Moment of Truth for Cincinnati's Central Parkway

Howard Wilkinson reports that the Cincinnati City Council is expected to act this week to either kill or continue the Central Parkway protected bike lane project. "Monday, council held a special session to have a second reading on an ordinance that would rescind an ordinance from a year ago entering into an agreement with the Ohio Department of Transportation to complete the bikeway project from Clifton to downtown," writes Wilkinson.

At issue with the project: "Some council members have expressed concern about what the protected bike lanes would mean for Metro buses and people with mobility issues."

There is also a compromise under consideration, "[which] would take the bike lanes out of the travel lanes on Central Parkway to maintain on-street parking between Ravine and Brighton streets - a concern of business owners in the area."

According to an earlier report by Chris Wetterich, last week at a press conference announcing other citywide bike initiatives, Mayor John Cranley made his opinion on the Central Parkway protected bike lane known: "Cranley said he thought bicyclists could use the sidewalk alongside the road, at one point referring to it as a 'highway.'"