sharing the road with cyclists

You can’t go far on Covington streets without passing a cyclist…kids tooling around the neighborhood, folks commuting to work, groups of serious cyclists out for a long weekend ride. Pickett’s Corner matches unhoused residents with used bikes to help with transportation for those in need, one of the most successful outreach efforts in the region. But as we all know, much of Covington is an old city with narrow streets that don’t allow much room for cyclists and cars to share the road. Many people ride on sidewalks meant for pedestrians, and others duck down side streets or don’t ride at all because vehicle traffic zooms by too close for comfort on busier — but more direct — routes. Drivers don’t often encounter cyclists as a part of the regular traffic flow and get flustered or annoyed when they do, and we all get the impression that Covington streets just aren’t safe for bikes.

That impression can’t change until drivers get used to more bikes on the road. Grassroots efforts like RidetheCov’s group rides make cyclists more visible, but streets engineered to protect cyclists are the long-term solution. We need protected bike lanes that connect neighborhoods and that provide corridors useful for commuters, people headed to the grocery store, families going out for a bite to eat, and anyone who wants to get some exercise while traveling on our streets. And this is possible, narrow streets or not — any number of similar cities have figured out how to balance vehicle traffic with cyclists — because Covington prides itself on innovation and progressive policy. It just takes a comprehensive approach that acknowledges a give-and-take on the space required for motor vehicle traffic (and parking) and the slivers of road we can carve out for safe cycling.