Letter: Bike lane designs are inconsistent

The city added bike lanes to keep cyclists and motorists separated and safer by allocating designated space for each on the road. I can handle bike lanes, what I can't handle is the inconsistency of the design. There is no rhyme or reason to the layout.

Nothing is more confusing in this town when it comes to traffic and streets than bike lanes. Cedar Rapids has three main configurations for bikes - protected bike lanes, traditional bike lanes and shared bike lanes. No wonder folks don't like to shop downtown - it's a total nightmare knowing where to park, where to drive, which streets are one way and when they switch back to two-ways. Some streets must put in bike lanes and yet other streets don't have to have bike lanes installed. There are even streets where you are driving down and suddenly there are three lanes - one lane for car traffic, next to that is a lane in the middle of the street to park and then a bike lane that runs next to the curb. Crazy.

Please tell me we didn't pay someone to come up with this nightmare.

Mary A. Craig

Cedar Rapids