The city began the first phase of this project last week. Crews are in the process of installing the lane dividers, referred to as “zippers” by the manufacturer, on First Avenue North between 20th Street and 28th Street, officials say.<\/p>\n
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Construction for this set of zippers is expected to finish this week, weather permitting.<\/p>\n
These modular lane dividers are installed with about 5 feet between them to allow for drainage and to optimize the project costs, which city officials say is expected to total under $100,000. Materials alone cost the city approximately $60,000.<\/p>\n
Flexible posts are at the zipper’s endpoints and between long portions of the zipper, serving as a tall, more obvious visual aid for drivers. The dividers are meant to replicate a traditional roadside concrete curb facing the motor vehicle lane and an angled curb that faces the bicycle lane, which the city says “protects cyclists from hitting the curb top on their pedal downstroke.”<\/p>\n
There has been public demand for the city to provide extra safety precautions for bicyclists, the city says:<\/p>\n
“While designating an area exclusively for bike use within the width of a roadway is proven to improve cycling comfort and safety, we routinely receive requests for physical separation between regular traffic lanes and bike lanes.”<\/p>\n
These zippers are the second enhancement to the First Avenue North bike lane, following the city’s inclusion of a buffer and the addition of green paint at transition areas in 2022.<\/p>\n
For the next phase of this project, the city is considering installing these zippers at First Avenue South, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street, 28th Street, and 31st Street.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Petersburg is testing out bike lane barriers on local streets as part of a new pilot project.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-357203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}