Poll finds support among Tennessee voters for adding bike lanes to roads

Staff photo by Matt Hamilton / A bike lane and turning lane were added on Bailey Avenue, reducing it from four lanes to two lanes with a turn lane, as seen on June 15, 2022. According to a new poll, about half of Tennessee voters support adding bike lanes to existing roads. Staff photo by Matt Hamilton / A bike lane and turning lane were added on Bailey Avenue, reducing it from four lanes to two lanes with a turn lane, as seen on June 15, 2022. According to a new poll, about half of Tennessee voters support adding bike lanes to existing roads.

By Ellen Gerst January 6, 2025 4 min read

About half of Tennessee voters said new bike lanes added to existing roads are at least somewhat worthwhile, according to a new poll by the conservative Beacon Center of Tennessee.

Seventeen percent of the poll’s 1,200 respondents said added bike lanes make no difference, and 24% said they are unnecessary or somewhat unnecessary, according to the poll results.

Support for added bike lanes was strongest among Democrats, Black voters, voters under 55 years old and residents of West Tennessee, the poll showed.

Mark Cunningham, a pollster and spokesperson for the Beacon Center, said he was surprised by the results.

“I thought way less people were going to be for bike lanes, hearing about what we hear about on a normal basis, and sometimes my anger,” Cunningham said by phone. “Every time that you’re putting new money into bike lanes, people say, ‘Oh, we could use it for this, this,’ and say, ‘It’s actually making traffic worse,’ and you hear a lot of arguments.