Bicyclists touring through Riverside, alone and in small groups, have been a familiar sight along Longcommon Road on weekend mornings for many years.

Last week, the village board decided to extend an official welcome to cyclists, voting 5-1 to designate Forest Avenue and Longcommon Road part of a regional bike route plan conceived by the West Central Municipal Conference (WCMC), the Central Council of Mayors and the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation.

In designating the streets as part of the bike route, Riverside will install roughly six to 10 signs along the route to mark it for cyclists. Roadways will not be striped to designate bike lanes.

Paul Sterner, a Riverside resident and cyclist who supported the designation told village trustees at their meeting on April 21 that the new signs could easily be placed on existing sign posts on the streets and that a group of local cyclists would offer to raise funds to help defray the cost of the signage.

Additional signage was the reason that Trustee Thomas Shields voted against the bike route designation. He proposed an amendment to the resolution designating the route that would have eliminated signs.

“Finding an appropriate place for these signs is difficult and will distract from the overall experience of being in Riverside,” Shields said.

Trustee Kevin Smith was the lone trustee to support Shields’ amendment against the signs, saying that signs give the village’s “official imprimatur” and that the village might be held to a higher standard regarding enforcement of traffic laws pertaining to cyclists.

“Once we put signs up, there will be a responsibility [to enforce traffic laws],” Smith said.

Trustee John Scully disagreed, saying the board needed to decide whether they wanted “to support the bike path or hinder it.”

“I think it’s an excellent idea,” Scully said. “This will not be a variation of what we [already] see on Saturday morning. I think it will help our central business district.”

Throwing their support behind the bike route idea, trustees Ben Sells and Jean Sussman said that the signage would likely enhance safety by alerting motorists to the presence of the bike route. They also said the plan was in harmony with the board’s strategic goals.

“I think this is about walking the talk of our strategic plan,” Sussman said.

Route not on Brookfield radar

According to the WCMC plan, a number of streets in Brookfield are also being considered, although officials there have not talked about designating any of them as bike routes.

The plan shows the entire lengths of Washington and Maple avenues as potential bike routes, as well as Brookfield/Burlington (crossing over at Prairie Avenue), Monroe/Broadway/Lincoln (from Prairie Avenue to Kemman Avenue), Kemman Avenue, Custer Avenue and Shields Avenue.

However, Village Manager Riccardo Ginex said that his staff has not talked about pursuing any such designations for Brookfield’s streets.

“That’s just not on our radar right now,” Ginex said.