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Publication: Michigan Daily, , University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI
In fall 2019, Ann Arbor opened the city’s first two-way protected bikeway along William Street. Since then, the city has installed more bikeways, including two-way bikeways on Division Street and First Street in 2021. The city has recently also improved existing bike lanes along State Street, greeting returning students in fall 2023 with a freshly painted, protected bike lane running from the Michigan Union to Oosterbaan Field House. The Michigan Daily set out to investigate the motivation for these improvements and what might come next.
In an interview with The Daily, Maura Thomson, Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority communications manager, said the city decided on median-protected bikeways after spending time gathering community feedback on the idea.
“We had this idea that we wanted to work on placemaking and making our streets safe and comfortable for all users,” Thomson said. “We wanted to increase accessibility and give people more options than just driving their car. We understood that having safe infrastructure is what’s going to encourage people to make different choices. So we went through a pretty robust public engagement process, which led to our first round of projects.”
The DDA is an organization within the Ann Arbor municipal government that focuses on projects to revitalize and maintain the downtown space. Not only does the DDA maintain the city’s public parking system, but it also takes the lead on most large-scale infrastructure projects, including Ann Arbor’s bike lanes.
The bikeway projects are part of the DDA’s People-Friendly Streets project, which aims to make Ann Arbor’s downtown both safe and accessible to pedestrians, cyclists and cars. In follow-up surveys conducted in 2023, the DDA found that its ongoing...