LAFAYETTE — The project called "Route Lafayette" aims to direct both tourists and locals to their destinations in both English and French while reflecting the cultural and linguistic roots here in South Louisiana. The Downtown Development Authority is hoping to encourage exploration among those who come to the area.
"We as businesses are always being asked how people can get to this place from that place and what their next destination is," says Megan Arceneaux, the owner of Hub City Cyclists. "Now it will all be right there on the street for everyone to read and visibly accessible."
Arceneaux is one of the many businesses that believes they will benefit from the new signage. She says that there weren't enough bike routes downtown, and she believes that the new signage and added routes will help people get to where they need to go using alternative modes of transportation.
"Downtown is really exploding right now and we have so many people that are starting to come here and want to bike more," she says. "It is so much easier to bike down here and park your bike down here and now people will be able to learn about all of the different routes there are to get here."
Anita Begnaud, the CEO and President of the Downtown Development Authority, hopes that the signs will show people how to get around more easily as well by using icons and accurate arrows pointing in the proper direction. She hopes that the added and extended bike routes will allow people to get around safely on their bikes.
"People need visuals and they need you to help them create the experiences that they want to have," says Begnaud. "This bike signage is going to be helpful to show people routes that are comfortable for people to ride their bikes on and that are already preferred by bike riders."
Begnaud says that she saw a major increase in bike sales during the pandemic, and more and more people took to the streets of downtown on their bikes, which only proved that the city needed more routes for those cyclists to enjoy and get from one major attraction to another in the city.
"Wouldn't it be great if people knew that they could ride from downtown to the university and then to Moncus Park," she says. "That's the kind of thing we want to encourage, for people to use the city in a new way that they didn't think of before because they didn't understand how it is connected."
We're told that those signs will start popping up in downtown and surrounding areas in the next two to three months.
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