Plan for bike lanes on Palm Avenue in Fresno still on. Why it’s behind schedule
Plans for dedicated bike lanes on Palm Avenue from Dakota Avenue to Belmont Avenue will go forward, say city officials, but unforeseen delays have pushed back the start date, originally scheduled for late summer.
The route will be major change for Palm, requiring removal of a car lane in each direction and installation of flexible, white posts to separate motor vehicles from bicyclists.
Scott Mozier, Public Works director for the city, said construction delays are due to difficulties contractors are facing. The delays include labor and construction materials shortages.
Mozier said the delay is not related to pushback the city received in its construction of a new bike lane on Van Ness Avenue in the Tower District where some residents and business owners complained they lost parking spaces when the lanes were installed.
The Palm Avenue project will use flexible posts as a physical barrier between bicyclists and traffic, with bike riders riding closest to the curb. Much of Palm is already marked with no-parking signs. That is unlike the situation on Van Ness, where the paint striping eliminated parking close to the curb and provided for parking, albeit with fewer spaces, near the center of the roadway.
To accommodate complaints about the new setup on Van Ness, the city established a moratorium on parking tickets for drivers parking in spots close to the curb, now part of the new bike lane. Mozier also said the city is planning to “reshape” parts of the Van Ness lane in response to the complaints.
“We definitely need to do a much better job on community outreach,” he added.
Mozier said some of the construction delays for the Palm Avenue project are also related to the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic. He didn’t have an exact timetable as to when the construction would get underway, but he cautioned that if the delays continue for too long, work might not begin until 2023, due to the approach of the wet-weather season.
This story was originally published October 8, 2022 at 5:30 AM.