The City of Bellingham began installing bike lanes along portions of Holly Street in downtown Wednesday, May 1. Traffic has been reduced to a single lane.
The pilot project is placing two types of bike lanes, a protected bike lane between Bay Street and North State Street, and a buffer bike lane between North State Street and Ellis Street.
Construction of the bike lanes is expected to finish by Thursday afternoon.
Bellingham City Council voted on the project in early April with Joel Pfundt, the city’s assistant director of transportation and public works, calling Holly Street’s lack of bike lanes “the glaring missing tooth in the middle of the whole downtown.”
Additionally, traffic signals along Holly Street will have longer walk signals for pedestrians before vehicles are allowed to move.
The city hopes to wrap up the evaluation of the pilot project by either late summer or early fall before gathering community comments on what worked and what didn’t work.
Community members will be able to fill out a survey on Engage Bellingham as soon as the bike lane installation is complete.
Annie Todd is CDN’s criminal justice/enterprise reporter; reach her at annietodd@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 130.
