Local professional triathlete Matthew Wisthoff bikes to and from Wrightsville Beach daily, and he envisions a future in which all Wilmington residents can safely do the same. Three bike-safety projects planned near the beach — one nearly done, two scheduled for later this year — put the city on the right path toward that future, he said.
The city has almost completed the final gap in the Gary Shell Cross-City Trail, on the north side of Eastwood Road leading up to the Heide Trask Drawbridge. Other bike-friendly projects scheduled for completion this year or early 2017 are steel planks over the drawbridge’s grating and a multi-use path under the bridge’s west side.
“Fifteen years ago, you wouldn’t really say Wilmington was a bike-friendly town,” Wisthoff said. The city is slowly overcoming that stigma, he said, but “we just have to keep connecting the dots.”
Every new crosswalk or stretch of multi-use trail is a step in the right direction, he said, like the nearly completed asphalt path on the north side of Eastwood Road leading up to the drawbridge.
“Before, you had two bad options,” he said. “Either you rode on the sidewalk, which was narrow, sandy and had a lot of people walking on it, or you hopped onto Eastwood Road and rode with the flow of traffic, which has its own host of dangers … especially for families with small children, that’s going to be an amazing benefit.”
One of those families, Patrick and Elisabeth Mulligan of Wrightsville Beach, occasionally ride over the drawbridge with their 8-, 10- and 12-year-old daughters. Once the asphalt path is complete, Patrick Mulligan said, “It’s going to be a much safer way for us to all bike up to the Forum [shopping center] area.”
The project will also create a crosswalk at the intersection of Eastwood Road and Wrightsville Avenue, which Mulligan said would make it even easier for Wrightsville Beach residents to shop and dine at the Forum.
Without a crosswalk, he said, “You just have to go up to that intersection and do your best, so it’s kind of a challenge.”
He is also excited about a project to install 30-inch-wide steel planks over the drawbridge grating. That project is scheduled to start in August and finish by January 2017, said Anthony Law with the North Carolina Department of Transportation. The work will require nighttime lane closures before Labor Day and some daytime closures after, Law added.
Mulligan said his wife was driving their children to school recently and witnessed a cyclist crash when his tires hit the drawbridge grates.
“If there’s just a little bit of dew on it in the morning, and you’re not anticipating that, it’s really treacherous,” he said.
Wisthoff agreed, adding that cycling over the bridge on skinny road bike tires is so dangerous he only does it if the weather is completely dry.
“If there’s even a fog, I won’t ride over the grates, because just that little bit of moisture on the metal will make it like ice. The tires will go right out from under you,” he said.
Creating a safe path across the drawbridge is critical for a location that hosts so many events that involve cycling, Wisthoff pointed out. He recalled the time he was competing in a Wrightsville Beach triathlon and organizers made the cyclists dismount and walk their bikes over the drawbridge for safety reasons.
“That was not very much fun,” Wisthoff said.
And this October, more than 2,000 of the best triathletes in the world will race over the bridge during the area’s first Ironman Triathlon — the former Beach2Battleship iron distance race.
“Having a safer way to cross the bridge can only be a boost for an event like that, which means a boost for our area economically,” Wisthoff said.
Cyclists and walkers will soon have a safer path underneath the drawbridge, too. Project plans call for a multi-use path with a gazebo underneath the west side of the bridge, allowing cyclists and pedestrians on the cross-city trail to go down and under the bridge to access either the Airlie Road business district or continue with the flow of traffic over the drawbridge.
City staff originally planned the project for early 2016 but minor design modifications delayed the start of construction. Once those design changes are approved, construction should take five or six months, said Amy Beatty, Wilmington Parks and Recreation superintendent.
Connecting neighborhoods throughout Wilmington with multi-use paths will take time, Wisthoff admitted. The bike-friendly Wilmington for which he and other bikers hope won’t manifest overnight, so he’s ready to celebrate every small victory.
“Every little connection you can make, even if it’s just one crosswalk at one intersection, you can check that off the list,” he said, “and move onto the next.”
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