CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Wendy Baker was riding her bike home down 5th Street Southwest one day last month, as she does at the end of most every workday. 

But as she approached the interchange that leads to Interstate 64, what little purchase she can count on as a cyclist vanished in favor of a rough, rocky, unpaved shoulder that had to be braved to cross the bridge over the interstate.   

On this occasion, a passing car came alarming close to knocking her off her bike and causing serious injury to her with its mirror. 

“If I reached out, I could have touched it,” Baker told Cville Right Now. 

Baker said that in the eight years she has lived in the City of Charlottesville, what its government has done to implement the necessary accessibility for cyclists to be safe is not enough.   

In ironic fashion, the place at which Baker was struck, with the shoulder in treacherous, poor condition, is marked with a clearly aged, worn-down, beaten-up yellow sign that reads, “Share the Road.” 

Baker told Cville Right Now that she believes many who make use of Charlottesville’s public transportation services do so because they cannot ride their bikes. 

“There is not enough of us who need the accessibility speaking out,” Baker said. 

Though the place at which Baker was hit is just over the border of Albemarle County, Charlottesville Vice Mayor Natalie Oschrin, one of the council’s most avid cyclists, told Cville Right Now in an email that it does not negate Charlottesville’s responsibility to help keep cyclists safe alongside the Albemarle Board of Supervisors.   

“Like any form of transportation, bike lanes need connectivity; the network makes it work,” Oschrin wrote. “… The city supports bike lane efforts in the county on principle, so that people who would like to safely bike commute from the county into the city have that option.” 

Oschrin advocated for Council to continue its past engagement with the Virginia Department of Transportation, which maintains and owns the roads in Albemarle County, to try and build a safe bike network in the county.   

According to Oschrin, the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization is applying with VDOT to put in a separate bridge for cyclists and pedestrians as part of a full reconfiguration of the interchange.   

Oschrin even detailed a recent close call of her own on a bicycle in which a large truck, without signaling properly, nearly hit her as it turned right into a parking garage. 

While she said that the driver was at fault due to their negligence, the situation was not helped by lack of adequate safety measures to protect those in the bike lane. 

“The design of the road made space for that misbehavior,” she wrote. “And the city has the opportunity to adjust the road to proactively avoid these kinds of issues … Lanes protected with bumpers and barriers are safer, and other traffic calming that deprioritize cars as the main road users will help keep cyclists and other drivers safer.”  

Oschrin and fellow councilor Jen Fleisher serve as representatives on the Metropolitan Planning Organization board to advocate for bike and pedestrian projects continually with the state for this area.  The city is also moving ahead with a restriping plan for Rose Hill Drive that will feature the implementation of bike lanes equipped with some of the ideal protections that Oschrin mentioned, as well as protected bike facilities, a reduced speed limit for cars, and more protections for pedestrians. 

Though it may not be adequate comfort for residents on the city-county line, it does signal intent that will make implementation of policies to make the bike/pedestrian transportation network across Charlottesville safer.  These efforts, were they to succeed, will make travel safer for everyone in the area no matter what mode is utilized.   

“Plenty of people balk at the idea of promoting bikes, staunchly preferring to remain drivers,” Oschrin wrote. “Even those folks should support a robust bike network, because the more people on bikes instead of in a car means fewer cars in traffic with them. There are a lot of upsides to more people biking.”