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A matching grant was awarded to the Town of Elizabethtown in 2014 along with several other communities in North Carolina. The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and the Town of Elizabethtown now have a goal to develop a comprehensive bicycle transportation plan. The Bicycle Plan Steering Committee met again this past Tuesday evening to discuss options available for bike lanes in Elizabethtown.
The purpose of the grant is to encourage municipalities to develop comprehensive bicycle plans and pedestrian plans. During the planning process bicycle lanes were added on King Street in order to create safer bicycling conditions. Since the lanes were added, we have heard from King Street residents worried they are going to lose their ability to park on the street.
During the meeting Tuesday night we announced the concerns about the parking issues on King Street when the committee started discussing the plan for extending the bike lanes along King Street to Peanut Plant Road. Eddie Madden, Elizabethtown Town Manager said, “That is a residential street and it requires off street parking. I can understand that the property owners have gotten accustomed to parking on the street. So, we have encouraged them and provided them with a pamphlet as an educational tool about the bike lane.”
Eddie continued, “We have given them soft warnings. We haven’t written any tickets yet, but they need to start parking on their own property. When these bike lanes are built, the homes that have direct access to the bike lanes usually see an increase in property value.”
Everyone is asked to please fill out the survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ElizabethtownBikePlan. This will help everyone voice their opinions. The goal of NCDOT and the Town of Elizabethtown is to use bicycling throughout the town to increase quality of life, tourism, and economic development. According to the U.S. Census Bureau many North Carolinians cannot afford to own a vehicle. In the whole state of North Carolina, 6.6% of occupied housing units do not own a vehicle. In Elizabethtown, that percentage rises to 23.8%.
The committee members discussed plans to develop more bike lanes down Broad Street to Brown’s Creek Nature Park and Bike Trail and some other areas in Elizabethtown. The plans include having marked shared roadways. Marked shared roadways provide bicyclists and motor vehicles the use of the same roadway space.
The goal of the group is to obtain at least 100 surveys by the end of July and currently they have received just over half. Please fill out the survey, https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ElizabethtownBikePlan , and ask others to do the same. To find out more about the Bike Plan, visit http://elizabethtownbikeplan.weebly.com/.
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