Lots of Great Stuff Happening for RVA Cyclists

It’s a great time to be a cyclist in Richmond.  A piece in today’s Times-Dispatch outlines several exciting cycling-related projects now underway or planned for coming months.

• New mountain biking and hiking trails in Dogwood Dell
• A mountain biking skills area on Belle Isle
• The Sherwood Forest section of the Virginia Capital Trail (the remaining sections in Richmond and Varina are slated to be complete by June 2014)
• About eighty miles worth of shared lane markings coming to city streets in spring 2012

For the full article click here.

Sharrows!

The city recently put in some pilot “shared lane markings” or “sharrows” on Harrison and on Meadow.  They’re those markings with a bicycle below a chevron (see photo).

Richmond.com’s Phil Riggan published a piece today in response to a “Why, Richmond, Why?!?” question explaining what the markings mean and where the rest of them will be placed this spring.  Click here for the piece.

An issue the article does not mention and is sometimes a point of confusion: the presence of sharrows (or bike lanes) on some streets does not mean that cyclists are any less welcome on streets without the markings (unless its illegal for them to be there, like on an interstate).