Batavia officials approve bike and pedestrian plan

The Batavia City Council approved a new bicycle and pedestrian plan at its Monday night meeting.

The new plan is the first step to make city infrastructure more accessible to bike and pedestrian traffic, and lower pedestrian-related injuries and accidents.

According to meeting documents, recommendations from the plan would include the installation of new sidewalks, expand existing off-street trails and side paths and make neighborhoods and downtown areas more interconnected.

“I want to thank our partners in all of this,” said Batavia City Administrator Laura Newman. “Primarily the consultants that we utilized I think are among the best in our region at assisting communities like ours in developing plans of action, not just plans of words.”

“I’d also like to recognize our Batavia Bicycle Commission,” Newman said. “They were instrumental, really the big motivating force for us having a bike plan to begin with.”

The city of Batavia and the Batavia Bike Commission hired consulting services from the non-profits Active Transportation Alliance and Ride Illinois to update the original 2007 Bike Plan, now known as the City of Batavia Bike and Pedestrian Plan, according to meeting documents.

“The recommendations in this plan are very specific, [and] give us some tremendous goals to accomplish together over the next 10 years,” Newman said.

Prior to the vote, the city conducted public outreach for the plan through site-visits, stakeholder meetings and surveys that drew over 600 responses, according to meeting documents.

“Myself and the police department are very much of the opinion that we’re going to have to take some stronger enforcement on bicycle riding in the downtown, especially on the sidewalks,” said Batavia Mayor Jefferey Schielke. “Overall, this is a great plan, and we’re going to try and fine tune it.”

Batavia had 24 pedestrian car crashes between 2016 and 2020, according to meeting documents.

“I think it lays out a lot of very easy, achievable improvements to our roadways, our sidewalks, our intersections to make it, as our mission statement says, ‘Make this place safe and comfortable for all users, regardless of age, ability and mode of transportation’,” said Alderman Abby Beck.