MANSFIELD, Ohio — The Mansfield City Bike Loop is now more than just an idea. Volunteer contractors from the Ohio Contractor’s Association put paint to pavement on Monday and continued through the week.
The two contractors used a stencil to paint sharrows on Rowland Avenue and Sixth Street beginning on Monday. Glen Thomas, a Kokosing contractor volunteering on the project, said Wednesday they will likely not complete painting all 226 sharrows until next spring.
Sharrow is short-form for “shared lane bicycle marking.”
“The weather is going to just get colder,” said Thomas. The paint, he explained, cannot dry under freezing and wet conditions.
Richland Moves! Chairman Nelson Shogren is glad for the progress in the project, despite its late start.
“It’s late in the season but at least we’re getting paint on the ground,” he said. “Each warm day we get is kind of like a blessing. It’s a start.”
The 122 signs, galvanized posts and five signs that read “Bikes May Use Full Lanes” will also be installed at a later date, said Shogren.
Richland Moves! member and Richland Health Department Health Educator Melissa Culler said the signs and posts will be installed by different contractors within the OCA.
Contractors Thomas and Daniel Craner said they have worked an average of nine hours since Monday. Progress is slow because they have to paint the shadows on both sides of each designated street. And there are guidelines to follow, said Thomas.
Each sharrow needs to be spaced apart by 250 feet. If the street has curb-side parking, the sharrow must be spaced 11 feet from the curb; if the street does not permit curb-side parking, the sharrow must be spaced four feet from the curb, explained Thomas.
Richland Moves! has been the sole proprietor of the Mansfield bike loop project. Since the OCA volunteered their time, Culler said she and her co-worker Karyl Price wanted to make them feel welcome.
“We thought it would be appropriate to reach out to them with lunch as a thank you to them for their effort on the project,” said Culler.
The 5.73 mile loop designates certain city streets as bike routes with the placement of appropriate signs and road stencils called sharrows. It does not involve road-widening, painting of lanes, placement of lane-division curbs or other physical construction.
