COLUMBUS, Ohio — A nonprofit organization is pushing Columbus City Council for more safety measures in the city for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Stevie Pasamonte, the chair of the board for Transit Columbus, said Columbus is a very car centric city, and that needs to change. First, by installing some barriers for bike lanes.
“If you’ve seen construction big orange barriers or concrete barriers not cones. (We would like to see) a whole protective force (around bike lanes). Those can be put down tomorrow,” said Pasamonte.
They also want to see bike lanes and crosswalks more clearly marked.
“We want to adopt new bike lane policies that are accepted at a federal level that say bike lanes must be painted visibly like green so that you can see they are there,” said Pasamonte.
But how big is the issue? According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol in the last two years in Franklin County, there has been 960 pedestrian related crashes and 332 bicycle related crashes. In the city of Columbus from 2017 to 2021, there were 91 pedestrians killed, and 7 bicyclists.
City council said they are working on the issue through short and long term projects.
“In a couple places in Columbus we have piloted protected bike lanes. Those are helping to inform what materials, what are some of the protected bike lanes that we want to use and what does that look like in the future for Columbus?” said councilmember Lourdes Barroso de Padilla.
Long term, the city has programs including Vision Zero that aim for no pedestrian and bike related deaths in the city. Another program, Bike Plus, looks to connect a network of bike lanes, and trails.
“We are acknowledging we are under sidewalked. We are acknowledging at one point we were very car centric. We need to change that culture. It will take us a while to get there,” said Barroso de Padilla.
Barroso de Padilla said recently the city received a grant for more bike lane barriers and road dieting on Broad Street.