By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Freshly painted white lines that run down the middle of Adams Avenue are part of a new bike path that continues through Franklin Pasture.

The lines act as you’d expect, staying close to the sides of Adams Avenue as it runs between Park and Bartlett streets. They veer to the center of the street, however, as soon as Adams gets close to Bartlett.

“I suppose it does look a little weird,” said Dave Jones, city public services director.

That’ll change in the next few weeks as signs marking the bike path go up and arrows are painted on the asphalt to guide drivers and bicyclists.

It’s the only lane design that makes sense at the intersection, according to Al Richard, city project engineer.

Adams Avenue ends in a T at Bartlett Street. Drivers either turn left or right there.

But bicyclists will be able to go straight, beginning in September when the city opens the new Franklin Pasture bike path that connects to the Lewiston High School ballfields.

“The only place to put the bicycles is in the middle,” Richard said. “If you put them on either side, they interfere with turning traffic. This is the safest way to handle that intersection.”

It’s been done before, Richard said. Eastbound bicycle traffic along Route 196 in Topsham is guided to the center of the street by signs and painted lanes near the Topsham Fair Mall.

It’s part of an overall plan to connect to Railroad Park someday.

“It just worked out that they could do the Adams Avenue work first,” Richards said. Crews built a new sidewalk and retaining wall along the street and put down the lines this spring.

“It was really too wet to work on the Franklin Pasture side this spring,” he said. That’s changed, and crews are nearly finished clearing trees and grading the site. The next step will be putting down gravel and asphalt. That should be finished mid-August, and the city will begin landscaping around the path. The path should be finished and ready for use by Sept. 15.