Bay City to eliminate some street parking for bike lanes

BAY CITY, Mich. (WNEM) - In a unanimous vote, the Bay City Commission approved a proposal to create Bay City’s first bike lanes.

“We were trying to improve the city for other modes of transportation other than driving, and this is one of those first steps in doing that,” said Commissioner Jesse Dockett of the first ward.

Parking on both sides of Midland Street between Euclid and Wenona Avenues will be eliminated to make room for the bike lanes. Dockett has promoted the lanes as a way to bring more people into the area.

“Midland Street’s one of the gateways into the city, right, it leads into the Midland Street business district, and then if you take the bridge, it goes over and leads you into downtown. So, it’s one of the main gateways into the city. So, it’s really important for people to be able to access through multiple modes of transportation,” Dockett said.

Dockett said he hopes the initiative will attract the younger generation to move into Bay City.

“These are amenities that we see in bigger cities like Grand Rapids, or Ann Arbor, Lansing, and people go to those places for that, and we see a huge demographic shift happening amongst the under-40 crowd were looking for places that are walkable, and they’re moving back into cities,” Dockett said.

He said bike lanes not only will move Bay City into the future, but it will help with fixing roads.

“Everybody wants us to fix the roads, but if we can start maybe using other modes of transportation, the roads we do have will last longer, which will allow us to repair the ones that are in disrepair and make the roads nicer for everybody,” Dockett said.

Dockett said work on installing the bike lanes could begin within 60 days. Bay City also is planning to resurface that portion of Midland Street next year.

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