Bike Advocates Celebrate Strides Towards Bike-Friendly RVA
June 3, 2019
RICHMOND, Va – Pastries and coffee – along with a view of the river from the Manchester Bridge – greeted bicyclists who gathered Friday in celebration of the annual Bike to Work Day.
The national event brought together nearly 60 bicycle advocates and city officials to celebrate the progress made over the past few years to improve bike infrastructure in Richmond.
Brantley Tyndall, director of outreach at Bike Walk RVA, called the event the focal point of their work and said it is also an opportunity for citizens to learn about biking and pedestrian infrastructure projects.
“So, we have some guest speakers to talk about upcoming projects like the Ashland to Petersburg Trail - we have a representative from VDOT to talk about that – and the City of Richmond Bike-Ped coordinator to talk about new bike lanes,” Tyndall said. “And we celebrate it with coffee and a fun bike ride to the Capitol."
Richmond received national recognition for its approach to expanding bikeways and trails. In 2018, Bicycling Magazine ranked Richmond 34th on its top 50 bike-friendly cities in America, above Lincoln, Nebraska and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Nicholas Donohue, deputy secretary of transportation for the Commonwealth of Virginia, emphasized the importance of investing in infrastructure throughout the Richmond-metro, not just the city.
“I think one of the key missing components of the transportation network, from a biking perspective, is just connectivity,” Donohue said.
The Department of Transportation is studying a potential 40-mile trail that would run from Ashland through Hanover, Henrico, Richmond, Chesterfield and finish in Petersburg. The study began in February and is currently in the evaluation phase to identify an ideal pathway. The results will be available for input at public meetings scheduled for the Fall of 2019.
“I think if we can get that in place, that would really improve some of the connectivity in this region and build on the success of the Virginia Capital Trail,” Donohue said.
Grant Fanning, social media coordinator for Carytown Bikes, is pleased with where the city stands compared to others in Virginia.
“I think the City of Richmond is doing a great job of making cycling accessible and promoting pedestrian safety,” Fanning said. “I came from an area in Hampton Roads where it’s just not even looked at. It’s not even thought of.”
Not all the recent projects have met with applause; especially the ones which alter the roadways. In 2018, two City Council Members introduced an ordinance to halt already approved and funded bike lanes on Brook Road. At a public meeting in September, citizens exchanged heated opinions about the reduction of the thoroughfare and the safety of cyclists.
Fanning said there’s an even split between the people who accept the rising popularity of cycling and those who reject it.
“There’s lots of people that embrace and respect it,” Fanning said. “And there’s still lots of people that reject it and are a little hostile to it, but that’s going to change. It just takes time.”
Donohue believes dialogue among residents, elected officials and stakeholders is necessary to build a more efficient transportation system.
“I think often times these discussions get painted as a bikers vs. non-bikers, or transit users vs. road users and the truth is we’re all the same people,” Donohue said. “We’re all just users of this transportation system and what we really need to do is just find a way to make it work as well as it can, for as many of us as possible.”