Twelve-year-old plans to upgrade bike lanes in the city of Syracuse have stalled. A report from the City Auditor’s office notes that more than 70% of that original bike plan remains untouched.
Bob Dougherty was a lawmaker pushing the bike plan through the Common Council 12 years ago. He is still advocating for more bike infrastructure.
"One thing I always tell people, a lot of people think, well there aren't that many bike riders," Dougherty said. "Well let me tell you that anything that's good for bike riders or pedestrians, is good for cars. You know, mainly slowing people down. It's good for everybody."
Dougherty joined City Auditor Alex Marion and others to release a report called “Incomplete Streets," that points out the failure to follow through on building up Syracuse’s bike infrastructure.
"Seventy percent of those projects have yet to see the light of the day," Marion said. "That doesn't mean we haven't done more. There certainly are more that have happened. But that's why I think we need to overhaul that plan now to say, what are we actually going to commit to doing? And then what are we going to be able to do going forward? What are the new ideas? What are the projects that make sense now that we're kind of on the next generation of bike infrastructure?"
The report has a number of proposals including updating the city’s 60-year-old traffic code and enacting a new violation for blocking a bike lane.
"Overhauling the traffic code, that'll take some real time," Marion said. "Something we can do quickly. We could pass a blocking of bike lane violation next week."
