COVINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is finalizing plans to make the 4th Street Bridge safer for pedestrians and cyclists.
“Right now, on the 4th Street Bridge, we currently have a project, ongoing. The new construction of the bridge that’s going to have dedicated bike lanes, so all of our new projects, roadway projects, we find space and funding to add those lanes,” said Nancy Wood, the public information officer for KYTC.
Wood said the project will create a dedicated bike lane that will connect the bike trail along the river.
Over the weekend two cyclists were killed in two separate crashes. In Indian Hill, 71-year-old Jefferey Robbins was hit and killed. The driver remained on scene.
Gloria San Miguel was riding her bike on the 11th Street Bridge when she was hit and killed. The driver drove off.
“It’s heartbreaking, I mean we don’t like to see any incidents where a life is lost,” Wood said.
Matt Butler with the Devou Good Foundation said the crash is terrible, but he said it is preventable. Butler said there needs to be more bike lanes to keep riders safe.
“We need to give folks that are walking or biking safe access on all of the bridges and really between Newport and Covington, Campbell County and Kenton County there isn’t a safe passage,” he said.
Wood added creating more bike lanes on bridges and roads will be a long process.
“Retrofitting things, safety measures onto existing roadways is a challenge because you already have dedicated lanes for cars with signals, so it’s just not as easy as it seems,” Wood said.
However, she said her office is ready and willing to work with the local government to make the roadways safer.
“The city brings their concerns to us," Wood said. "You know, write a letter or call our planning crews, our engineers here. I mean we get our direction from them, the city government or county government of needs that they feel they need in their area and yeah it might be on a state route but we will work with them on how they fund that and retrofit those areas."
She noted Covington has already added a wall and designated pedestrian and bikeway along Kentucky 8.
“For 100 years our priorities have been to get drivers through neighborhoods as quickly as possible and it can be solved with engineering, but we really need the will of the people,” Butler said.
Butler said the sentiment is now changing about how people view roadway safety.
“Now, people are saying we want safety to be No. 1 and driver convenience to be No. 2,” said Butler.
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