(By Ashley Fahey - Charlotte Business Journal)

The Charlotte Department of Transportation, in partnership with Charlotte Center City Partners and Sustain Charlotte, have set up a temporary protected bike lane across uptown this week to give bicyclists a taste for what a more permanent solution could feel like.

Starting Sunday, CDOT closed one lane on parts of Fifth and Sixth streets, allowing cyclists to exclusively use that lane from the intersection of McDowell and Sixth streets to Fifth Street and Irwin Avenue, near Ray's Splash Planet. The part of the route from the Lynx Seventh Street Station to Pine Street is two ways. The rest of the route — the stretch from McDowell Street to the Blue Line/Rail Trail as well as from Pine Street to Irwin Avenue — is one-way. The protected bike lane will be in operation until Sunday.

The idea is to test whether a permanent bike lane connecting Little Sugar Creek Greenway on the east side of uptown and the Irwin Creek Greenway on the west side is feasible, said Ben Miller, bicycle program manager at CDOT.

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