Jersey City plans to create 54.7 miles of bike lanes and shared bike routes as part of the city's 365 Days of Green initiative, Mayor Jerramiah Healy announced Thursday.

Besides expanding the number of bike lanes in the city, the bike plan would help merchants purchase bike racks at a discounted price.

City Planner Bob Cotter, Supervising Planner in the Mayor's Office Douglas Greenfeld and assistant city engineer Lee Klein joined Healy at the news conference.

Mayor Healy credited the city's young residents as a driving force behind the initiative.

“There's a new movement,” he said. “It's a new goal and we thank a lot of our new people who have come to Jersey City in the last 10 to 15 years and their youth and their energy and their ideas. We know they've done it in Newark and it's being done in Hoboken and we're going to do it here in Jersey City.”

The 54.7 miles of designated bike paths will include 35.2 miles of bike lanes and 19.5 miles of shared lanes marked with "sharrows": arrows and bike symbols painted in the middle of a street to indicate a cyclist can use the entire lane. The experimental bike lanes on Grove Street will be made permanent this spring.

“We're obviously not going to put them in high-density traffic areas,” Healy said. “But a lot of our side streets can accommodate bike lanes and we intend to do that.”

Although each neighborhood will have bike lanes, a large proportion of the lanes will be located in the Journal Square and Downtown areas.

The city has applied for a $1.4 million grant from the state Department of of Transportation to fund the program.

The project will be be implemented gradually each year until the city is saturated with bike lanes, Cotter said.

Sheree Davis, a state Department of Transportation representative from the Office of Bicycle and Pedestrian Programs, praised the city for its Complete Streets initiative.

“There is passing a policy, but more better and more sweeter is implementing that policy,” Davis said. “The bike lane and bike sharrow program is essential, not only for the city but for the state. We commend Jersey City for actually implementing this and putting their money where their mouth is.”

In addition to bike lanes, Healy has submitted revisions of cycling ordinances to the City Council for consideration at its Dec. 19 meeting. Some of the revisions include adding bicycle passenger safety requirements, allowing cyclists to ride on sidewalks, provided pedestrians are given the right-of-way and allowing the city engineer to specify certain sidewalks where cycling is prohibited.

To emphasize bicycle safety, the mayor also showed a public service announcement after the conference that discusses bike safety in the city. The PSA features a young woman riding around the city committing a variety of offenses such as not giving pedestrians the right-of-way and riding against traffic in bike lanes.

Members of Bike JC, an advocacy group that worked with the city on the program, were present at the meeting.

“I am confident that this is a step forward toward a more effective and safe street network in Jersey City,” Bike JC board member Matt Ward said.

Ralph Sinisi, owner of Grove Street Bicycles, said he's enthusiastic about the program.

“When we started the shop almost five years ago, there wasn't much knowledge about bikes at all on the streets,” Sinisi said. “We've seen the amount of riders grow drastically. I'm really positive and happy about the city actually putting in the lanes.”