Batavia residents oppose Millview bike lane that reduces parking

Batavia City Council members at their Aug. 13 Committee of the Whole meeting received pushback from residents over new bike lanes being added on Millview Drive between Main Street and Route 31.

The topic was a point of contention for residents of the street as the addition of bike lanes will remove about half of the on-street parking on Millview Drive. The discussion lasted more than two hours.

The Committee of the Whole voted to add bike lanes from Main Street to the north end of Towne Avenue with the rest of Millview Drive to be striped the way it was.

Millview currently has on-street parking on both sides. With the addition of bike lanes, parking on the northbound side of the street would be eliminated.

More than a dozen residents with homes on Millview Drive spoke during the meeting to oppose the addition of bike lanes on their street. Most of their concerns were over the reduction of street parking, which multiple residents said would diminish the value of their home, lead to fighting with neighbors and disrupt delivery and maintenance services.

Millview Drive was designated as a bike route by the city’s Active Transportation Commission as part of their Bike and Pedestrian Plan finalized in 2023. Millview Drive connects Main Street to Route 31 and is identified as a bike path with signage but does not have marked lanes on the road.

With a portion of Millview Drive recently resurfaced, Committee of the Whole members considered a few options for how it should be repainted, including two options that would add bike lanes in both direction while removing parking from one side of the street. The other option was to restripe the road as it was.

City Engineer Rahat Bari and a representative from the Active Transportation Commission presented the options to the council and recommended adding bike lanes on both sides of the street lanes with parking on the southbound curb to avoid confusion for motorists and keep paths uniform throughout the city.

Council members heard more than an hour of public comment from residents against the change, many of whom pleaded for parking to remain on both sides of the street. Several residents claimed there was not enough bicycle traffic to warrant the lanes and argued that bikers will not ride single file in the bike lanes anyway.

Residents also said the on-street parking spots on Millview often are used by high school students and without both sides of the street available, they will not have enough spaces for those who live there to have guests. They also raised concerns that their tax dollars would be used to fund the change.

Several residents took issue with the notion that the bike lanes were going to enhance safety, arguing that the city has bigger safety concerns that should be taken care of before adding bike lanes such as installing a traffic signal at the intersection of Route 31 and Millview Drive and stopping semitrailers from using Millview as a thoroughfare.

Batavia resident Priscilla Miller said the options proposed are problematic as restricting parking will impede residents’ ability to host friends and family gatherings and lead to competition between neighbors.

“As a taxpayer of the community, we implore you not to take away half of the parking on Millview,” Miller said. “Let’s not jeopardize relationships between neighbors by forcing us to vie for a few coveted spots of parking.”

Batavia resident Hayley Graham raised concerns about high school students taking parking spaces in front of homes and how services such as landscapers, garbage collection or mail delivery would be affected, but said her main concern is safety.

“It’s apparent to me that the safety of the hypothetical bikers is being outweighed by the safety of the kids in the neighborhood” Graham said. “The street is already very busy. People are flying down. No one is respecting the 25-mph speed limit and you have semis going down the street. Why are there semis going down Millview? If you want to improve the safety of Millview and make it more bike-friendly, eliminate the thoroughfare of Millview to semis and commercial vehicles.”

The frustrations of residents were apparent at multiple times during the public comment portion of the meeting.

Batavia resident Charlie Corey argued that the changes would not enhance safety for those who live on Millview Drive and will make it less safe for those who will lose parking on their side of the street.

“If I live on the east side and have the requirement to park on the west side, guess what? I’ve got to cross Millview. Well, that doesn’t enhance my safety,” Corey said. “You’re going to have kids, parents and all sorts of traffic crossing busy Millview. That’s not enhancing safety. This whole program is a farce.”

After public comment, council members continued the discussion among themselves for more than an hour. Some members wanted to see more data collected before changes were made. Others suggested retaining the parking but adding road sharing symbols rather than lanes.

Alderman Tim Lanci raised concerns over the lack of data they had collected on the number of cyclists who use the route, the number of vehicles that regularly use the street parking and the additional costs that would be associated with the new striping.

Alderman Abby Beck was not in favor of putting off the change and said they need to make a decision based on their vision for the future and what will be most equitable for residents.

“We don’t know the historic counts of how many cyclists are on this road, but we’re talking now of what our vision is of this city for the future,” Beck said. “We also have to consider the fact that there are residents of this town that we represent who are too old, too young, not able-bodied or too poor to own a car and they are entitled to the same ease of moving around this city as those of us that can afford, are young enough, are rich enough, are able-bodied enough to drive a car. ... If it is true that you do support cycling, then this is the path forward to doing that.”

By the end of the discussion, the conversation shifted to how far along Millview the bike lanes should be marked. It eventually came down to a straw poll in which council members were asked to decide whether the bike lanes beginning at Main Street should end at Ellen Lane or at the north end of Towne Avenue.

The poll resulted in a 10-4 vote in favor of striping bike lanes from Main Street to the north end of Towne Avenue. Aldermen Christopher Sulfa, George Ajazi, Mark Uher and Nicholas Cirone voted no.

The rest of Millview Drive between the north end of Towne Avenue south to Route 31 will be striped the way it was and data will be collected over the next year before the second phase of resurfacing and restriping is implemented.

At the request of a resident, council members agreed to send a letter to residents on Millview Drive explaining their decision and asking for feedback on how it is working before the next phase.

Council members also agreed to coordinate with the Batavia Police Department to more strictly enforce parking restrictions for high school students and to monitor the use of Millview Drive by semitrailers.