Local bicyclists want cleaner bike lanes

 The streets motorists use everyday may be clean, but a group of local bicyclists say the lanes they use are not.

 KFOX-14 spoke to an avid rider who said the city of El Paso doesn’t do a good job of clean up the bike lanes.

 Gretchen McElroy, a west El Paso bicycle rider said that she often has flat tires from running over glass in the bike lanes.

 “You end up having to ride outside the line because there’s so much debris. There’s stickers, there’s trash, there’s glass, nails, rocks,” McElroy said.

 Other bike riders in west El Paso said they have seen city street cleaners purposely avoid the bike lanes.

 City of El Paso department of transportation director Ted Marquez said that is not the case.

 “When we are sweeping the streets, we make an extra effort to sweep them so that the bike lanes are clean. Our crews clean the streets all the way up to the curb, and that includes the bike lanes,” Marquez said.

 Marquez added that the city follows a schedule and cleans the bike lanes about four times a year. If their department does receive complaints about certain streets, or when streets are visible dangerous, crews will clean those streets more often.

 “"I think that if enough of the cyclists call in and tell them, look, please keep the bike lanes clean, we want to be in the bike lanes, they’ll do a better job,” McElroy said.