Some good news

The Palmetto Cycling Coalition recently sent out a press release to announce that South Carolina Bicycle Safety Bill H.3006 passed in the House in January by a vote of 105-0. That is great news and we owe the PCC our thanks for their hard work on this for the past couple years. Those of you who have been following the progress of this bill know that it revises South Carolina bicycle statutes to bring them into greater conformity with the Uniform Vehicle Code. Two of the reforms in the bill that stand out to me are the establishment of a minimum passing distance (five feet) and the elimination of a mandatory sidepath law.

In the PCC press release, Paul Lefrancios, President of the PCC is quoted as saying “We are so excited about the House passage of this bill. South Carolina is 4th in the nation for cycling fatalities. This is unacceptable. And House members agreed.” I have mentioned South Carolina’s terrible record on cycling safety before on this blog, and you can view the 2004 NHTSA statistics on cycling fatalities for yourself right here. Our state’s rate of 5.24 cycling fatalities for every million state residents is well over twice the national average; a fact which, as Mr. Lefrancios stated, is quite unacceptable.

You can read the PCC position paper on the legislation here. The bill will now go on to the State Senate for consideration as S.0354. In the Senate, the PCC is working to improve the bill by removing the Single File amendment, which would require cyclists to ride single file rather than two abreast. As the PCC’s Executive Director Natalie Cappuccio Britt points out, the Single File amendment “would prohibit parents from riding next to their children” and “It is far more difficult and dangerous for a motorist to pass a long line of cyclists riding single file versus two abreast.”

The bill is expected to pass in the Senate this year, but it still needs support from all the cyclists in South Carolina. If you are not already a PCC member, I encourage you to join them in their effort to make our state bicycle friendly.

While I am posting good news, I also want to mention that the Greenville City Council officially adopted the “Trails & Greenways Master Plan” at Monday evening’s City Council meeting. In addition, some good discussion took place at that meeting regarding implementation of additional bike lanes downtown in the near future. A few of you have mentioned that the downtown bicycle plan, which City Council endorsed in 2005, seems to have stalled a bit recently. That may be true, but I am still optimistic that we will see some progress in 2008. Mayor White, the City Council, and many members of the City staff openly support bicycle infrastructure projects, so we just need to continue to communicate our needs and desires to them. I received very positive responses from several City Council members to my comments, and to a follow up email that I sent, about a greater emphasis on bike lanes and “Share the Road” signage in the city of Greenville. As I said before, the City is working on several projects and I think we will see some notable improvements this year. Still, we can’t just wait for things to happen. We need to keep communicating with the City and helping them to pinpoint areas where improvements to make cycling safer are necessary. I don’t have all the ideas, so I am asking all of you to let me know what improvements you would like to see to make Greenville a bike friendly town.