ORLANDO — Orlando officials are reviewing the city’s bike plan, just five years after the last major update. Officials say with how quickly things change in the city, they wanted to make sure the latest update had the most up-to-date changes based on current needs.
With a very large and passionate cyclist community in Orlando, bike plans began more than 30 years ago. The focus has always been on safety, strategies to grow the bike community and infrastructure like trails, lanes and bridges specific to bicycles.
Jacques Coulon, the planning division manager for the city’s Department of Transportation, said the plan typically goes through major updates every 10 years, but officials are revisiting it now for community feedback.
In four public open-house style events, residents were asked to share their thoughts in different interactive ways regarding the current bike culture in the city. Attendees were given red and green flags to identify what’s working in the community and what needs more work.
“We are open to feedback all the time,” Coulon said. “People give us feedback, whether it’s at public meetings, or emails, so we are always looking for feedback.”
Coulon said this update won’t change the whole bike plan but instead some of the city’s strategies when it comes to bike facility locations for example.
“This is kind of a midpoint to revisit our plan. Is it still covering everything that we want it to? Are there new areas that we need to add? And to also make sure that we’re covering what the public might want to see,” Coulon said.
Residents like Michael Hodges and Rob Nicolleti, who have lived in Orlando for decades and are active cyclists, said the bike culture has changed significantly over the past three decades, including since the early days of the West Orange Trail and Cady Way Trail.
“Shoot, that was back in the ’90s,” Hodges said.
Though those changes are welcomed, and make him excited for the future, Hodges shared that there are still a few things he’d like to see across the area, that would make access to trails easier and and safer.
“On Mills, there’s not a designated bike lanes, even though there should be bicycles,” he said.
Additionally, Patrick Panza, the vice president and operations director with Bike/Walk Central Florida, said public input is important as Orlando plans for future bike and pedestrian needs.
“We have to understand where the concerns are from the community members, and we have to understand what it is that they want to be able to do,” Panza said. “So that the planning efforts and the design efforts and the construction efforts are all pointed in the right direction.”
Especially as popularity amongst e-bikes and e-scooters grows. Though officials say the electric vehicles have been a part of the conversations, both Coulon and Panza shared that there isn’t just one way to approach safety and responsible usage concerns.
“A lot of the challenges and some of the bigger things we’re seeing are those unlocked e-bikes that aren’t really a bike anymore because they go 30, 40, 50 miles per hour,” Coulon said. “Those are very different and we’re really looking at how we can accommodate those on the road.”
Coulon said feedback from the four meetings will be compiled, and a final updated plan is expected to be packaged together by the fall.