READER POLL: Bike lanes now extend to many Baltimore neighborhoods. And there are plans for more. Do you support the city’s bike lane effort?

Baltimore firmly jumped on the bike lane bandwagon when it added 10 miles in 2021. In a bike master plan from 2017, the city’s transportation department set a goal of creating a citywide network of bike infrastructure by adding 77 miles of bike lanes by 2022.

“In total we have just under 37 miles,” Director Corren Johnson told City Council last week. “We are making progress but not as great as we had planned.”

The increase in bike lanes has coincided with a drop in car crashes, according to data from state police.

“Separated lanes do double duty as traffic calming, which reduces the amount and severity of vehicle crashes. These crashes occur with other vehicles, pedestrians and other cyclists,” Johnson said. “It really is a safety issue, not a bike issue.”

Bike lanes have been a hot topic, as a series of letters to Baltimore Sun editors shows. And the Sun’s editorial board weighed in as well.

Tell us what you think. Do you support the city’s bike lane effort?

The Baltimore Sun reader poll is an unscientific survey in which website users volunteer their opinions on the subject of the poll.

To read the results of previous reader polls, click here.