Fairfield council considers bike lanes on Burlington

FAIRFIELD - The city of Fairfield is considering making official bike lanes on Burlington Avenue.

The Fairfield City Council discussed the matter at its meeting Monday and decided to have French-Reneker Associates investigate whether such a move is prudent, and to report back to the council in a couple of months.

Stephen Pedrick, project manager at French-Reneker Associates, appeared before the council to talk about the plan to re-stripe the lines on Burlington Avenue, which are getting worn out. He said the lines, which are tape and not paint, are about 13 years old and date to the time when Burlington Avenue was converted from a four-lane to a three-lane road in 2008, the same year jurisdiction of the road passed from the Iowa Department of Transportation to the city of Fairfield.

The current striping leaves a lane about 5 feet wide on both the north and south sides of the street where bicycles can travel. However, it is not officially a bike lane, and there is no marking indicating it is a bike lane.

Pedrick said that the city could officially designate those lanes as bike lanes by adding a bike emblem on the asphalt, by extending the lines through intersections, and by making the lanes a standard 5 feet throughout town. He said Burlington Avenue is not a uniform width through town, so the current lanes are not 5 feet wide in every spot. In some places, they are narrower than that, which would have to change if the lanes were to become official bike lanes.

'We've done a little bit of research, and studies show that having lanes marked as bike lanes makes them safer,” Pedrick said.

Pedrick said extending the bike lanes through intersections is especially important because that is where most collisions occur. He said motorists don't always look for cyclists when they are turning, like when they slow down to turn right and end up colliding with a cyclist who was going straight through the intersection.

The city has not committed to make the bike lanes official just yet. Pedrick said that, during the public safety and transportation committee meeting that preceding Monday's council meeting, there was concern expressed about whether the city would be more liable for accidents if it designated those lanes as official bike lanes. Furthermore, if the city chose to alter the lanes to make them wider, the old lines would still be vaguely visible, which could confuse motorists about which line to respect.