Bikers and Pedestrians might no longer feel they have dodge cars around the Syracuse University area after significant changes to a pair of major streets.
Crews began working on the project Friday, and should finish by Monday. D-P-W Commissioner Pete O’Connor says it should be safer in a couple of ways…
“We’ll be reducing the travel lanes on Comstock and Waverly also. And by doing that, that’s called ‘traffic calming,’ so the traffic has to slow down because there’s not as many lanes. We are going to have protected bike lane, and we are going to have parking on those streets also.”
O’Connor estimates that 60 to 70 parking spots would be created through the roadwork. A study by the Syracuse Metropolitan Transportation Council recommended Waverly and Comstock as streets that would be prime for bike lanes. After all, O’Connor says the area has one of the highest biking and pedestrian populations in the city. But he says these changes aren’t necessarily permanent.
“This is like a pilot program, actually. This is the design that we want to put out there. We will make any tweaks if we need to, if needed. And if the plan doesn’t work at all, we would abandon the plan. But we do believe it will work. We’ve had it studied by engineers and design.”
A similar pilot was tested on East Genesee Street… the experiment with bike lanes there proved so good that O’Connor says the changes will be made permanent.