By KEVIN PROFT/ecoRI News staff

PROVIDENCE — Once the city's six bicycle-lane projects are completed this year, no additional bike-path projects are planned, either through the state Department of Transportation (DOT) or the city's planning department. DOT does plan to complete a signing project on the Northwest Bike Trail from Francis Street in Providence to Lyman Street in Johnston during spring 2016.

According to Robert Azar, the city's director of planning, bike paths in Providence are only considered in situations where roadwork is planned and conditions are right for such a lane. There currently is no protocol for identifying an area of bike-infrastructure need and adding that project to a list based on its individual merits, he said.

Azar said Bike Providence, the city’s 7-year-old bike master plan, is out of date and needs to be upgraded so it better aligns with current thinking concerning bicycling infrastructure. The plan was fully implemented in 2008, and the final project of the original plan was completed in fall 2011 with the striping of bike lanes on Broadway. He said bicycling thinking has evolved since Bike Providence was finalized in fall 2011 and that the city is headed toward more proactively adding bike infrastructure than it was ready to do previously.

Azar predicted that the Providence Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) will likely become a vehicle to more proactively identify specific bike path and infrastructure opportunities even when a lane is unrelated to upcoming road work. He cited Dean Street, where it crosses over the 6-10 Connector, as a street that the public and BPAC have identified as being an area unsafe for biking.

ecoRI News has reported on a variety of planned bicycle lanes and paths in Providence during the past two years, but none have come to fruition. Here is an update on each project:

Broadway to Kennedy Plaza. At a July 2013 public meeting about phase 3 of the Downtown Circulator Project, Azar discussed connecting the eastern terminus of Broadway’s existing bike lane to Kennedy Plaza.

Azar, who spoke at a recent BPAC meeting, said the plan would be implemented during “the coming construction season.”

Azar said sharrows will escort eastbound cyclists on Broadway over I-95 and through a safer, redesigned intersection at Lasalle Square — in front of the Hasbro Building and Trinity Brewhouse — to Fountain Street. Once on Fountain Street, a 0.2-mile buffered bike lane, the city’s first, will provide bicyclers safe passage to Dorrance Street. The buffer will probably be built of budget-friendly planters rather than an expensive curb, according to Azar. Sharrows will resume on Dorrance Street to move bikers the rest of the way to Kennedy Plaza.