The West End Business Association and the City of Staunton hosted a meeting about the new bike lanes on the West End Tuesday night to provide education and information to the community.
“This is a start. You have to start somewhere to meet the needs of everyone in a community. I’m excited,” Staunton City Council member and Virginia Department of Transportation Transportation Planner Adam Campbell said.
The city is in the process of determining where to install 30 bicycle racks for resident use.
Campbell explained rules for bicyclists to use the bike lanes, as well as for vehicle drivers to navigate city streets with bike lanes. He said drivers should treat the lanes as solid white lines, which means do not cross into the bike lanes. Sidewalks are for pedestrians until a sidewalk is not available, then pedestrians may walk in the bike lanes.
Bicyclists must follow road travel rules. As Campbell said, the rule is that vehicles yield for bicyclists and pedestrians and bicyclists yield for pedestrians. Bicyclists have full use of travel lanes on West Beverley Street.
“West Beverley [Street] is our city’s very first bike lane. We’re super excited about it. It had hiccups along the way, but that happens with any transportation project,” Staunton City Planner Susan Wilson, who has nearly 30 years of experience in transportation planning, said. Wilson has worked at the state and city level and, before coming to Staunton in June 2025, worked for the United States Department of Transportation.
As repaving was done on West Beverley Street from city limits on the West End to West Frederick Street, the city had the opportunity to add bike and pedestrian lanes, sharrows and ADA-compliant sidewalks. The intersection of Morris Mill Road and West Beverley Street was improved to provide better safety for drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists.
The second Staunton street to have bike lanes installed was 2.6 miles of Churchville Avenue, between Shutterlee Mill Road and Lewis Street. “And we are equally excited about this one as well,” Wilson said.
The intersection of Spring Hill Road and Churchville Avenue created the most feedback, according to Wilson. As on West Beverley Street at the intersection with Thornrose Avenue and at Food Lion, left-turn lanes were removed after repaving and residents have expressed unfavorable opinions of the changes.
“This wasn’t just us brainstorming and thinking this was a good idea without looking at any data and analyzing the situation,” Wilson said of removing the left-turn lanes.
Bike lanes on Churchville Avenue make Gypsy Hill Park accessible for bicyclists now.
“We hear from a lot of people that they are using this to be able to access the park whether it’s on this side or going around to the front [of Gypsy Hill Park],” Wilson said.
Public forums were held and presentations made to city council in the years leading up to installation of bike lanes in 2025. Signage on West Beverley Street and Churchville Avenue also changed from “Bicyclists may use full lane” to “Bicyclists have full use of lane.”
“We really wanted to let people know that bicyclists are allowed the full use of the lane whenever they are travelling,” Wilson said.
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According to Campbell, who has been with VDOT for 11 years, a portion of the funding for the bike lanes came from VDOT.
“In the last half of the 20th Century when suburbs exploded and the automobile took off, roads were designed more and more to accommodate to get from point A to point B as fast as possible,” he said of the reason for adding bike lanes.
However, in the 21st Century, cities must rethink access for all: pedestrians, wheelchairs, bicycles, scooters and vehicles. The goal is not just for vehicles to get from point A to point B quickly. More travel lanes lead to more vehicle crashes and more stormwater runoff.
“Bicycles and pedestrians really became an afterthought in roadway planning in the last half of the 20th Century,” Campbell said.
Early in the public input process, Staunton found that a priority of the community was bicycle and pedestrian access to city streets, which will be “a top goal going forward” for the city.
“Bike and ped infrastructure have consistently been at the top with the exception of the last couple years with affordable housing,” Campbell said.
Data from the Staunton, Augusta County, Waynesboro Metropolitan Planning Organization (SAWMPO) reveals that 6.1 percent of households do not own a vehicle, and the frequency of lack of transportation increases on Staunton’s West End.
“So again we’re looking at just improving access to our neighborhood schools, our parks, our businesses and our public services,” Campbell said.
Thirty-six percent of Staunton public input was transportation-related, according to Campbell, so a Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee was formed in January 2015. A bicycle and pedestrian plan was adopted in 2018 and the Greenway Plan was adopted in 2020 to “compliment” the bike and pedestrian plan. Timmons Group was hired to collect traffic data, analyze intersection operations and review crash data.
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Churchville Avenue’s average daily trips of vehicles is 7,400 to 9,700. West Beverley Street has between 4,700 and 7,400 average daily trips.
Staunton was allotted $5.66 million from VDOT for transportation activities in fiscal year 2025, Campbell said.
As with any new project, Staunton learned a few important lessons with repaving West Beverly Street and Churchville Avenue. Campbell said the timing of Churchville Avenue should have been adjusted to a couple of weeks later, after local public schools began summer break. The repaving project on Churchville Avenue created traffic congestion when buses were traveling to and from Shelburne Middle School and A.R. Ware Elementary School on the West End of the city.
“Staunton is small enough in size that, if we make investments in biking and walking, that people can replace trips [with biking or walking] and be able to access really almost anything that they want to do within 15 minutes,” Wilson said.
Repaving and adding bike lanes on West Beverley Street, Wilson said, was possible because the existing pavement width allowed for a reconfiguration. Benefits include reduction of vehicle versus bicycles crashes. The bike lanes provide added benefits of increasing user comfort on bicycles and providing alternatives for pedestrians to move from point A to point B within the city.
Bike lanes provide a city economic benefits, including an increase in entry-level employment opportunities for youth because “you provide great access to jobs.” Bike lanes provide better access to businesses with New York City‘s retail experiencing a 49 percent increase after installation of bike lanes. Wilson said that shoppers who travel by bicycle spend as much as shoppers who travel by vehicle.
Increased property values, an increase in tourism revenue, increased access and options for everyone, reduced transportation costs for residents and reduced medical costs are also benefits.
Most importantly, bike lanes provide improved safety in a city.
ICYMI: West End repaving news
- Staunton: Improvements in West End include sidewalks, paving
- Staunton: West Beverley sidewalk, repaving project resumes April 14
- Staunton: Milling, paving of multiple city streets begins Wednesday
According to Wilson, data is not yet available on possible average daily trips to and from the new Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on the West End that has been under construction and is scheduled to open in November. Campbell said the facility is considered a low-traffic generator.
The next project will be a sidewalk on Edgewood Road, which connects Coalter and Augusta streets. A design has just begun. VDOT has awarded $3.6 million in SMART Scale funding and the city has applied for $1.1 million in VDOT Revenue Sharing funding.
“It’s needed for this project,” Wilson said.
A second project will be a road diet on Greenville Avenue, which will go from five lanes to three lanes from Statler Boulevard to Commerce Road and be funded with $3.7 million of SMART Scale.
Other projects are a greenway along Commerce Road made possible with $5 million of SMART Scale funding. Wilson said the greenway would follow along Lewis Creek between Greenville Avenue and Statler Boulevard. A streetscape for Churchville Avenue will be made possible with $2.2 million of VDOT revenue sharing in front of ShenanArts outside the front entrance to Gypsy Hill Park.
Wilson said improvements are also planned for nine intersections in downtown Staunton on Beverley and Johnson streets.
“I’m super excited about those,” she said.
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Rebecca Barnabi
