Air Quality Small Grant Awarded

ACOG AWARDS CITY OF OKLAHOMA CITY (OKC) WITH AIR QUALITY GRANT FUNDS TO INSTALL BICYCLE LANES

CITY OF OKC TO ADD BIKE LANES ON NORTH LOTTIE AVENUE

OKLAHOMA CITY —   Bike lanes on a busy Oklahoma City street will be added thanks to an air quality grant.

The $163,857 comes from the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments (ACOG) Air Quality Small Grant Program.

“Improving air quality in Central Oklahoma has been a decades-long goal in our organization,” said ACOG Deputy Director John Sharp. “The air quality in the neighborhoods surrounding these new bike lanes will see an improvement, because when people feel safer riding a bike, the fewer single-occupancy vehicles are on the road. It leads to less ozone forming pollutants and better air quality.”

The bicycle lanes will be added on N. Lottie Avenue from NE 4th St. to NE 23rd St. with connections to Kelley Avenue. Vertical delineators will be used along the N. Lottie Avenue route to provide protection to bicyclists and shared lanes (between cyclists and car drivers) are proposed along Madison St. from N. Lottie Avenue to N. Kelley Avenue.

“With each trip’s replacement, a quantum of tailpipe emissions is eliminated,” T.O. Bowman, Sustainability Manager of Oklahoma City’s Office of Sustainability said.

Additionally, bicycle and pedestrian projects such as this one exhibit high cost-effectiveness in reducing transportation-related emissions. This project will also address safety by providing protected bicycle facilities which is shown to lead to reduced risk of injury to bicyclists and increased probability of ridership.

“This not only contributes to maintaining the Oklahoma City region’s attainment designation for the 8-hour ozone standard but encourages greater physiological health on the part of residents who might not use on-street bicycle facilities if not for their protected and traffic-separated design and installation,” Bowman said.

The City of Oklahoma City will be reimbursed 80% of the project cost with federal CMAQ funds and will provide 20% in local matching funds. The City estimates that the project will be complete this winter.