LEWISTON — The bright white paint on the newly paved section of Lisbon Street is plenty clear, but the meaning isn’t.

The design between Pine and Main streets depicts a bicycle under two chevrons.

“It means it’s a bike lane, right?” asked Jane Mitchell of Greene. “But where do the cars go?”

The new symbol is called a “sharrow” and it means that cars and bikes share the lane. Cars can pass bicycles in the lane, but only if they have more than 3 feet of space to spare. Otherwise, drivers must treat bicycles as vehicles.

“The thing I like about the sharrow is that it makes drivers aware,” said John Grenier, owner of Lisbon Street’s Rainbow Bicycles. “They see the picture of the bike and they know there might be bikes here.”

The sharrow lanes are one of the downtown traffic solutions adopted as part of Lewiston and Auburn’s Complete Streets plan in 2013. The goal is to make downtown streets and traffic more comfortable for pedestrians and bicyclists.

“When I ride down Lisbon Street or another street with a sharrow, at least I know it’s OK for me to be here,” Grenier said. “It reinforces that bikes are going to be here and makes drivers a little more aware.”

Craig Saddlemire, chairman of the Lewiston-Auburn Bike-Ped Committee, said they also serve as connections between other bike paths. For example, bicyclists using the Pine Street bike path could use Lisbon Street’s shared lane to get to Ash Street.

“They are not the only tool we have in our kit, but we use them where we can’t build a separate facility for bikes but there is demand for them,” Saddlemire said. “We’re not going to go put a sharrow on every street in the city, but we can use them where it’s important to indicate to drivers that bicyclists can be there.”

City officials made the new street markings part of their Lisbon Street renovation project last year. Plans call for milling and resurfacing the street and repairing the sidewalks on either side of the road this summer.

The plan includes replacing streetlights, adding trees and fixing up the arcade-stairway between Park and Lisbon streets, adjacent to Mother India Restaurant.

City councilors approved the repaving plan for Lisbon Street in March 2015, but the work was stymied over some controversial bike-only lanes. No parking spaces would have been lost, but turning lanes south of Pine Street and the car travel lane north of Pine Street would have been narrowed.

A citizen petition challenging the vote convinced councilors to back off the dedicated bike lanes and adopt shared lanes. Opponents liked the changes and canceled the petition in April, but the delay pushed the paving schedule to this spring.

The new lanes, which started going down in May, provide parking spaces separated by a narrow lane from the travel lanes. Those are buffers and not meant for either bike or car travel.

“Those are ‘open the door lanes,'” Grenier said. “People opening their doors are not necessarily looking for someone to be coming by. You need to have a little bit of protection.”

Rachel Jalbert of Auburn gave them high marks.

“I walk or bike everywhere, so I think they’re a great idea,” Jalbert said.

But not everyone was a fan. Mitchell, who lives in Greene but works downtown, said they looked somewhat dangerous.

“I would not have known it,” she said. “I understand that cars and bikes need to share the road, but I would not have known it was a shared lane. I really hope people use it correctly so no bicyclists get hurt.”

She added, “It could be the worst thing I’ve ever seen. It’s understood you are supposed to share the road with bikes, but I would not know what to do with this. Is it some sort of arrow? Am I supposed to go someplace else?”

Friend Carol Griffiths of Monmouth agreed.

“I knew it was a bike, but I would not have known what I’m supposed to do,” she said.

staylor@sunjournal.com