The battle over bike lanes along Glenmore and Hundred Oaks avenues became a much larger debate about the future of Baton Rouge city planning at a public meeting held Monday evening.
Metro Councilwoman C. Denise Marcelle opened the meeting—which drew more than 100 neighborhood residents, cyclists and community representatives—with a plea for civility after social media and in-person interactions on the topic have grown hostile over the past few weeks.
“We are not here to call names to anyone,” Marcelle said. “We are going to be civilized. We are going to act like neighbors. We are going to respect one another’s views without being upset with one another.”
While the room applauded in agreement, the two-hour meeting became combative at times as residents and cyclists voiced their concerns and opinions.
Capital Heights Neighborhood Association President Tyler Hicks pleaded for area residents not to make decisions in a vacuum. Others agreed, insisting the outcome of this dispute will have ramifications for the wider Baton Rouge Complete Streets and FuturEBR effort.
“This is not just one lane on one street in Baton Rouge,” said Hundred Oaks neighborhood resident Fairleigh Cook Jackson. “It is connecting people and allowing people to get from point A to point B safely across the city. Everyone in Baton Rouge is affected by this decision.”
Glenmore resident Eugene Groves addressed the crowd on behalf of his neighborhood, and attempted to clarify the designated use of paths with Ingolf Partenheimer, chief traffic engineer for the city-parish. Groves was eventually clapped off stage by the overwhelming number of cyclists present after exceeding his allotted three minute speaking time as he attempted to make one last point, escalating tension in the room.
Some residents and cyclists presented thoughtful compromises, such as creating bike paths on the median, redesignating the current multiuse paths as shoulders and creating a dedicated north/south bike lane on one side of Glenmore and a dedicated shoulder for parking on the opposite side of the avenue.
Other proposals were less complicated. Bob Stuart, a 90-year-old World War II veteran and longtime Hundred Oaks resident, suggested simply exercising courtesy might solve the problem: Residents only park in the street when absolutely necessary and cyclists then navigate around an occasional car when required.
“I think we can coexist,” said Arthur Abercrombie, another Glenmore resident. “We always have. For goodness sake, I ride a bike. The bikers have made this a war, and it doesn’t need to be a war. We are bikers too.”
Meanwhile, cyclists and others in the community merely asserted that they want the safest route possible through the neighborhoods through which they commute daily.
Despite repeated pleas to “just get along” by many on both sides of the issue, the meeting ultimately concluded without any resolution. The only consensus: more meetings to bring together representatives from each side to develop a viable and affordable solution.
Marcelle said she’s still hopeful for a compromise by assembling focus groups.
“We are going to see how we can work this out so they can have occasional parking, because they don’t park there every day, and the bikers can continue to have the bike lanes,” she said.
Although the bike lanes in question have been on Glenmore and Hundred Oaks for nearly nine years, the debate over them began in August when police—responding to complaints from cyclists about cars being parked in the bike lanes—reportedly began ticketing Glenmore residents for blocking the designated paths.
—Gabrielle Braud
