A few years from now, someone might be able to rent a bike at City Park and pedal off on a short sightseeing trip along the lakes. Or bike up to Government Street and browse the shops in Mid City for a few hours.
As 225 reports in a feature from the current issue, those aren’t just pipe dreams.
The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, which is managing the Government Street redesign, plans to include a designated bike lane in its design scheme. The working plans for the LSU and City Park lakes improvements suggest extensive bike paths. The Downtown Greenway project is moving along, with construction expected to begin later this year to connect City Park to the already completed bike path at Expressway Park downtown.
And in January, the Capital Region Planning Commission and Downtown Development District announced that an Environmental Protection Agency grant will help them study how to launch a parishwide bike-share program.
Advocacy groups such as Bike Baton Rouge have spent years calling for alternative transportation infrastructure around the city, and a number of these projects finally seem to be getting off the ground at the same time.
“There’s definitely been a huge paradigm shift,” says Beaux Jones, director of Bike Baton Rouge. “This is something a lot of other cities are doing.”
Jones’ non-profit group has been helping the business community see the economic benefit, recognizing “bike-friendly” businesses and constructing bike racks outside storefronts and in public places.
