Where Are All the Bike Lanes?
A rendering from the Henry Street Pilot Project shows a 2020 plan for new bike lanes in Saratoga Springs. Image via the final report prepared by Barton & Loguidice, D.P.C.
“The issue here is some sort of leadership to actually follow through and get these projects done.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Much happened in the city of Saratoga Springs in 2024: the first Belmont Stakes Racing Festival, the first Republican mayor in a decade, and the approval of a massive new Tree House Brewing location. But one thing missing from this list, according to a local organization, is the construction of new bike lanes.
There is support for the lanes, and some funds as well. Yet, in 2024 not a single new bike lane was created in the Spa City. This, says the nonprofit advocacy group Bikeatoga, is “extremely disappointing.”
For Union Avenue, a final plan to create bike lanes does exist but hasn’t yet been presented to or discussed by the city council.
“It simply fell off the table,” said Bikeatoga’s Advocacy Chair Ed Lindner. “We would’ve liked to have seen them move forward on actually building the final recommendation.”
Bikeatoga says that the city spent $40,000 on consulting and engineering fees to design improved pedestrian crossings, slow down traffic, and extend bike lanes from East Avenue to Congress Park. Hired consultants produced a final plan that maintained the current four travel lanes and on-street parking, improved pedestrian crossings, and included a paint-only bike lane. But the city has yet to do much of anything with it.
There’s also the Downtown Connector, which currently ends at Lake Avenue. A 2020 Henry Street Pilot Project study recommended that the connector be extended to Congress Park, where it could link up with the proposed connection to the West Side and Railroad Run. But again, little progress has been made.
“It’s these connections that we’re missing,” Lindner said. “Until you have a connected network, you don’t have anything. We now have a half of a bike lane on Union Avenue, a half a bike lane on Lake Avenue; we need to connect those.”
Despite the lack of new lanes, there are some “rays of hope,” according to Bikeatoga. The city’s Complete Streets Advisory Board (which Lindner called “excellent” and “extremely well qualified”) presented the city council with some project ideas that Bikeatoga says the council should support. The city is also currently applying for grant funding to build the Crescent Avenue bike lane, and may be moving ahead with the Grand Avenue multi-use path.
“The issue here isn’t expertise,” Lindner said. “The issue here is some sort of leadership to actually follow through and get these projects done.”
The creation of new bike lanes is designed to aid those who’d like to bike around town but don’t feel safe riding in traffic. A network of connected lanes could increase ridership, according to at least one study published in the American Journal of Public Health. Data analyzed from ten American cities that worked on improving and connecting their bike networks showed that all ten cities had both increased ridership and decreased accidents, injuries, and fatalities. Another study of 74 U.S. cities found that dense bike networks with direct connections were the most likely to increase bike commuting. A third study from Portland State University also asserted that bike lane networks are especially valuable for women and low-income families.
For those reasons and others, Bikeatoga’s principal advocacy goal is for Saratoga Springs to build a functional bike lane network.
“We have a lot of good ideas. We have a lot of studies and plans. It’s time for the city to commit,” Lindner said. “If you talk to people in City Hall, they’ll tell you that it’s happening, but the results speak for themselves.”