In the 1989 hit movie, “Field of Dreams,” character Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner, hears a whisper: “If you build it, he will come.”

That was a baseball field in the Iowa cornfields. It’s too bad, the same promise didn’t come true for the little-used bike path across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission invested $20 million into turning one of the bridge’s three westbound traffic lanes into a bike lane. It was supposed to be a four-year trial. Nearly six years after they built it, the bicyclists didn’t come.

The number of cyclists making trips across the bridge have been few, especially on weekdays when, according to recent counts, 134 bikes crossed the bridge, compared to the more than 40,000 vehicles — cars and trucks that are often stuck in traffic jams getting onto the span.

On weekends, the number of cyclists rises to 383, but far fewer than those crossing in motorized vehicles.

Local bike lobbies want to keep the lane open, but the numbers don’t do much to strengthen their argument. The Marin County Bicycle Coalition says that safety improvements needed on the Marin side have made access to the bridge more difficult.

State and Bay Area officials are at a crossroads, deciding what to do about the trial.

Understandably, there has been a push from commuters and employers to get rid of the “trial” bike lane and open the road to cars.

The latest proposal is to try to strike a temporary compromise, leaving the bike lane open from 2 p.m. Thursday to 11 p.m. Sunday. Monday through Thursday morning, the moveable barrier would be moved to open the lane for emergency vehicles, providing relief from the gridlock caused by accidents or disabled vehicles on the two traffic lanes. A shuttle van would take bikes and pedestrians across the bridge when the bike path is closed.

The proposal is supposed to be a three-year trial, giving authorities time to address some issues that opening the third lane to traffic might cause, including addressing Caltrans engineers’ worries that the span would need to be strengthened to handle the increased traffic the bridge would need to accommodate.

The safety of the span certainly should be a preeminent concern, and traffic has steadily grown as Marin, due to the high cost of housing here, has drawn more workers from the East Bay.

There’s also concern that opening the lane to traffic will increase congestion on the Marin side, with more cars seeking to get onto Highway 101 or Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.

Another consideration is turning the third lane into a carpool lane and the Bay Area Toll Authority, which manages the span, has been talking about removing the toll booths, a change that could help relieve congestion.

Caltrans says the new trial would provide time to study and address those issues.

It’s a proposal that is not going to make everyone entirely happy.

Bicyclists would be giving up their 24/7 bike lane and motorists would still be driving past an open lane reserved for breakdowns and emergencies.

Still, the Marin bike coalition calls the proposal “extremely hasty.”

Hardly.

Getting to this point has been slow. After all, the trial was supposed to have ended in 2023. Stretching it to 2025 has not improved the numbers; it has just seen westbound traffic congestion get worse.

If the follow-up trial can move us closer to solutions, it is the way to go. But this time officials need to be more diligent — a three-year trial should mean three years.