More Than Painted Lines and Street Signs: St. Louis Needs Bicycle Infrastructure to Promote Cycling

It’s great that St. Louis has added miles of painted bike lanes, routes and paths over the past few years. A life-long cyclist, I sometimes find myself surprised at the number of people on bikes in St. Louis. But if you really want to see cycling become a true transportation alternative more infrastructure is needed.

Unfortunately we sometimes seem to headed in the other direction. The new $40M City Garden has a single back rack with capacity for maybe four bicycles. The new Schnuck’s Culinaria grocery store is similarly under serviced. More racks and even bike lockers would be enormously helpful in encouraging people to ride. But true bike lanes may do even more.

In the video above, two alternatives to simply painted bike lanes are shown. Imagine being able to ride down Forest Park Avenue from the Central West End to Union Station on a dedicated bike lane. Our city roads have the capacity to add a variety of bike lane options. We shouldn’t limit our vision of cycling to bike route signs and basic narrow painted lanes. I’m convinced that if you build it they will come.

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