The Montana Department of Transportation has recently reconstructed the Rouse Avenue corridor. At the intersection of Peach Street and Rouse, MDT has taken away the existing bike lanes on Peach Street to install two additional vehicle lanes.
Strava’s Global Heatmap shows that Peach Street is the most significant E-W corridor for cyclists anywhere East of 19th Avenue. This is an essential connection for cyclists to access the businesses located in the Northeast Neighborhood and connection to our regional trail system, including the path to the M.
This situation is dangerous for cyclists and completely unacceptable.
Any intersection that requires cyclists to ride in mixed traffic fails to meet a standard of “appropriate for all ages and abilities” and fails to support Bozeman’s goal of improving multimodal accessibility.
Given the importance of this corridor, the City of Bozeman should not only fix this intersection, but should improve the safety and comfort of Peach Street for cyclists by removing the seldom-used parking on the north curb of Peach Street and installing proper buffered or separated bike lanes from 7th to Rouse.
This intersection must be fixed to provide safe passage for cyclists on Peach Street to cross Rouse Avenue. Removing car storage for a half-dozen vehicles to improve the safety and comfort of a heavily used bicycle corridor at the same time just makes sense.
