This month, Fresno City Councilmembers will hear a new plan on how to make biking and walking in the city safer. For commuters, that could mean more of the bright green lanes and protective pylons meant to keep cyclists safe, but it could also mean lost driving lanes.

Even though the number of bicycling commuters has gone down since the last Active Transportation plan, bike accidents have not. With the city preparing changes, bikers want future streets to better protect them.

Road width limitations, however, could put bikers and drivers at odds, and along with the need to coordinate with the county, one bike advocate doubts the city’s ability to execute the plan.

In an email to GV Wire, Edna Pedroza, chair of the Fresno County Bicycle Coalition, said the plan needs to assign responsibility to specific departments, create accountability, and establish coordination.

“The ATP is ambitious and visionary — a significant improvement over the 2017 plan, with a more detailed priority network and broader scope,” Pedroza said. “However, it reads more as a consultant wish-list than an implementation roadmap.”

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ATP Identifies $900 Million of Pedestrian/Bike Safety Upgrades

The city’s Active Transportation Plan identifies 824 miles of bike lanes and 581 miles of sidewalk construction to add, prioritizing 82 miles of bike lanes and 62 sidewalk miles.

Rather than a list of requirements, the plan acts more as a template and guideline for where upgrades should go, what they should look like, and what gets prioritized, said Jill Gormley, assistant public works director.

It represents a first step in changing the city’s transportation scape as many federal, state, and local funding sources require having an updated plan in place for cities seeking money. One proposed replacement for Fresno County’s Measure C would require any cities receiving transportation tax money to have transportation plans updated and in place.

At full buildout, all the upgrades would cost the city $900 million, with high priority areas pegged at $92 million. While suggestions for projects came from public meetings and public comment periods, Gormley said the city will not stop accepting, analyzing, and promoting community suggestions.

“The Active Transportation Plan is how we envision the network of bicycle and pedestrian facilities throughout the city,” said Jill Gormley, assistant public works director with the city. “It identifies where there may be gaps in bike lanes, gaps in sidewalks, gaps in trails and just proposes how we fill those gaps or provide facilities where none exist for people that want to walk or bike or get around without vehicles.”

The plan will likely go before Fresno City Council at the end of the month, Gormley said.

Bikers Need Protection: Pedroza

Under the plan, high priority bike lane additions would create a citywide network, allowing cyclists to traverse the city more safely.

Throughout the city’s core, the plan envisions major changes for north-south and east-west travel. The city places high priorities on First Street and Maroa Avenue, calling for protected bike lanes along large stretches of those roads. Long stretches of Clinton and McKinley Avenues would make east-west travel easier.

In southeast, the city wants to add bike lanes up and down Butler and Maple avenues.

While bikers prefer protective barriers, Pedroza recognized cost and space limitations.

Visible striping and clear sight lines would help increase safety, and at a significantly lower cost per mile, the city can cover more of the network, she said.

Physical barriers can be costly, and temporary solutions such as bright green bollards may only provide the perception of safety, Pedroza said. The bollards typically last between three to five years, she said.

“They do not provide physical protection from vehicles traveling at speed,” Pedroza said. “The perception of safety they create can be misleading, particularly given Fresno’s documented issues with impaired and distracted driving.”

City Won’t Commit to Road Diets, but It’s a Possibility

Taking a deeper look at street limitations, adding protective measures will take more than street painting.

Fresno County oversees much of Maroa Avenue and many other proposed streets.

For Maroa’s case, north of Shaw Avenue, the wide road easily accommodates bikers. South of Shaw Avenue, in Old Fig Garden, however, the road drastically narrows, with no sidewalks and old growth trees overlooking roadways.

Implementing changes would require coordination with the county, Gormley said.

Proposed changes for both Maroa Avenue and First Street call for at least protective bollards — similar to what the city added to Barstow and Palm avenues — to separate bicyclists from the main road way.

From Herndon Avenue to Highway 180, most of First Street has landscape medians, limiting just how much space the city can provide for bike protection.

At Butler and Maple Avenues, bike lanes will likely come at the cost of street parking.

Converting from traditional bike lanes to protected lanes requires an additional three feet of asphalt in each direction, according to plan details. Shrinking 12-foot travel lanes to 11-foot lanes only gives engineers two more feet to work with and reduces speed limits.

Gormley said eliminating driving lanes is a possibility to accommodate the plans, but that requires traffic studies to justify lane reductions. The plan does not note where road diets would take place, but the reality behind adding protective bike lanes could mean fewer driving lanes, similar to what the city will be doing on Blackstone Avenue south of Dakota Avenue this year.

“The ATP does not identify road diets, but some roadways may require a road diet or removal of parking or narrowing of travel lanes, etc, to implement the bicycle facilities proposed in the ATP,” Gormley told GV Wire in an email.

82% of Bike Collisions Happen at Intersections: Safety Data

In the last decade, the number of commuters biking or walking to work has gone down. 2022 Census data cited in the plan show only .55% of residents biking to work, down from 1.1% in 2014. That figure doesn’t capture the number of recreational bikers or bikers going to schools.

That drop in ridership did not come with a drop in collisions. In 2018, 97 bicycle collisions occurred throughout the city and in 2023, 102 collisions occurred, with intermittent rises and declines  between.

While the city proposes changes to bike lanes, intersections are far more dangerous than roadways, with 82% of serious collisions happening there, according to safety data. Broadside collisions made up 33% of reported serious accidents compared to sideswipes totaling 3%. It should be noted that data is based off of reported injuries, so near scares would not be included.

Bikers often report driveways and cut-outs being highly dangerous.

Though ridership has decreased from 2014 to 2022, according to census data, collision occurrence frequency has been less predictable. (City of Fresno)

City Should Prioritize Neediest Areas First: Pedroza

There are fixes the city could do right away to help with bike safety, Pedroza said. Pedroza complimented the city’s street sweeping efforts but noted that the city does not do enough to stop wrongful uses of bike lanes.

Trash bins in bike lanes obstruct travel paths and residents don’t know the rules. Drivers often use bike lanes as parking spots and the city rarely tickets offenders. The same goes for food trucks, especially in the Tower District, she said.

A map of reported collisions shows high concentrations of injuries and fatalities in central Fresno, bounded by Shields Avenue and Highway 180, and West Avenue and Fresno Street. The city’s plan marks Shields Avenue as medium priority despite having a cluster of accidents.

With limited money, Pedroza said the city should prioritize the neediest areas rather than the easiest fixes. She said spending in affluent areas with newer infrastructure takes money away from other areas.

“If funding is limited — and it is — Class 4 investments should go where they are most needed: areas with genuine safety concerns, high crash rates, and underserved communities,” Pedroza said. “Placing expensive cycle track investment in affluent, low-density areas simply because the road geometry is convenient is not an equitable use of resources.”

See the City’s Bike Network Priorities