The city of Auburn is continuing to grow its biking community by accommodating riders just in time for National Bike Month. Additions include bike racks, free bike repair stands and the newly implemented “sharrow” lanes.
"Sharrows refer to arrow-like markings on the roadway that mark shared lanes as a bicycle route," according to the City of Auburn website.
The marking, a combination of biker and an arrow, informs cyclists and motorists the road lane should be shared by both forms of travel. The sharrows also remind cyclists where to ride in the lane.
“I prefer to have a bike lane because it’s wider,” said Ward 6 Councilman Dick Phelan. “But the emphasis is that we are starting to become more of a bicycle community. As we do that, we want more bike lanes. Sometimes the streets may be too narrow, so the sharrow lanes are a good addition.”
Traffic Engineer and Bicycle Coordinator for the city of Auburn Brandy Ezelle said the City of Auburn likes to be on the "leading edge, not the cutting edge."
Ezelle and the Auburn Bicycle Committee helped make this new addition possible. She said the city monitors innovations on the West Coast and works to implement those innovations here in the city.
"We wait until they trickle down to the East Coast,” Ezelle said. "We noticed places like Atlanta started using the sharrows, so we had the opportunity, and the time seemed right."
Ezelle mentioned according to the latest Census data, a little over 3% of Auburn’s population reports they use bikes as a form of daily transportation.
"But [the data] does not pick up the riders that sometimes use biking as a form of transportation," she said. “Nor does it pick up the students that are not registered here in Auburn."
Phelan has been riding his bike in the early mornings for almost 15 years now, and he expressed his approval of adding more bike lanes.
“If you look at Auburn versus Opelika, you see that Opelika is gradually starting to introduce a few bike lanes,” Phelan said. “But Auburn has about 40 miles of biking within the city.”
According to Ezelle, it is likely more sharrow lanes will be added in the future. I think there will be some evaluation that will go with these lanes.
“If it goes the way other cities across the U.S. have experienced, then we will probably be looking to implement more,” she said. “We’ve already got our eye on a few locations.”
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