DELLFORD — The city of Dellford has completed construction on a 0.4-mile protected bike lane along Crestmoor Avenue, a tree-lined residential street that local residents describe, with some consistency, as "the last place on Earth you would ride a bicycle."

The $2.3 million project, funded through a federal Active Transportation grant, removed 47 metered parking spaces serving an apartment corridor whose 340 households were surveyed and found to own, collectively, 412 registered motor vehicles and zero bicycles.

"This is exactly the kind of forward-thinking infrastructure investment that changes behavior," said Dellford Director of Multimodal Futures Brendan Osse at a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by six city officials and one confused terrier. "People don't cycle here because there's no bike lane. Now there's a bike lane. The math is quite simple."

Residents have described the math as not simple.

"I have lived on this street for eleven years. I have seen a raccoon, I have seen a moving truck catch fire, and I have seen a child ride a scooter exactly once. I have never seen a bicycle." — Patricia Welmuth, Crestmoor Avenue resident

The lane, which is separated from traffic by a row of flexible delineator posts painted a cheerful yellow, runs from the intersection of Crestmoor and Dunbar to the intersection of Crestmoor and Dunbar's dead end, which terminates at a concrete retaining wall belonging to a regional sewage authority. Cyclists wishing to continue their journey must dismount, carry their bicycle up a flight of stairs, and re-enter traffic on Route 9, a six-lane arterial highway with no shoulder.

Dr. Fenwick Prall, Senior Research Associate for Aspirational Mobility Studies at the Dellford Institute for Urban Possibility, called the project "a landmark example of edificatory placemaking." He added that initial ridership projections estimate the lane will serve between two and four cyclists per day by 2031, assuming broader cultural shifts in the American relationship to car dependency, declining parking elsewhere in the metro area, and "a certain amount of luck."

The city has addressed concerns about the removed parking by noting that a public garage is available three blocks away, costs $18 per day, and closes at 8 p.m.

Forty-three of the forty-seven displaced parking permits belonged to residents of the Crestmoor Arms apartment complex, whose lease agreements guaranteed street parking access. The city's legal team confirmed this week that the permits were "advisory in nature," a position they expect to defend in court as early as March.

Construction crews are currently breaking ground on phase two of Dellford's Active Streets Initiative: a protected pedestrian promenade on the Route 9 arterial highway, where the city reports foot traffic of up to twelve people annually, and where parking has again been identified for removal.