Back in January, Covington and Newport voted to participate in a planning effort led by nonprofit Tristate Trails to create safer infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists.
Now, Covington residents can get an update on feedback their neighbors have given during the planning process and progress toward a finished design.
The city and nonprofit will hold a virtual meeting Monday from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. to discuss the ongoing planning. You can register for the meeting at this link.
The planning efforts come after years of calls for more bike lanes and other safety measures in both cities. Those demands intensified in August 2022 when a car hit and killed cyclist Gloria San Miguel on the 11th Street Bridge between Newport and Covington.
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Newport City Manager Tom Fromme said in January that the city has had its eye on the issue for a while now.
"It was obviously a horrific incident," he said. "It did cause some thinking (into) what could be done to mitigate this — in other words, improving bicycle and pedestrian safety."
The memorandum of understanding between the cities and Tri-State Trails approving planning efforts is good for one year, but could be extended.
Bicycling and pedestrian safety advocacy group Devou Good Foundation is funding the process. President Matt Butler says it will include a lot of input from the community.
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"What we'll be looking for is fully separated and protected bike lanes," he told WVXU in January. "We're not looking for sharrows (markings on regular road lanes). We're looking for infrastructure that will keep people safe and induce more people to ride bikes."
Public comment on the process will be open until Nov. 13.