Spokane-based contractor Red Diamond Construction Inc. is the apparent low bidder on a $395,000 second phase of a city project intended to improve bicycle routes downtown and on its periphery, says city spokeswoman Julie Happy.

Work is scheduled to start this month and will include road striping for bike lanes or adding bike route signs to six main streets downtown, Happy says, adding the city expects the project to take two to three months to finish.

Happy says the contractor will add bike lanes on Fourth and Fifth avenues between Howard and Arthur streets; Second Avenue between Division and Scott streets; Sherman Street between Second and Fifth avenues; and Riverside Avenue between Maple and Jefferson streets.

Bike route road signs will be installed along three east-west arterials downtown: Second Avenue between Jefferson and Division streets; First Avenue between Jefferson and Howard streets; and Sprague Avenue between Jefferson and Howard streets.

Plans call for installation of new bike racks at 10 locations downtown, all between Cedar and Division streets, with most north of First Avenue.

A federal congestion mitigation and air quality program is providing funding for the project. The project is part of the city's Master Bike Plan, which it adopted in 2009 and aims to improve safety of bicyclists throughout Spokane and to increase bike use as a mode of transportation.

The first phase of the bicycle network was completed in 2010, Happy says, and included adding bike lanes on Fourth Avenue between Jefferson and Howard streets; Main Avenue between Lincoln and Howard streets; and Riverside Avenue between Jefferson and Howard streets. The roughly $117,000 project also included adding sharrows, or shared bike lane markings to Spokane Falls Boulevard, between Monroe and Howard streets, she says. The third and final phase, which will include adding bike lanes or route signs to Main Avenue, is dependent on convention center work and Walt Worthy's adjacent hotel development plan. A projected cost for the final phase of the downtown bicycle network wasn't available.

"I don't predict that happening here in 2013," Happy says of the Main Avenue portion.

The bid by Red Diamond came in under the engineer's estimate of $450,000.