In the “You think that’s narrow? Hold my beer…” department, visual documentarian of all things Girard Complete Streets Project, John Fleck, has captured an even skinnier bike lane than was posted at BB around ten days ago:

This is Girard at Wilson Pl. NE, and that’s 24 inches of bike lane, Mr. Fleck reports. Speaking of reports, Better Burque can pass along one or two things learned about the beleaguered Project:

We found out at this week’s Greater Albuquerque Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting that any such job includes a review process involving a “punch list” created by the client, in this case CABQ’s Department of Municipal Development, citing all tweaks and modifications required before a street job can be approved and finalized.

The absurdly skinny bike lanes on Girard between Indian School and Lomas will, by all reports, be on the “punch list.”

Meanwhile, in continuing to look back at how this segment of the Girard work was proposed and presented, I ran across the PowerPoint presentation shown at the August 23, 2012 public meeting for the then-pending Project.

In it, I spotted the following concerning Girard @ Wilson Pl. NE:

See “39′ curb to curb width” in there? Now let’s look again at the Final Project cross-sections for this segment:

Yeah, these drawings indicate there’s 41 feet.

Oops.

Now, we’re not dredging all this up again simply to show an even more ludicrous illustration of these bike lanes on Girard. Although we are doing that, also.

No, the news here is that something evidently will be done about these skinny lanes. There’s also the lesson to be learned from this situation (or “debacle” if you’re of that viewpoint): Always bring a magnifying glass to any public meeting about road improvements.

If you see changes with those Girard bike lanes, please pass along a photo. Have a great weekend, everybody!