Hoover residents share ideas for bicycle, pedestrian paths

Building bicycle lanes in high-traffic corridors and on hilly roads and building sidewalks from neighborhoods to schools and parks were among the ideas Hoover residents shared tonight at a public input meeting in Heatherwood.

About three dozen people showed up at the Heatherwood Hills Country Club for the first of two citywide meetings scheduled this week for residents to view the city’s bicycle and pedestrian plan and share ideas for improvement.

Mike McCown, a resident of the Kirkman Preserve subdivision off Caldwell Mill Road, said he would love to see sidewalks built to connect his neighborhood with Spain Park High School and Veterans Park. There’s already a sidewalk to Berry Middle School, but it stops there, he said.

He’d also love to see a sidewalk going all the way to Rocky Ridge Elementary School, he said.

McCown said he likes that city officials are planning to build a 3.5-mile sidewalk along Valleydale Road between Caldwell Mill Road and Inverness Center Drive. He frequently sees people walking along Valleydale as cars pass by at 50 mph, and it doesn’t seem too safe, he said.

Tim Westhoven, the city’s chief operations officer, said the city has acquired about 60 to 70 percent of the rights of way needed to make the Valleydale sidewalk and road widening project a reality, and it is working on the rest.

That project has been in the works for nearly 20 years, and some people thought they’d never see it come to fruition, but city officials are getting closer on it, Westhoven said. The current target date to begin construction is 2020.

“That’s a massive project. That’s one of the biggest ones the city has planned,” he said.

Close by, government officials just today closed on the next-to-last land acquisition needed for the 1.8-mile Inverness greenway project from Valleydale Road to the Inverness nature park, Westhoven said. That leaves only one more right of way to acquire. Construction should start by the first of 2018, City Engineer Rodney Long said.

People who came to tonight’s public input meeting had a chance to look at large maps laid out on tables, which showed existing sidewalks, sidewalks that are planned and funded and proposed sidewalks that have not yet had money allocated. People were encouraged to make notes and marks on the maps to show where they would like to see more sidewalks, bicycle lanes or paths.

Other pedestrian paths planned include a 1-mile sidewalk extension on Chapel Road; a 1-mile sidewalk along Patton Chapel Road between Gwin Elementary and Crayrich Drive; 1.4 miles of sidewalks on various streets in Bluff Park; a .75-mile sidewalk along Valleydale Road between U.S. 31 and Riverchase Parkway East; a 2.5-mile sidewalk along John Hawkins Parkway between U.S. 31 and the entrance to Cahaba River Estates; and an off-road trail off Old Montgomery Highway between the Cahaba River and Riverchase Elementary.

Some of the other pedestrian paths that have been proposed but not funded include a trail along the Cahaba River; a sidewalk and/or trail going from Caldwell Mill Road along Altadena Woods Drive and through a forested area to Hoover Sports Park East; and a path from Hoover Sports Park East along the Cahaba River and up a creek to the Hoover dog park at Loch Haven.

Ideas people put on sticky notes on tonight’s map included:

• Adding bike routes and sidewalks from Heatherwood Hills Country Club to Caldwell Mill Road and throughout the Spain Park High School and Berry Middle School complex
• Adding bike lanes along U.S. 31 connecting Pelham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Homewood and Birmingham
• Adding a bike route along Alford Avenue and/or Shades Crest Road
• Adding a bike route from U.S. 31 along Southland Drive and Hackberry Lane
• Adding sidewalks along Atkins-Trimm Boulevard and Al Seier Drive
• Adding a sidewalk and bike route along Chapel Lane
• Adding bike lanes along Old Montgomery Highway, between John Hawkins Parkway and Alabama 261, particularly in the uphill areas.

Mitch Moses, a Riverchase resident and cyclist, said the bike lanes both keep cyclists safer and keep vehicle traffic from having to wait behind slower cyclists. Putting a bike lane on the uphill areas would be much like the truck lanes that are built in mountainous areas, he said.

Moses said he feels penned in his neighborhood when it comes to bike riding. He can get out of his neighborhood, but he feels uncomfortable riding along Old Montgomery Highway unless it’s a weekend or in the middle of the day when people are at work, he said.

McCown said he’s not a bike rider, but he can understand why people want them. Some other metropolitan areas have made a concentrated effort to build bike lanes, and “it seems like other cities are way ahead of us,” McCown said.

Dwight and Melissa Brisendine, residents of Altadena Woods, were out walking tonight along Altadena Woods Drive (where there is no sidewalk) and said they would like to see sidewalks there and along Caldwell Mill Road and Jaguar Drive, going to Veterans Park. “It can be dangerous,” Dwight Brisendine said.

Mountain Brook has done a great job of building sidewalks for their residents, but Mountain Brook is much more compact than Hoover, he said.

“Hoover is so spread out,” Brisendine said. “It would be nice to have them, but it would probably be expensive.”

Another public input meeting just like tonight’s meeting is scheduled for Thursday night at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. City officials are encouraging people to come share their thoughts and fill out a survey.

The map showing current, planned and proposed sidewalks and bike paths also is available online at aecomconnect.com/hooverada.

The survey is at surveymonkey.com/r/95HQFGB.