Why don’t Chattanooga’s bike lanes connect to each other or anything else?

We brought this question to Eric Asboe in the city’s Department of Transportation. He acknowledged that in some areas of Chattanooga, it can be really difficult to get around on a bike. There are plenty of areas without bike lanes, and some lanes span just a few city blocks before ending abruptly. 

See a map of Chattanooga’s bike lanes.

But Asboe said the city is working to improve Chattanooga’s bikeability, by connecting lanes that don’t connect to anything and targeting areas that create a high “bicycle level of stress.” (Like, for example, popping out of UTC's campus to play Frogger across McCallie Ave.)

There’s a lot of variation in the bike infrastructure across Chattanooga, from simple “bike route” signs, to painted bike lanes, to barricaded lanes that are shielded from traffic. There are more lanes downtown and in neighborhoods close to downtown, such as St. Elmo. As you move out, roads become larger and less tightly connected, as bike lanes weren’t a part of development plans as the city added busier arteries, Asboe said.

“If you were going to travel, say, from Hixson to downtown, that’s quite a ways, but that would be a very challenging situation today,” he said.

Anytime a road gets paved, there's an opportunity for new bike lanes. With millions of dollars recently approved by City Council for road resurfacing, more bike friendly routes could be coming down the pike. The only catch is that sporadic resurfacing could lead to new bike lanes in random places and not necessarily a better connected system right away.

Where would you like to see more bike infrastructure? Email Eric Asboe at easboe@chattanooga.gov.

- Answered by William Newlin, william@chattamatters.com