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Wed. July 15, 6pm at Arcata City Hall, the City Council will consider two sidewalk widening options for H Street between 11th and 9th Streets.  One eliminates the bike lane, and the other retains parking on the east side, but not the west side of the street, while providing the possibility for wider sidewalks, better emergency service access, and maintenance of a continuous bike lane from Sunset to Samoa Blvd.

Here is the agenda and staff report.

This City Council has already decided to eliminate the bike lane for one block on G Street north of 9th Street despite a unanimous Transportation Safety Committee recommendation to retain it.  That created discontinuity in a 1.5 mile long bike facility.  It will definately take some solid testimony from informed citizens to convince the Council to retain the bike lane.

If you go, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Option 2 which retains the bike lane creates the opportunity for wider sidewalks than Option 4 in which the bike lane is eliminated.
• Studies show that wider sidewalks are more important to businesses than subsidized parking, because shoppers want to have quality pedestrian experiences.
• If fewer people bicycle downtown, there will be reduced business activity, unless potential bicyclists drive instead, in which case there will be reduced parking availability and increased traffic, pollution, danger to pedestrians, and carbon emissions.  Removing the bike lane is contrary to the general plan policy to "Improve and maintain bicycle infrastructure."
• Option 2 addresses fire department concerns of having enough room to use their ladder truck.  Option 4 will make it difficult for them to deploy the ladder truck if there is a structure fire on these two blocks.
• The staff have cited a bike boulevard on I Street as making up for this loss of bike lanes On G and H Streets.  I Street does not access the plaza, the bike boulevard concept is weakly developed for Arcata, and it still involves a shared lane, meaning there will be no bike lanes accessing downtown Arcata.

The city council can make the right decision if they have the right input, so please show up and participate.