Safer Streets
Planning for Safer Streets
This year, the City of Ashland Transportation Advisory Committee will make important decisions about projects that help make Ashland a safe place to walk, ride, and roll. Your voice makes a huge difference!
Let’s make Ashland a fantastic place to bike and walk!
Our recommendations…
Winburn Way: Read our position statement to Help Make Lithia Park’s Winburn Way Safer for Everyone (pdf) and email City Council with your support.
Central Bike & Walking Path: We support completing the central biking and walking path and creating space on existing roads for protected bike lanes and sidewalks.
In 2025, we would like the City of Ashland’s Transportation Capital Improvement Project (CIP) to include:
- A 2025 engineering study to determine the optimal location for the Central Biking and Walking Path between Talent Avenue and Crowson Road.
- 2026 construction of the Central Biking and Walking Path to provide a continuous multi-use path between Talent Avenue and Crowson Road.
- Addition of protected bike lanes on Hersey Street.
- Repave Siskiyou Boulevard first, before Oak Street, to allow time to conduct a study about creating one-way streets on Oak and Helman to install protected bike lanes on each street, rather than just on Oak Street.
Background
The City of Ashland Capital Improvement Project (CIP) designates which improvements will be made in Ashland – such as repaving city streets or creating protected bike lanes. The Transportation Advisory Committee is poised to advise the City on which projects they recommend as priorities for the CIP. Their recommendation carries weight. When they recommend a project, it helps to prioritize and expedite its completion.
Only with sidewalks and protected bike lanes will our streets be safe for everyone to enjoy the freedom and joy of making short trips — to the library, school, a friend’s house — without a car.
The Importance of Protected Bike Lanes
Protected bikeways are one of the best ways to get more people on bicycles for more trips.
What is a protected bikeway?
A lane for people on bicycles that is physically separated from pedestrians and vehicle traffic, often by a curb, bollards, parked cars, or planters. Protected bike lanes:
- Physically separate cyclists from pedestrians and vehicles
- Increase bicycle trips, especially by women
- Save users time and money
- Improve cyclist and pedestrian comfort
- Reduce injuries and fatalities for all road users
What is NOT a protected bikeway?
Bicycle lanes that are not physically separated from vehicles or pedestrians including painted lanes, shared traffic lanes, and shared sidewalks. Bikeways that are NOT protected:
- Have no clear impact on road safety
- Have no clear impact on bicycle ridership
- Reduce pedestrian comfort
- Expose cyclists to vehicles encroaching, parking in, or turning across the bikeway
Myths and Realities of Protected Bikeways
| MYTH | REALITY |
| Protected bikeways are expensive. | There are many design options that are effective and also cost-efficient, such as temporary or quick-build bikeways. |
| Protected bikeways reduce profits for local businesses, and are a bad investment for cities. | Cyclists spend more per month at local businesses than car drivers and promote more active cityscapes. |
| Protected bikeways cause more traffic by reducing the space for cars. | When protected bikeways are available, users of other modes shift to cycling, reducing congestion for people who have to drive. |
| The benefits derived from cycling are not enough to justify the financial investment. | More cycling leads to improved health, fewer traffic injuries/fatalities, reduced emissions and air pollution, shorter and more affordable trips, and reduced congestion for other drivers. |
| Protected bikeways are a waste of space because they are only used by young, physically-fit men. | Protected bikeways attract more diverse riders — women, children, and other adults; people from different incomes and ethnicities — to cycle. |
Download infographic. Source: ITDP.ORG
Email City Councilors and Attend City Meetings
You are encouraged to email our City Councilors and attend meetings. Your voice makes a huge difference, so consider testifying as well.
Thank you for stepping up to make Ashland a better and more affordable place to live and reducing Ashland’s contribution to climate change. If you have any questions, please contact Streets for Everyone.
The Ashland Climate Collaborative Streets for Everyone action team is working to make our streets safe for people of all ages and abilities — especially kids!
Contact us
If you would like to learn more about any of our programs — group bike rides, bike buses, Bicycle Benefits, PedalPower youth bike education, or how to make our streets safer, please email us for more information.
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