The Salisbury Planning Board is forming a new committee to discuss a bikeway system through the city.
Senior Planner Harold Poole and Dan Mikkelson, city engineer, asked for volunteers to serve on the committee and said their first goal would be to establish a bicycle route map.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation has told Salisbury officials the city is next on the waiting list to have a project funded, and it’s time to get the ball rolling.
The mapping stage will allow planners to see what routes already exist and then make plans for construction, integrating new routes with the ones currently in place.
The construction, Mikkelson said, will be funded primarily by the DOT.
Logistical problems and questions include the width of the street and the space for designated bicycle lanes, as well as traffic patterns and safety. For instance, a road with bicycle lanes must be kept clean via a street-sweeping program — something the breeze from passing cars typically handles and something that Salisbury doesn’t have in place right now. Bicycle lanes must be 4 feet wide, not including gutters and curb.
Few, if any, of Salisbury’s roads have room for those lanes, Mikkelson said.
Adding bikeway routes does not necessarily mean changing the striping on roads, so drivers won’t see anything different for a while.
Vice chairman Fred Dula said he is excited about the bikeway system and thinks that it “fits into what we think Salisbury should be.”
The board also recommended approval of Kevin Wilson’s rezoning request, but in a modified form.
Wilson had asked the board to classify a strip of land between Park Avenue and Bringle Ferry Road along I-85 as light industrial (M-1). The committee looking at the request instead recommended classifying the 14.5 acres as non-residential, low-intensity (B-1), and that motion passed unanimously.
The committee said the area’s lack of access, except through neighborhood streets, its location in a 100-year floodplain, and its shape and location, made it unsuitable for light industrial development.
Wilson said he was “very pleased” with the outcome, and thanked the board for taking the time to listen.
In other business, the legislative committee recommended changing the ordinance controlling the size and height of signs in front of commercial group developments.
The current ordinance reads that at least 40 percent of the sign must identify the name of the center, and that part could not contain any shop names, planners said.
The remaining 60 percent could be used to identify stores and shops, with no single location having less than 5 square feet nor more than 10 square feet.
They also recommended adding “carry-out/delivery” to the list of eating establishments covered under certain zoning types because those locations are similar to standard restaurants.
Both of those recommendations passed in the meeting.
Contact Michael Bostian at 704-797-4280 or mbostian@salisburypost.com
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