Would you cross the Newport Pell Bridge on bike? A new study will examine the possibility

Could someone living in South Kingstown take their bike to their job in Newport? Not as it is now, but a new federally funded study could open up the possibilities of making the Pell and Verrazzano bridges bike and pedestrian-friendly.

In March, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse announced that he helped secure $59.2 million in direct federal funding for 38 Rhode Island projects through a bipartisan minibus package of six fiscal 2024 appropriations bills. While one of the largest and most publicized projects included in this list was a $5 million grant for repairs to the Cliff Walk, a smaller project, labeled “feasibility study,” for the Pell and Verrazzano Bridges, was also included.

This $1.48 million feasibility study will investigate the possibility of adding bicycle lanes to both bridges, something Bike Newport and Whitehouse have been interested in for years. In 2021, Whitehouse and Bike Newport worked alongside graduate students from the Rhode Island School of Design to imagine how bike and pedestrian-friendly paths on the Pell Bridge might look.

“It’s a very exciting moment and we’re extremely grateful to Senator Whitehouse for shepherding this and President Biden for signing it,” Bike Newport Executive Director Bari Freeman said.

The conversation surrounding bike path on Pell Bridge goes back even further, including preliminary plans from the Rhode Island Bridge and Turnpike Authority in 2018 which concluded that adding pedestrian and bike access across the Pell, Verrazzano and Mount Hope bridges could be possible, but could cost between $25 and $50 million to complete.

These new federal funds for a new feasibility study will actually go to the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, which will distribute the funds to Bike Newport. It’s currently early in the process, with Bike Newport currently looking into who might be the best team to conduct the study.

“Whoever gets hired to do this is going to be given access to everything that’s happened until now, and that includes the RISD studies and other conversations, and there will be more community engagement and input,” Freeman said. “It’s going to be a very thorough study.”

Freeman anticipates wind as the main challenge that would impact bicyclists on a future possible Pell and Verrazzano bridge bike paths but said the RISD designs already considered wind as a factor.

“The first thing I see is opportunities,” Freeman said. “People need to be able to go across. They need to be able to do it in their own time on their own terms and not to have to schedule something in advance. That connectivity is going to be incredible.”

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Federal funds support bike path feasibility study on bridges