It was pouring rain at the corner of Granby Street and Willow Wood Drive when Trayon Townes rode past the freshly installed concrete barriers separating cyclists from traffic.
“I think it’s a good idea to have a bike lane and a sidewalk for people to walk on,” the teenager on the Lime rental bike said. “You still gotta watch them for cars too.”
This May marks Norfolk’s 15th Bike Month, featuring organized rides and promoting cycling as a way to get around. One of the biggest elements of that promotion is underway right now: The Granby Street Bike Lane project. The initiative, which has been the focus of years of debate, aims to create a continuous north-south bike route from downtown to Ocean View.
Liz Schleeper rode her bike across the Lafayette River bridge at Willow Wood Drive as the rain fell, pulling up to a small waterfront overlook. As the rain got heavier, she happily flagged down Townes to pass out a bike light, a hat and a sticker. The president of Bike Norfolk, Schleeper advocates for access to bikes and better infrastructure for cyclists.
“Downtown and Ocean View are two of the city’s most important assets,” Schleeper said. “So being able to connect those for bicyclists, for scooters, for those who are pedestrians, even those who use wheelchairs, it’s an important progress to have this stretch which now exists between Willow Wood Drive and Admiral Taussig Boulevard.”
The path wasn’t easy. Granby Street business owners initially opposed the plan, warning of lost business, Schleeper said. Residents have long complained about the reduction of traffic lanes along the thoroughfare. But City Council approved the first funding for the bike lane project in 2022. Bike Norfolk rallied support at public meetings before the final design was unveiled in January 2024. Construction started in 2025.
According to Schleeper, during those public meetings, residents told city leaders that in order to use bike lanes, they needed to be protected from traffic. The concrete barriers are a compromise to entice more cyclists to use the lanes with vehicle traffic.
“They are low enough that EMS and fire trucks can drive over them,” said Keith Darrow, the city’s transportation engineer. “But they will stop, you know, your average car, or at least, kind of startle them enough to stay in the travel lane.”
Darrow says this isn’t just a bike lane project. Granby Street is becoming a road redesigned to be safer, not just for drivers or cyclists, but also for pedestrians and scooter riders. Next up are pedestrian safety upgrades at five crossings along Granby Street.
Darrow said there are more pedestrians and runners along the corridor now, which he attributes to carving out an eleven-foot buffer that gives people the space they need to feel safer.
The city will monitor speeds, crashes, and usage along the corridor using bike and pedestrian counters.
Darrow says this new segment connects to existing lanes that start at Church Street and Princess Anne Road and run up Granby, getting the city about two-thirds of the way to a continuous bike route from downtown to Ocean View.
Advocates like Schleeper see Granby as part of a bigger plan: a citywide bike loop. A route traveling from Granby to Ocean View Avenue, south on Azalea Garden Road, and back through Cromwell and Robin Hood into Park Place and downtown. If the city were to complete such a route, most citizens would be within a mile of bike lanes.
She said connecting these routes is about ensuring fair access to essential transportation for all residents.
“We have a very conservative number, which is 12% of households that do not have automobiles or access to automobiles. That’s double the state average,” Schleeper said. “That number, depending on what data you’re looking at, can go all the way up to 20%, so there are individuals in our community without access to automobiles, so they depend on infrastructure.”
Kyle Gilmer, the city’s transportation strategic planner, said that fixing these gaps in accessibility and building a cohesive network are the goals.
“A system really functions most effectively when they are connected,” Gilmer said. “Portions are going to be fragmented with some limited usability, so part of the city’s long-term strategy is to continue to improve those connections over time.”
He noted the planning division utilizes census data to track socio-economic demographics, specifically focusing on car-free and low-income households as a key part of their prioritization process to find the gaps in the network.
He and Darrow emphasized that equity criteria is weighed heavily in federal and state grant applications to ensure investments are distributed fairly across the entire city, rather than concentrated in just one or two pockets.
Every city initiative is looked at through what Darrow called a “complete streets mentality,” checking for enhancements for all modes of transportation at every opportunity.
The Lime numbers reflect that demand. Since launching its contract with Lime in 2019, the city’s public Power BI dashboard has tracked over 3.5 million cumulative trips down to the census tract level. Gilmer notes that the data show distinct origin and destination patterns. The heaviest usage is around the ODU area, downtown and the Southside, while suburban residential areas see the least activity.
Those numbers represent people like Townes, the teenager navigating the rain on Granby Street, and how many people his age get around; a mix of scooters, e-bikes and public transit, making these dedicated bike lanes key for safety and independence.
E-bikes, in particular, are changing who shows up to ride. Schleeper said she recently saw three generations — a child, parents and a grandparent — riding together using e-bikes.
