HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The cycling community in Huntsville is pretty tight knit. "So, the cycling community is very fun, and Huntsville is very tight knit," Jacob Hell of Huntsville Urban Bike Share Coop shares." I'm always finding new people to ride my bicycle with.
Member of The Huntsville Bicycle Advisory and Safety Committee Dario Gonzalez shares there is room for improvement. "I think Huntsville is a great place to bicycle," Gonzalez shares. "It's somewhat small. We do need some bicycle improvements. We need some infrastructure to make bicycling safer for everybody."
To address these concerns, the city is working on a Master Bicycle plan to help make the roads safer and more comfortable for cyclist. " I think one of the challenges is it can often be a little bit piecemeal and if you're not taking a comprehensive look at how you're connecting point A and point B for cyclists, then it can become a little jagged, it can become a little bit, you know, sort of broken teeth," Dennis Madsen, Manager of Urban & Long-Range Planning for the City of Huntsville shares. "This gives us a chance to really take a very big and broad view.
Cyclist in Huntsville say while the city is a great place to bike, this lack of infrastructure poses a safety risk. "The city has made a few big changes for a city in Alabama," Hell shares. "For example, Huntsville was the first city in Alabama that had a protected bike lane, which was pretty big. However, there's still a lot of improvements that could be made because the cycling infrastructure network is definitely not connected. You will find often on roads that bicycle lanes will just end very dangerous and inconvenient areas."
Madsen acknowledges those concerns. " I think that the danger is thinking of cycling differently from automotive right? They're the same thing when you're considering infrastructure, right," Madsen shares. " That automotive network functions better when you have a when you have good safe, you know, properly sized roads connecting point A to point B, It's the same thing with cycling infrastructure. If you have good cycling infrastructure for the entire length car connecting point A to point B, then it becomes then it becomes it becomes a high performing infrastructure and becomes more used."
Larry Mason of Huntsville Urban Bike Share Coop shares what exist now causes stress for riders. "Basically, a stripe of paint that is all between you and the cars," Mason shares. "The other places are protected bike lanes and the way you put a bike infrastructure together will make it more or less stressful. So, it's not really just a matter of how many miles of bike lanes you have. It's a matter of how stressful those bike lanes are or how much do you feel comfortable in those bike lanes."
Useability and being more comfortable is a key component to its success. " We want to build an infrastructure that also is comfortable and safe for the more casual rider or for the families, especially with young children," Madsen shares. " You want to you want to build kind of a love for cycling into kids whereas, when we were growing up, we could bike everywhere. So, it was a great sense of freedom right before you can drive. If we can build a safe and connected infrastructure that provides kids opportunities to, you know, to navigate their neighborhoods and get from, you know, from their homes to parks. But we know that parents are going to want to make sure that if they're letting their kids ride from point A to point B, that that's that that is safe and visible and well-designed infrastructure."