Covington is set to vote on a plan expanding and connecting cycling infrastructure in Covington and Newport next week, following Newport’s approval of their end of the plan this week.
Discussions of the plan date back to January of 2023, and Tri-State Trails, the Cincinnati-based transit nonprofit that furnished the plan, presented it to the commission about a year later in January 2024. The plan, which you can read here, surveyed the existing bike infrastructure in the city and offered ideas to make changes. The study was funded by the Devou Good Foundation, a nonprofit that also focuses heavily on transit reform.
Covington deferred a vote on the plan in March to allow the commissioners more time to assess the plan and coordinate with officials in Newport. At the time, Covington Mayor Joe Meyer was unsure if the city could commit to implementing the plan as presented.
“This is a good plan. It’s very very comprehensive and identifies a lot of issues,” Meyer said in March. “My questions have to do with the city’s capacity to commit to implementation.”
In addition to infrastructure recommendations, the plan recommends some policy and operational changes to create a more bike-friendly city overall. These include making a dedicated line item for bike infrastructure in the city budget, expanding the public bike share program, creating dedicated detours for cyclists to circumvent construction projects and road closures as well as generally expanding education and advocacy for cycling, among other measures.
Tri-State Trails Executive Director Wade Johnston laid out some of the infrastructural recommendations when he presented the plan in January. The recommendations incorporated discussion from meetings with a steering committee as well as several rounds of public comments.
“So the best facilities that we always try to advocate for are trails fully separated from cars,” Johnston said in January, “but we know that you all have a very historic and narrow street grid, so it’s not always possible to create those types of facilities.”
The next best options, Johnston said, were protected bike lanes, which provide dedicated spaces for riders, followed by conventional bike lanes, which are more integrated into car traffic than protected lanes and, finally, bicycle boulevards, which rely on signage to warn drivers of frequent bike traffic.
Bicycle safety has been on the minds of Covington residents in 2024. The death of 26-year-old Jonathon Hussing, who died after being struck by a charter bus in April while on his bike, led to outcry among transit reformers and residents. Several infrastructure improvements in the region, such as the redesign of the 4th Street Bridge connecting Newport and Covington, have incorporated mixed-use bike paths in an effort to increase cyclist safety.
Covington City Manager Ken Smith informed the commission that the plan had few substantive changes since March and stressed the city had wiggle room in how it implemented the plan’s recommendations.
“Nothing in it is guaranteed,” Smith said, “and we will evaluate each thing as it comes along for implementation.”
Brad Bowers, project manager with Tri State Trails, affirmed this on Tuesday.
“Some of the bigger changes were just allowing a little bit more flexibility,” Bowers said, explaining the plan would allow the city to “not really be sort of locked into anything, but be a little more flexible with how they can implement the bike infrastructure.”
There was little discussion of the plan among the commissioners, although Commissioners Steve Hayden and Ron Washington both commended the Devou Good Foundation for paying for it.
“I think we really ended up with something that both cities can use as a roadmap to further implement bike infrastructure that’s safe and connected for people of all ages and all abilities,” Bowers said.
The plan was placed on the consent agenda for the next city commission meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 27, where the commission will cast its final vote. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. at Covington City Hall on Pike Street.