Connectivity is focus of 'Explore Sandpoint'

SANDPOINT — Surrounded, as it is, by a burgeoning network of bike and walking paths, the City of Sandpoint has stepped forward with its contribution to the regional trail system.

Officials have dubbed it “Explore Sandpoint!” — a codified, color-coded grid that seeks to make it safe and easy to get around town without having to drive. Well-marked signs and directional kiosks will be placed along the various routes, combined with painted “sharrows” on the pavement to point the way.

The fact that the sharrows — bike-shaped icons combined with arrows — came before the signs has created confusion on some fronts, consternation on others. But all will be made plain once all the pieces are in place, according to Jared Yost, geographical information systems manager for Sandpoint.

“I think there has been a disconnect in understanding,” he said. “But painting those lanes has opened up a discussion and made people more aware that bicyclists are sharing the street and I think that’s great.”

Before painting the sharrows, the city’s bike/pedestrian committee notified more than 700 adjacent property owners that they were on the way. Bruce Robertson was the man who laid down the templates and applied the paint. As Sandpoint’s public works liaison for the project, he was also the guy who got the face-to-face feedback, as opposed to anonymous blog entries, from the neighbors involved.

“The in-person response was typical, friendly Sandpoint,” Robertson said. “People told me, ‘I’m glad they’re doing something like this for bikes.’”

That reaction was in keeping with input the city received at public meetings during the drafting of the comprehensive plan.

“Transportation was a major component in the comprehensive plan,” said Yost. “The community expressed an interest in balancing vehicle travel with walking and biking — that’s where all of this came from.”

Working with SERA Architects and with strong support from elected officials, city departments began to weigh their options for creating the bike and walking grid.

“One of the questions we addressed was, ‘How do you safely get a 10-year-old kid from a residential area down to City Beach?’” Robertson said.

Finding the answer brought them back around to the concept of balance. With a street infrastructure already in place, the city decided to adopt the idea of shared roadways, rather than designated biking paths. As streets are upgraded, however, some routes within the “Explore Sandpoint!” grid will start to become even more bicycle and pedestrian friendly.

“The trick is to use engineering to make the bike routes a little more comfortable for bikes and the non-bike routes a little more comfortable for cars,” Robertson said.

Think truck routes — big rigs gravitate to them because it means they don’t have to squeeze through residential streets; casual drivers avoid them in order not to get stuck behind large trucks. In the end, a simple designation allows both types of drivers to prevail.

When it comes to making new routes more comfortable for bikes, there are several ways to achieve that goal, Yost explained. Parking can be moved a bit farther back from the street and diagonal parking can be avoided completely, removing the hazard of a car door opening into bike traffic or a vehicle backing up into a blind spot.

In the downtown corridor — which presents challenges because First Avenue sidewalks are off limits to bicycle traffic — Oak Street will become the primary east-west route, while Third Avenue will serve as the north-south route.

“Third Avenue will have bike racks, for instance, as a way to keep bikes off the preferred car routes,” Robertson said, adding that Oak will offer separate lanes for bike riders.

In addition to the downtown core and City Beach, “Explore Sandpoint!” has been designed with schools, parks and public paths in mind, the city officials pointed out.

“The schools have put a lot of effort into supporting safe biking and walking routes to school,” said the public works liaison, “and we’ve reached out to them with information about bike safety and bike routes.”

Between a “city loop” route that circles both the downtown and residential areas and a crosshatch of north-south and east-west routes, riders and walkers will be able to jump on to one of the color-coded routes without having to travel more than a couple of blocks in any direction. Most of the routes intersect using cross-streets with traffic signals or flashing pedestrian crossings.

Looking outside the city limits, the grid is expected to increase overall connectivity to the larger network of trails now leading to Sagle, Ponderay and Dover. If Priest River proves successful in its waterfront trail plans, riders eventually will have unlimited access to virtually all of the larger cities in Bonner County.

“Connecting to all of the major trails is still a missing link that we have,” Yost said.

A prime example, he added, is the current gap between the Long Bridge Trail and the new Sand Creek Byway Trail. At present, riders have to wend their way through the parking lot behind the county courthouse, wiggle up First Avenue - breaking the ‘no bikes on the sidewalk rule’ — and make their way to Bridge Street to join the byway path.

But for every missing link in the trail network, there are multiple conversations going on about how to improve and further connect the system.

Roberson said the Sandpoint Urban Renewal Agency continues to investigate the potential of extending the Sand Creek boardwalk north, possibly connecting to walking paths leading to the Healing Garden at Bonner General Hospital. The city also has constructed new sections of a bike and walking path along North Boyer in hopes that private property issues will be ironed out to allow one, unbroken trail leading to an expected, new roundabout at Boyer and the Schweitzer Cutoff Road.

“Were doing quite a bit to get Schweitzer Cutoff, Boyer and the Popsicle Bridge (a non-motor vehicle crossing that connects Sandpoint to the trail system in Ponderay) all hooked up,” said Robertson.

Possible future development might also include a railroad underpass on Pine Street that would link that part of the city to existing recreational trails and, from there, connect to the rest of the bike route through town.

But, for Sandpoint, the big picture of connectivity starts with getting the signs in place and completing the other improvements planned for the “Explore Sandpoint!” route.

“Having this as a stake in the ground helps other cities and the Idaho Transportation Department connect into this route system,” said Yost. “And for bike riders, if you see a sign, it means we’ve researched it and it’s the safest route you can take.”

Bike trail pioneers

SANDPOINT – The present, very positive state of affairs for bike trails would not have been possible without the vision of a few hard-working volunteers who started talking about such a system in 1995.

After a meeting with an ITD bike path coordinator, a group called North Idaho Bikeways was formed to start the process of trail building in Bonner County.

Led at first by Bob Carlson, Terry McConnaughey and a small group of like-minded other individuals, the group initially tackled a section of trail from Sagle to Sandpoint.

The original “trailhead” as far as bike and walking paths goes started in 1996 at Sagle and traveled a little over a mile to Bottle Bay Road. In 1998, the path was linked to the trail that now crossed an earlier incarnation of the Long Bridge and came to be known as the Sandpoint to Sagle Community Trail.

The group’s next venture was the bike path connecting Sandpoint to Dover. By revamping a classic railroad trestle bridge now known as “Creed’s Crossing” over Chuck Slough, North Idaho Bikeways members Carlson, McConnaughey and Richard Creed led the volunteer project to completion.

With more than 11 miles of trails to its credit, North Idaho Bikeways shifted its role to an advisory capacity as others groups and municipalities joined in and additional trails were planned for the region.

The names of its members continue to show up in other contexts, however most recently with Bob Carlson listed as one of the members of the Friends of the Pend d’Oreille Bay Trail.