City believes shared bike lane a success
MARQUETTE — As the warm weather approaches, more residents of Marquette can be found on a bike seat instead of a car seat. To accommodate the heavier bike flow in the summer months, the city is continuing on with the bike system in place on a local street.
North Third Street is a sight of busyness all hours of the day between foot, bike and car travel. With attractive destinations for both work and recreation, the city enacted a new bike system last August.
Since Third is not wide enough for two six-foot bike lanes, the city merged the modes of transportation into a single lane. The North bound lane is on a downhill slope, which allows bikers to keep up with normal vehicle traffic.
The city believes this has been both a successful and safe merger.
“There is heavy bike and pedestrian use in this corridor and so we’re accommodating that through the safest means we can,” said Marquette City Planner Dave Stensaas. “We’ve found that it’s been pretty successful in terms of we haven’t had any accidents. There’s been no reported accidents between cars or bikes or bikes and pedestrians or anything. It’s been an adjustment period for the community but it seems to have gone pretty well.”
The project to re-paint the markings is up for bid and will be completed later this summer.
The city wants to remind motorists and bikers to exercise safety precautions when traveling down the shared lane.