The Batavia City Council faced pushback last week from residents over new bike lanes being added on Millview Drive between Main Street and Route 31.
The addition of bike lanes will eliminate on-street parking on the northbound side of Millview, a point of contention for residents.
More than a dozen residents appeared before the council last week voicing their objections, saying the loss of street parking would diminish the value of their homes, lead to fighting with neighbors over spots and disrupt delivery and maintenance services.
Millview was designated as a bike route by the city’s Active Transportation Commission in 2023 as part of its Bike and Pedestrian Plan. Millview connects Main Street to Route 31 and is identified as a bike path with signage but does not have marked lanes on the road.
With a portion of Millview resurfaced, council members considered a few plans for how it should be repainted, including options that would add bike lanes in both directions while removing parking from one side of the street. The other option was to re-stripe the road as it was.
Several residents said there is not enough bicycle traffic along the road to warrant the lanes and argued that bikers will not ride single file in the bike lanes anyway. Residents also said the on-street parking spots on Millview often are used by high school students and without both sides of the street available, they will not have enough spaces for those who live there to have guests.
“As a taxpayer of the community, we implore you not to take away half the parking on Millview,” resident Priscilla Miller said. “Let’s not jeopardize relationships between neighbors by forcing us to vie for a few coveted spots of parking.”
Resident Hayley Graham raised concerns about how services such as landscapers, garbage collection or mail delivery would be affected, but said her main concern is safety.
“It’s apparent to me that the safety of the hypothetical bikers is being outweighed by the safety of the kids in the neighborhood” Graham said. “The street is already very busy. People are flying down. No one is respecting the 25-mph speed limit and you have semis going down the street. Why are there semis going down Millview? If you want to improve the safety of Millview and make it more bike-friendly, eliminate the thoroughfare of Millview to semis and commercial vehicles.”
After public comment, council members continued the discussion among themselves for more than an hour. Some wanted to see more data collected before changes were made. Others suggested retaining the parking but adding road sharing symbols rather than lanes.
But Alderman Abby Beck was not in favor of putting off the change and said the council needs to make a decision based what will be most equitable for residents.
“We also have to consider the fact that there are residents of this town that we represent who are too old, too young, not able-bodied or too poor to own a car and they are entitled to the same ease of moving around this city as those of us that can afford, are young enough, are rich enough, are able-bodied enough to drive a car,” she said. “If it is true that you do support cycling, then this is the path forward to doing that.”
By the end of the discussion, the conversation shifted to how far along Millview the bike lanes should be marked. A straw poll of council members led to a 10-4 vote in favor of striping bike lanes from Main Street to the north end of Towne Avenue. Aldermen Christopher Sulfa, George Ajazi, Mark Uher and Nicholas Cirone voted no.
At the request of a resident, council members agreed to send a letter to residents on Millview Drive explaining their decision and asking for feedback on how it is working. Council members also agreed to coordinate with the Batavia Police Department to more strictly enforce parking restrictions for high school students and to monitor the use of Millview Drive by semitrailers.