Cottonwood Adopts Sharrows as Part of Being a Bike Friendly Community

Photo by Randy Victory

When I became mayor of Cottonwood back in 2007, Verde Valley Cyclists Coaltion member Randy Victory and I started pushing for a Cottonwood Bicycle Plan. After we sadly lost City Manager Brian Mickelsen, acting city manager Marianne Jimenez and I worked to get an item on a council agenda, and the council wholeheartedly endorsed creating a plan. From there, city manager Doug Bartosh took over, and it's taken awhile--as these things do--but we've made substantial progress. We have our plan http://www.cottonwoodaz.gov/planning/bicycleplan.pdf  and last year we were named honorable mention as a bicycle friendly community. Thanks to Cottonwood's new planner, Nikki Arbeiter, we're working on bronze or silver now. Community Development Director George Gehlert and Community Development Manager Dan Lueder have also pushed for the plan, as well as members of the Verde Valley Cyclists Coalition. Recently we added "sharrows" on 12th Street to try them out. Randy Victory wrote in an email on December 16, 2011: "Bike shop owner Aaron Ruda was the first cyclist to use the sharrows painted on 12th Street in Cottonwood on Friday. The Public Works crew that had just painted the new roadway markings and can be seen driving away.  Shared-use lane markings, or “sharrows”, are used on roadways which are too narrow for bike lanes. They help remind motorists to share the road with bicycles, and indicate to cyclists the lawful direction of travel. Sharrows were adopted into the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) December 16th, 2009 – two years ago. The new shared-use lane markings in Cottonwood are the first to be installed in the Verde Valley."

COME TO COTTONWOOD! You can ride your bike, hike, canoe, kayak, run, walk, fish, 4-wheel, moutain climb, hang glide, ride horses, and top it all off with a glass of relaxing wine in Old Town Cottonwood. Enjoy the Verde River. We're one of the few towns in Arizona that has a "River Runs through It." Access the river at Dead Horse Ranch State Park. You can ride your bike on some awesome trails there, too.

http://www.oldtown.org/    Old Town Cottonwood
http://www.cottonwoodchamberaz.org/    Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce
http://www.vvwinetrail.com/   Verde Valley Wine Trail
http://azstateparks.com/Parks/DEHO/index.html   Dead Horse Ranch State Park