Pawtucket segment of Blackstone River Bikeway potentially faces major obstacle

[Editor Note:  After some feedback from City Clerk, we learned the Council did not take an official vote on the matter below, rather, they have "held up consideration of the request until RIDOT has a public meeting with the residents who will be affected by the loss of parking."]

Last week RIDOT, RIDEM, City officials and local business leaders met to discuss the next phase of the Blackstone Valley Bike Path now under construction.  The project manager for the bike path stated an active contract to complete the bike path to Pawtucket Town Landing is in progress and could potentially be completed within months.

Although the path alignment has been in discussion during two different administrations, RIDOT director Michael Lewis recently sent a letter to Mayor Grebien after the City Council denied held up consideration of a parking restriction necessary to complete an active bikeway construction contract until a public is hearing is held on October 11.  According to the City Clerk, RIDOT will hold a public hearing to hear from those affected by the potential loss of parking.  The contract in jeopardy involves paving, striping and signing the bike path up to Town Landing in Pawtucket.

The irony in this situation is as follows:  (1) the community has been fighting for this bike path for more than a decade; (2) last month, City council passed a complete streets resolution which specifically supports on-street bicycle routes; and (3) the route was coordinated with City planners before RIDOT engaged in an active construction contract.

In his letter to Mayor Grebien, Lewis stated, “We have been placed in a difficult situation with these issues and the active construction contract.  The Department will not force a project onto a community that doesn’t want it, so we must have a resolution immediately.”  He offered several options and warned that if a resolution is not reached, RIDOT would have to consider an option to “eliminate the bikeway signing and striping in the City of Pawtucket, and look to suspend the paving and new signal work.”  This would be a major setback for the hundreds of stakeholders who have diligently fought for the highly desired bike path alignment over the last decade.

In a recent opinion editorial in the Providence Journal, Mayor Grebien commented, “It should be made clear, however, that substantial alteration of the already-contracted project, two years in the planning and several years in the concept stage before that, could mean no bike path or many other road-related improvements there at all. And to acknowledge the obvious, people have been riding their bicycles from neighborhood to neighborhood, and indeed city to city, in that area for many years, though in a less safe way than a well-planned bike path route would allow.”

The Pawtucket Foundation’s official position:  “The business community fully supports the creation of the Blackstone Valley Bikeway in Pawtucket.  We urge local government and elected leaders to immediately resolve any issue that could adversely impact the active construction contract of the bikeway segment in Pawtucket.”

A public hearing is scheduled on October 11, 2011 to discuss the bicycle path.

The next segment through Pawtucket is now entering the design phase.  VHB, the firm working on the design, will host a site visit with City staff to inspect various options for aligning the path through Downtown Pawtucket and into Central Falls.  Officials hope to have agreement on the alignment strategy by January 2012.