Neighborhood controversies may seem trivial to those who don’t live within the affected area. But Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel says the way the skirmishes play out often speaks volumes about the community as a whole and where its priorities lie.
Such is the case in the Webb Park neighborhood near Mid City, Riegel says, where a group of residents recently launched a campaign to rid Hundred Oaks and Glenmore avenues of their bike lanes.
“You read that right,” Riegel writes. “While the rest of America is trying to add bike lanes and make their cities more pedestrian- and bike-friendly, some in the Capital Region are moving to do away with them.”
The bike lanes in question were established on Glenmore and Hundred Oaks nearly nine years ago, at the request of the neighborhood as a way to calm traffic and reduce the number of motorists who use the streets as cut-throughs. For most of those nine years the lanes achieved that purpose and “we all lived in peace and harmony with them,” as Glenmore resident Gene Groves tells Riegel.
“But in August, a group of cycling enthusiasts raised concerns about the growing number of residents who were parking in the bike lanes, forcing cyclists and pedestrians out into the street,” Riegel writes. “Parking in bike lanes is illegal, by the way. But residents of Glenmore and Hundred Oaks didn’t know this or were under the impression it didn’t matter. You can hardly blame them: The law was never enforced.”
Nevertheless, parking in bike lanes is still illegal, and on a recent Saturday a group called Baton Rouge Moms Demand Safe Streets organized a “chalk-in,” where they exhorted supporters via social media to chalk-in the nearest bike lane. Some activists even called the Baton Rouge Police Department, demanding that officers issue tickets to violators—which the law enforcement agency did.
“The group raised awareness all right,” Riegel writes. “It also raised the ire of many Glenmore and Hundred Oaks residents, who suddenly found themselves under assault for doing something they didn’t know or think was wrong.”
It remains unclear how the situation will play out. This evening, representatives from the Center for Planning Excellence, the Department of Public Works and the Planning Department will join Metro Councilwoman C. Denise Marcelle at a public meeting to discuss the bike lanes, in hopes of reaching a compromised solution. the meeting is open to the public and will be held at 5:30 p.m at Ingleside Methodist Church, 4264 Capital Heights Ave.
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