A divisive pilot project that set up designated bike lanes on two streets in downtown Fairbanks drew hundreds of responses to a summer-long survey, and with the temporary project complete, local decision-makers must now use the information to figure out what comes next — if anything.
Fairbanks Area Surface Transportation Planning (FAST Planning) administered the survey and processed the results, and on Dec. 3, staff with the agency presented some of the findings to its technical committee.
The survey concluded in mid-September. It asked respondents questions about the temporary bike lanes installed on Barnette Street and 10th Avenue in downtown Fairbanks in May, which crews removed before the snow fell this year.
Transportation Planner Olivia Lunsford said the results created plenty of data to sift through and that responses suggest public opinion didn’t clearly tip one way or the other on the project. For instance, in one section of the extended version of the survey, which got 276 responses, roughly 88 people answered that the pilot project made them feel “confused” or “angry,” while 106 said it made them feel “happy” or “excited,” and 18 said they felt “indifferent.”
People also provided some information about how often they bike, and Lunsford said some patterns did emerge.
“You can definitely see that the people who don’t bike for recreation or transportation do make up the bulk of the negative responses, experiences, et cetera,” she said.
The survey question about people’s feelings also included an option to select “other” and leave a comment, which 62 respondents did.
“And we got comments like, ‘Who’s [sic] cockamamy [sic] idea was this?’” Lunsford said.
The answer to that question is no single person. The project dates back to 2019, when the City of Fairbanks nominated a seasonal bicycle network on city-maintained streets as a project proposed for funding from FAST Planning.
The city later scaled back the request to be for the one-year test, and in 2023, a FAST Planning advisory committee proposed nine roads for the initial pilot phase. That scope got narrowed further, and the Fairbanks City Council ultimately passed a resolution authorizing two roads downtown – Barnette Street and 10th Avenue – for the pilot last year.
In total, the temporary bike lanes on the two roads cost just under $900,000, according to FAST Planning documents. The bulk of that funding came from a federal program aimed at boosting transportation alternatives, like bike and pedestrian facilities. The city also paid a roughly $65,000 match.
The end of the pilot this year means the city would have to renominate the bike network project to move it forward, according to FAST Planning Executive Director Jackson Fox. He said by email last Thursday that any additional phases, whether they’re temporary or permanent, would also require approval from FAST Planning’s policy board and another resolution of support from the city council.
Fox said that the city “can modify the design on any of their roads they nominate for funding.”
“The design for the Barnette Street would likely be modified, for example, based on the feedback (user experience) we received from the public,” he added.
That was the street North Pole resident David Button was pedaling down on an afternoon in late August, following the green and yellow street paint that marked the northbound lane specifically for bike traffic.
And for Button, the design was working.
Button was on his way to Key Bank, on 1st Avenue. He told KUAC at the time that he bikes everyday, always trying to use the safest route, and that he liked having the space on the road labeled for cyclists.
“You just don’t want to be in the line of traffic, and this gets you outta the way,” he said. “Safety, lotta safety.”
While the survey responses presented last week provide some hard data, the results reflect a summer full of mixed opinions — and like the survey quantifies — not everyone felt like Button. The lanes entered public discourse in a variety of ways during their short life, becoming a source of controversy in social media posts and opinion pieces published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
The topic also made appearances at the occasional city council meeting, like the one in early August, when resident Randy Zarnke offered his two-cents during public comment.
He said that he drives and bikes through downtown regularly and that, at the time, he’d only seen one person using the bike lanes.
“In my humble opinion, they are a solution in search of a problem,” Zarnke said.