Don’t even think about narrowing South Broad Street for bike lane

I was alarmed to see that plans for continued improvement of Chattanooga’s downtown/riverfront area might include narrowing South Broad Street to two traffic lanes.

Any thought of limiting vehicle traffic on South Broad should be abandoned immediately. That area carries commuter traffic from Lookout Mountain, the growing Chattanooga Valley area and St. Elmo to downtown. It is also a major route for tourist traffic and interstate access, not to mention all of the people avoiding Interstate 24 when it is backed up almost daily.

There is space in South Chattanooga to build a bicycle trail connecting those areas. Doing this would be a better route for cyclists and walkers than a “bike lane” on a busy street that motorists in a hurry will use as a turn lane, as they now do on North Market Street, M.L King Boulevard, etc.

Allen Chesney Chattanooga