Houston to turn portion of busy street into bike lane

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- The city of Houston is turning a significant portion of a downtown street into a connector route for bike riders. The route will go from Sam Houston Park, down Lamar Street to Discovery Green.

The city's first on-street protected bike lanes will run three quarters of a mile along Lamar Street.

"We're trying to connect Discovery Green to another fantastic park in Houston, which is Buffalo Bayou Park," said Laura Spanjian, Houston Director of Sustainability. "We have a great off-street bike infrastructure network. What we don't have is an on-street network connecting to off-street. So we want to put more infrastructure on our streets so that people feel safer when they're making those connections to our off-street."

To make room for what the city is calling the Park Connector, they'll have to get rid of a parking lane on Lamar. Some people say this is great for the city's growing cycling population, and but others say, not so much.

Bicyclist Lonn Vazquez said, "It's dangerous out here with these doggone cars. They'll run you over. You need to be barricaded somewhere where the cars know they can't go."

"What that does is that gives cyclists an extra degree of security and protection form the cars in the area, and makes them feel more comfortable. And it will get more people out cycling and improve the experience," adds Bike Houston Executive Director Michael Payne.

"It's just going to make everything more crowded, and more accidents...that's going to be crazy. It's bad enough with all the construction," says Amanda Uhl.

Laura Spanjian says this two-way bike street is scheduled to be open for riding in October.