Rolling Hills Protected Bike Lane Pilot

Project Overview

In November 2018, Fayetteville joined Springdale and Siloam Springs in a 12-month “Protected Bike Lane Pilot Project” funded by the Walton Family Foundation. BikeNWA, a Northwest Arkansas region bicycling advocacy organization, designed and planned the lane installations in cooperation with consultants and the staff from the three cities.

The pilot program concluded at the end of 2019. The black bumpers used for the pilot will be replaced with rumble strips and reflectors until the planned improvements for Rolling Hills are completed in 2022. View future Rolling Hills improvements information.

The “test before you invest” intention of the pilot is for these temporary roadway retrofits to test the use of protected bike lanes to connect existing bicycling infrastructure such as trails and bike lanes. The goal of the pilot is to increase the level of comfort felt by bicyclists and ultimately, the number of riders. Data of bicycle counts as well as vehicle counts, and speeds were collected prior to the installation and will be compared to counts taken during the pilot period.

 In Fayetteville, two roads were chosen for the pilot:

• Rolling Hills Drive (between Old Missouri Road and N. College Avenue/Highway 71B)
• Appleby Road (between N. College Avenue/Highway 71B and the Razorback Greenway, near Gregg Avenue)

Both Rolling Hills Drive and Appleby Road received similar pavement painting, but have different physical barriers. The pavement paint includes:

• White striping on each side of the road, acting as a visual separator between bicyclists and drivers;
• Green pavement paint in “conflict areas,” such as driveways and intersections, acting as a strong visual reminder for both drivers and bicyclists to be attentive in the area.

Rolling Hills Drive, which is wider than Appleby Road, received three-foot-long wheel stops (similar to wheel stops in parking lots) on each side of the roadway in the white hatch-striped buffer areas. Appleby Road received white road reflectors (sometimes called raised pavement markers) on each side of the roadway on the white edge-striped area.

To learn how you can volunteer and more information about the Fayetteville or other pilot projects, please visit this BikeNWA webpage.