Connecting the dots

As Janine Rood looked at the intersection of East 20th Street and Highway 99 on a recent afternoon, she admitted that “even for the strong and fearless bicyclists, it’s hair-raising” to pedal in that part of the city. A cacophony of idling and revving engines, and the occasional bleating horn, punctuated her point.

Often, bicyclists just avoid areas of Chico where bike infrastructure (or crosswalks) don’t exist or they don’t feel safe, she added. That’s why she’s thrilled about the bicycle and pedestrian bridge slated for construction in 2023. It will connect Bikeway 99, which currently dead-ends in the Chico Mall parking lot, to the other side of the busy thoroughfare. From there, the bicycle route will wrap behind several restaurants, Walmart and other big-box stores before connecting to the Skyway.

This is a major gap closure for the city’s bike network. Rood focused on connectivity and “wayfinding” when she was given the opportunity to dive into the city’s guiding document for those traveling on two wheels. As the former director of Chico Velo Cycling Club, Rood was a natural choice to spearhead a 2019 update of the Chico Bicycle Plan. She became a part-time city intern/bike and pedestrian coordinator about a year ago.

Last Tuesday (April 16), the approximately 50-page updated plan was approved unanimously by the Chico City Council. Overall recommendations include closing network gaps and creating more physical separations from traffic, higher-visibility crossings and paved paths. While projects are on the way, there remains a long list of unfunded connections and unmet maintenance needs.

Rood has been cycling in Chico for 20 years. In that time, she has developed her own methods of navigating the city’s fragmented biking network.

As she worked on the bike plan update, she examined the city’s all-too-familiar streets and bike paths daily and developed a new perspective, spotting “faster and safer” routes she didn’t even realize connected. Cyclists tend to “just go the way we’ve always gone,” she told the CN&R.

She began to envision a broader navigational plan for cyclists, and—working with city staff and considering public input—created key north-south and east-west bicycle corridors and established a wayfinding plan. These corridors mark natural, logical places cyclists will want to ride, and correlate with city bike projects.

High-priority projects are those that focus on “creating and improving safe routes on lower-stress streets” and developing that wayfinding system, to encourage cyclists to move off of streets where the majority of bike-related collisions take place. This includes completing Bikeway 99 and constructing protected, separated bike lanes on both The Esplanade and Bruce Road.

This marks an important change in the bike plan, according to Brendan Ottoboni, city public works director-engineering. While the “backbone” of the network was already in place—namely, Bikeway 99 and Bidwell Park routes—the connectivity was lacking. Now the city’s bikeways don’t come across as “a hodge-podge of random paths connected in different places.”

Wayfinding is a significant part of the update, as well, and listed among the priorities. The goal is to install different signs along the bike corridors: some at intersections that include distance, time and even route difficulty; others to reassure travelers they are headed in the right direction; and others to alert cyclists when they are near key destinations.

It isn’t practical to expect people to whip out the city bike map to navigate during a trip, Rood said, and GPS applications aren’t always trustworthy.

“The thing that could drive you completely crazy in Chico is trying to figure out what’s the best place to get to where [you] want to go,” Rood said. “With this grid/corridor system we invented, we’re going to do a huge wayfinding project once we can get funding.”

The update was a substantial undertaking, as the plan, which is focused on developing a comprehensive bikeway network, hasn’t been modified since 2012, according to Ottoboni. A consulting firm was hired in 2015, but the results were lackluster, he added, and the update was placed on hold in 2016 due to a lack of staffing that has since been remedied.

Having an updated bicycle plan is essential when applying for grants from Cal Trans’ Active Transportation Program, he wrote in a staff report. This program was created specifically to encourage biking and walking and safety and mobility for non-drivers. Since 2015, the city has taken in $25 million in state and federal grants for multimodal transportation projects. These grants typically cover the bulk of a project’s cost. For example, the city received $14.2 million in state and federal funding to build the bridge over East 20th Street. The remaining $1.3 million of the project’s cost will come from development impact fees. Also on the horizon is a largely grant-funded pedestrian bridge over Little Chico Creek, near Humboldt Avenue and East 10th Street.

While public works has made strides in getting outside funding for new bike pathways, Ottoboni said that doesn’t address a key component: maintenance. Local funding is limited. Like its roadways, the city’s existing bike paths are suffering—much of the network was installed decades ago. Encroaching tree roots are outlined in spray paint on popular paths, and Bidwell Park’s thoroughfares—Petersen Memorial Way and South Park Drive—are especially in need of repair.

“We lack funding overall for needed maintenance,” Ottoboni said.

The city is pursuing an adopt-a-trail partnership with Chico Velo, which would address some of the maintenance issues, such as waste cleanup and minor vegetation pruning, as well as alert the city to areas of concern.

Rood expressed confidence in the plan and in the cycling community, which provided feedback during the update process through several public meetings, an online survey and a working group of advocates and city staff.

“It’s easy to become a bicyclist in Chico, because the community is strong,” she said.