Feedback Wanted On Winston-Salem's Bicycle Master Plan

The City of Winston-Salem is sharing the final draft of its bicycle master plan on April 4 at Salem Marina. But it's not too late for the public to have their say.

The plan aims to build off of existing bike infrastructure. The city says they want to connect areas where people live and work, linking downtown to surrounding neighborhoods using trails and bike lanes. Preliminary plans show all corners of the city being reached.

According to the city's research, bicyclists prefer trails. Also, city planners are considering actual physical barriers between car and bike lanes to make biking safer and more inviting.

Matthew Burczyk is the bicycle and pedestrian coordinator with the City of Winston-Salem Department of Transportation. He says that it's still too early to say how long completing the plan could take.

“Some of the projects could be completed in a relatively short time frame, within a couple of years, while others are longer-term projects that would require a fair amount of work," says Burczyk. "That's one of the things we want to get out of this plan is to ask people what their priorities are, then set our schedule on what the priorities are of the public.”

Burczyk says that they'll continue to collect public comment through April, and by the end of May the city should have a final plan in place.