Unless there's a bureaucratic miracle, Charleston's proposed bike lanes along Kanawha Boulevard West won't be built this year.
Instead, city officials are now eying the spring of 2016 for construction to begin.
The 1.8-mile bike lanes have been caught up in red tape for months, and City Manager David Molgaard said the soonest the city could bid out the project is in the fall - right as asphalt plants begin to close for the year.
"It would appear to me we've lost this season," City Manager David Molgaard said.
Currently, the city is waiting on final construction drawings from TRC Solutions, the company that designed the bike lanes.
Once that's completed in the next few weeks, the city will forward the drawings to the state Division of Highways and ultimately the Federal Highway Administration for approval.
Once those agencies give the "OK," the bike lanes can go out for bid.
It could take about six weeks for the entire bid process to be completed.
Molgaard said he was disappointed the bike lanes won't happen this year, but promised to push for the project's completion.
"It's going to happen," he said. "It's just not happening as fast as we wanted."
A design concept for the bike lanes was first revealed in the fall of 2013, with construction planned to begin the following spring.
The project plodded along in 2014, but city officials said in July of that year the project was held up at the state level and wouldn't be completed in 2014.
Later, it was announced the bike lanes would be built this year and Kanawha Boulevard was even added to the city's paving schedule.
However, Molgaard said the project was held up at the State Historic Preservation Office this spring and wasn't approved by that office until recently.
The Boulevard bike lanes are to be funded by a $1.78 million federal Transportation, Community, and System Preservation Program grant that was originally supposed to go toward turning the abandoned Kanawha River railroad trestle into a rail trail.
When the city learned that project would cost around $20 million, officials received approval to repurpose the grant to go toward the bike lanes.
The grant funds do not expire.
If built as envisioned, the bike lanes would run along Kanawha Boulevard from Patrick Street to Magic Island.
The Boulevard would keep its four vehicle travel lanes and the existing asphalt path for pedestrians.
Landscaping also would be added, and parts of the project could be dropped to fit budgetary constraints.
Long-term, the bike lanes would connect into an overall proposed 140-mile bikeway system for the city, the draft of which was released last week.
The lanes also would fit into the Kanawha Trestle and Rail Trail Master Plan, which was released in the fall of 2013.
Despite the fact the lanes won't exist in 2015, Molgaard said the splash pad at Magic Island, which ties into the bike lane project, will be installed by the end of the year. The city received a $150,000 grant from the National Recreation and Park Association for the splash pad. If the funds aren't spent by Dec. 31, the city will lose the money.
Earlier this month, city council voted to allow Molgaard to solicit design-build services for the splash pad. It is estimated to cost between $300,000 and $400,000, with the city picking up the rest of the tab.
Contact writer Matt Murphy at 304-348-4817 or matt.murphy@dailymailwv.com. Follow him on Twitter @DMLocalGov.