The City of Columbia is preparing for its pedestrian and biker survey to calculate priority areas in the city that improvement. The department of planning with the City is examining 30 areas in the city.
This will help evaluate where the city needs to make improvements for residents who walk and bike around town.
The department said it needs your help to do that.
“These surveys they really help us determine what’s needed, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure will be located. And we’re looking for volunteers to help us out," Shane Shaunessy with the planning department.
The project is hyper-focused on making improvements so that people feel safer in the city. A few pedestrians spoke with News 19 about the improvements they'd like to see.
“I used to ride my bike to school when I was going to USC and if it was a street that didn’t really necessarily have a lane for that I would be too scared to ride my bike in that area," Columbia resident, Katherine Epting said.
“I feel like should make a bike lane, especially that bridge over there. There definitely need to be a bike lane because that bridge is only but so big,” Alaysia Brown-Kelly said.
While the planning department accepts suggestions, the plan is to act on the necessities for citizens.
“The cost will obviously be determined by the project that’s kind of why this data is needed to prioritize where those locations are,” Shane said.
This project will use tax-payer dollars.
“I think it’s super important we have a ton of students walking around, riding their bikes," Epting said.
“So that would be worth your money, yeah,” Brown-Kelly said.
The department will begin accepting suggestions September 10th and will close the suggestions on September 24th.
If you're interested in participating in the survey, head to the City of Columbia website to sign-up.