CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Hundreds of people use the Little Sugar Creek Greenway every day but a new proposal could soon connect them to another trail through uptown Charlotte.
"This is something that you are going to be able to look out your cars and be proud of Charlotte," Jordan Moore of Sustain Charlotte said.
The nonprofit group Sustain Charlotte is pushing to add a protected bike lane through uptown.
"In my mind, I see Charlotte being a city of people on bicycles. It is the Copenhagen of the South," Moore said.
It's not like the bike lanes Charlotte has now. This one would be separated from the road by planters, curbs, parked cars or other barriers.
The group wants the lane to stretch from the Irwin Creek Greenway near the Third Ward to the Little Sugar Creek Greenway in Midtown.
The Charlotte City Council has given a preliminary green light to the project and is currently studying the best potential route.
But some commuters are worried the timing isn't right, considering all of the other transportation projects happening near Center City now.
The project could force more lanes and maybe roads to shut down while being built.
"We have enough going on with the light rail, we don't need all of that right now," Mike Moore, a commuter, said.
But the plan's director said now is the perfect time.
"There are a lot of buildings going up in uptown Charlotte and there are lanes being taken away all the time," Jordan Moore said. "I haven't seen too much of a bottlenecking once people figure out what's going on."
The study is still underway and no cost or timetable has been released yet.
Sustain Charlotte wants the City Council to officially approve the lane this year. Hundreds of people have signed a petition calling for it to be built.
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