By Dev Halloran
The Harbor City Council voted 6–3 Monday night to build a two-way protected bike lane along 1.4 miles of Water Street, from the Water Street Ferry Terminal to Dockside Stadium, after nearly three hours of public comment.
The lane will run on the harbor side of the street, separated from traffic by a concrete curb and planters. To make room, Water Street will go from four travel lanes to two, with left-turn lanes at six intersections. The plan removes 96 of the street’s 310 metered parking spaces and adds 24 loading zones for deliveries and pickups.
Construction is scheduled to start in March and finish by the end of August 2027, in stages so the street stays open. Crews will not work on days with events at the stadium. The project is expected to cost $4.2 million. A state safe-streets grant covers $2.8 million, and the rest will come from the city’s transportation fund.
Council Member Dana Whitfield, who sponsored the measure and whose District 2 includes downtown, pointed to city crash data. From 2021 through 2025, 47 crashes on Water Street injured people walking or biking, and two of those crashes were fatal, according to the city Department of Transportation.
“We have counted these crashes for years,” Whitfield said before the vote. “This is the first time we’ve voted to do something about them.”
Council Members Ray Castellano, Gloria Petrakis and Ben Ashworth voted no. Castellano said he supported safer crossings but not at the cost of parking and travel lanes on the city’s main waterfront street.
“On a game night, Water Street is already a parking lot,” Castellano said. “We just voted to make it a narrower one.”
Lena Fitzgerald, the city’s transportation director, told the council that traffic models showed rush-hour travel times on the corridor rising by about 90 seconds, and that the new left-turn lanes should reduce rear-end crashes. She said signals would be retimed for stadium events, and that police officers would keep directing traffic at the four busiest intersections on game nights, as they do now.
Businesses split
Sixty-one people spoke during public comment. Most of the business owners who spoke opposed the plan, citing lost parking in front of their shops.
Nora Haddad, who has run Haddad Hardware on Water Street for 31 years, said most of her customers drive. “People don’t carry a bag of concrete home on a bicycle,” she said. She asked for a loading zone on her block, and Whitfield said the department would review loading zone locations before the design is final.
Kevin Osei, a nurse at Harbor General Hospital who rides Water Street to work, said a driver opened a car door into his path near Calder Avenue in 2024. “I was lucky. I had a broken wrist,” he said. “I would like the next person not to need luck.”
What’s next
Mayor Celia Brandt has said she will sign the measure. The transportation department plans to finish the design by January and seek construction bids over the winter.
At its north end, the lane will connect to bike racks at the ferry terminal. Route 4 boats, which carry up to 24 bikes per sailing, remain out of service for repairs; Harbor City Transit has not yet announced a return date. A separate proposal to extend the lane north along Front Street has not been funded.