West State Road resident Mike Snyder spoke during public comment time at the Hastings City Council Monday, commenting on the new bike lanes.

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m a biker myself, I ride bike trails and I’ve ridden bikes to Chicago and Cleveland, all over the place.”

“The way the bike trails are laid out, especially on State Road, it’s very dangerous. I see the traffic go by there every day, I see the heavy trucks, I see stones pouring off the gravel trucks, I see limbs hanging on the side right next to where the bike paths are…and it’s a heavy traffic area. I think they should have taken a better look at that area before they put the lines down.”

Snyder said he routinely backed into his driveway when he needed to in the past, “now if I do that, I stop traffic. I’m getting a lot of birds, I’ll tell you that right now…maybe a couple of fists.”

It’s 97 feet across the road there, he said.  “The main lanes were way over 12 feet, they are now 9 ½ feet; the standard lane width is 12 feet…when I measured inside to inside, it was nine and a half feet…that’s not very much room when there’s a bike riding on the side there,” he said.

Also, he said the parking should be on the north side where there are twelve driveways, instead of the south side, which has two or three driveways.

He said if city officials had come and talked to the people who live on the street, they could have given them a better idea of what goes up and down the street. “I just with you would do something about it. I know it’s too late for this year, we’ve just got to live with it.”

Councilwoman Brenda McNabb-Stange said bicyclists bear responsibility to operate a bike safely, citing recent instances where she saw two bikers disregarding the rules of the road.