says. "If the city made it easier, people would be more willing."

Bryan Klingele, a 16-year-old junior at Eisenhower, rides about six times a week. For him, it's mostly a hobby; exercise is an added bonus. He admits that around Naches, where he usually rides, the bike lanes are pretty good, but once he gets into Yakima, "Things can get a bit scary."

"There just isn't enough space," he says, adding that "a situation of car vs. bike is pretty intimidating."

Sixteen-year-old Rachel Davis, a junior at Davis High, agrees. She rode her bike all last summer, scouting the best routes from her house on 48th Avenue to her church on 35th Avenue, Starbucks on 56th and Summitview avenues and the fruit stand on Third Avenue.

"I'm scared of bike lanes," she says. "They will go, then stop, making them hard to follow."

Joan Davenport, Yakima's supervising traffic engineer, says the city is interested in improving the city's bike lanes -- and has been for years.

The city's Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee began meeting monthly in 1994 to work on pedestrian and bicycle issues, including determining and recommending priorities and generating public interest.

"We support multi-modal, alternative forms of transportation," Davenport says. And, "When we get the money to rebuild streets, like we did with Washington Avenue and River Road recently, they're reconstructed with wide outside lanes."

"Critical routes" that lack bike lanes include 40th Avenue, Nob Hill Boulevard and 16th Avenue, some of the city's busiest streets. The problem, Davenport says, is finding the money to finance these street improvement projects.

The city has started using smaller rocks when it chip seals roads to provide a "smoother ride" for cyclists, she says.

"I think, in general, in the last year there has been more interest" in bike riding, Davenport says. "We've seen more people bicycling."

She reminds cyclists that it's illegal to ride bikes on sidewalks in the downtown core area, which stretches from Sixth Street to Sixth Avenue between Walnut Street and Lincoln Avenue.

It is legal to ride bikes on other sidewalks outside the downtown core. But cyclists must yield to pedestrians on sidewalks or pathways such as the Yakima Greenway, Davenport says.

* Colleen Fontana is a member of the Yakima Herald-Republic's Unleashed team. She attends Davis High School. Comment on this story online at unleashed.yakimablogs.com.

The city's Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee meets at 4 p.m. on the second Thursday of the month at City Hall, 129 N. Second St. Call 575-6005 for more information.

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