The Blackstone Valley Bike Stripe is a project focused on connecting bicyclists from the East Bay bike path to the Blackstone Valley Bikeway via a temporary on-road indicator stripe. A committee consisting of representatives made up from the cities of Cumberland, Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence and East Providence has been meeting over the past year to plan the project.

A Request for Proposal (RFP) was sent out to several highly-qualified, local engineering firms. McMahon Associates, a Taunton, MA based firm, was chosen for the project. They will be working with the committee to design the stripe and provide construction and engineering advice by early 2011. At that point, the committee will hire a painting contractor to install the stripe, ideally ensuring its completion for May 2011. Funding will be provided by the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources, which awarded a $38,000 grant for the stripes’ completion.

McMahon Associates is currently offering traffic engineering consulting to the Pawtucket Downtown Design Plan. Other relevant experience with the planning, development and installation of shared-use bicycle paths includes work with the Walnut Street Reconstruction Project for the City of Newton, MA; The Keene Community Master Plan of Keene, NH; and The Grand Junction Corridor Feasibility Study of Cambridge, MA.