Congratulations Spartanburg!

Shortly after I mentioned Spartanburg in yesterday’s post, I heard the news that they were designated as a Bronze level Bicycle Friendly Community by the LAB. Congratulations to Spartanburg on being the first city in South Carolina to earn that designation. Many people in Spartanburg have worked hard in recent years to make this happen, and they deserve to be commended. Let’s hope that this news encourages all of us in Greenville to step up our efforts toward reaching the same goal of BFC designation.

You can read more about Spartanburg’s designation in the following press release:

Spartanburg Recognized as the First City in South Carolina to Receive Bicycle-Friendly Community Recognition

SPARTANBURG (September 25, 2007) The City of Spartanburg has been nationally designated as a Bronze Level, Bicycle-Friendly Community from The League of American Bicyclists and proclaimed as the first city in South Carolina to receive such an honor.

The criteria used by national reviewers are:

• The community had systems in place to train children and adult cyclists.
• 
  Bicyclists were included in the City’s transportation plan.
• 
  Police officers understood and enforced bicyclists’ rights and responsibilities.
• 
  The community participated in Bike Month, hosted community bike rides and overall encouraged cycling.

The City of Spartanburg was recognized for the recently completed two-mile rail-trail through downtown which was financed with more than $1 million in local funds.

The City of Spartanburg’s Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee was established in February 2006 under the direction of Mayor Barnet. Its chartered purpose is to promote policies, practices and attitudes to increase safety and accessibility of bicycling and walking for both transportation and recreation throughout the City of Spartanburg.

The Bike Town Initiative was created in 2004 with the goal of earning Spartanburg the designation as a Bicycle Friendly Community by 2007. It is funded by Mary Black Foundation and directed by Partners for Active Living.

The Bicycle-Friendly Community Campaign is an awards program of the League of American Bicyclists that recognizes municipalities that actively support bicycling. On September 29, 2006, the City of Spartanburg was the first in the state to receive Honorable Mention from the Bicycle-Friendly Community Campaign.

"We Are Traffic!" movie showing

This Thursday, September 27^th, Hub-Bub in Spartanburg is showing “We Are Traffic!”, a documentary by Ted White which chronicles the history and development of the Critical Mass movement. The free screening will begin at 7pm and a discussion of the film will follow. I have not seen this film, or Ted White's earlier film, “The Return of the Scorcher”, from which the name Critical Mass was taken, but I have heard good things about both. Regardless of your opinion about Critical Mass, the showing and discussion should be interesting and worth your time. I haven’t checked my calendar at home yet, but I really hope that I will be able to make it to Hub-Bub on Thursday. I have been wanting to check that place out anyway, so this is a perfect reason.

Find out more about the film at the Hub-Bub website or at the "We Are Traffic!" page on Ted White’s site.

Share the Road related links

In keeping with my recent “Share the Road” post, I want to pass along a few related links that I have come across in the last week or so.

The first link I want to mention is the “Share the Road for Rachel” website. Just over a year ago, fifteen year old Rachel Giblen was tragically killed while riding a tandem with her brother during a charity ride here in South Carolina. Rachel’s family set up the website to raise awareness about the presence of cyclists on our roadways and to push for improved education and legislation for cyclists. Read more on the website for Rachel and also at Biking Bis.

Last week, I also noticed an interesting safety campaign on Bike Portland called “And we bike”. The website for the campaign, which was inspired by the death of Washington cyclist Tim O’Donnell, explains:

“The campaign will include life-sized cutouts of people with their bikes that will remind motorists that bicyclists are their relatives, friends, coworkers and neighbors “and we bike”. The cutouts will be placed around in front of businesses and community gathering spots around the county. The message is, “Be careful; the cyclist could be someone you know.” Printed material will include a list of ways motorists can more safely interact with bicyclists. Presentations will be made to community groups throughout the month.

I was in Atlanta a few weeks ago and took the picture, seen here, of the back of a MARTA bus. The “I’m on that bike” message comes from the Atlanta Bicycle Campaign (a group that I belonged to many years ago when I lived in Atlanta). This bus signage is another great of example of personalization of the Share the Road message. As I have said before, I think that Share the Road traffic signs are effective, but putting a human face with the message helps to reinforce the point that cyclists are real people; friends, parents, neighbors, etc. I think that these are both great driver education campaigns and that Greenville can learn a lot from the efforts by these groups in Portland and Atlanta.

The last link I want to mention is a little different than the previous ones. In a post not too long ago, I mentioned the weak but often heard argument that cyclists don’t pay their fair share for use of the roads. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently ran a good article to refute that very argument.

“Share the Road” in Greenville County

A little over a week ago, I asked the members of the Spinners email list for input on locations in Greenville County where they think “Share the Road” signs would be the most effective. I received quite a few responses, and I plan to pass the list on to County Planning and to County Councilman Jim Burns. I should note that County Planning has done a great deal of great work in planning for bicycle lanes and “Share the Road” signage. Many of the proposed routes that can be seen in the bicycle and pedestrian element (chapter 6) of the GPATS plan are a result, in part, of input from members of the Spinners a few years ago. The long-range plan is great, but I am asking you for additional input now because I would like to see more “Share the Road” signage in the short term as well. Your responses are helpful in establishing priorities to push for. If you have not yet provided your input, or have comments or suggestions about the responses so far, please leave a comment on this post so that your suggestion can be added to the list.

Here is the list that I have received so far:

US Pro Route, particularly Old Buncombe toward Paris Mountain- Old Buncombe was the most popular response. Seven different people mentioned this particular road to me. I personally ride this road most weekends as well, so I know that it is a visible spot for cyclists with a few fairly narrow two-lane sections.

Bakery Route, include both Dividing Waters Rd. and Callahan Mtn. Road - This was another popular response. I don’t ride this route often, but I would like to hear specific locations where signage might be needed.

Old US 25 watershed- another location mentioned by a few of you. Any suggestions for specific spots?

Little Texas Rd- mentioned by 3 people.

Roper Mt Rd- I ride short sections of Roper Mountain when I commute to work; once between Riley Smith Rd. and Independence Blvd and again to cross 385. The first section has narrow lanes with fairly fast automobile traffic, so I was glad that one other person mentioned Roper Mountain as a road that needs “Share the Road” signage.

Hwy 14 from Pelham on to Simpsonville, Roe Ford Rd- I have never ridden on Hwy 14, but a couple of you mentioned it.

The remaining roads were each mentioned as well, by at least one person (there may be some overlap with the routes already mentioned):

River Road

Belue Mill Road

Oak Grove Road

Hwy 11 between Gowensville and the western border of Greenville County

Tigerville Rd from TR up to NGC and Hwy 11

Hwy 101

Hwy 414

Stallings Road

Anderson Ridge Rd

Abner Creek Rd

Stallings Rd

North Main St from downtown to 291 N.

Groce Meadow Rd toward Lake Robinson

Reedy Fork Road in Simpsonville

Jonesville Road in Simpsonville

Miller Road

Georgia Road

Holland Road

Verdin narrows from 5 lanes to two lanes and changes names to Holland (S-23-333) with some rolling hills. A sign on one of the uphill stretches south of Bethel Road would remind motorists of the presence of bicyclists.

Rutherford, just after crossing Locust Hill Road

That’s the list for now. Again, please comment if you have anything to add and thanks for the responses so far.

George thanks Greenville

George Hincapie wrote a nice “thank you to Greenville” article in the paper this week. Following the US Pro races last weekend, he had quite a few nice things to say about the fans, the sponsors, the organizers, and about his adopted hometown in general. Jonathon archived the full article on his Greenville News cycling blog, so be sure to go there and check it out if you missed the print version.

Thanks to you as well George. Greenville's cycling community certainly thanks you for being an ambassador for cycling in this area.

US Pro races and advocacy updates

As anyone who rides a bike in this town knows, the USA Cycling Championship races took place last weekend in Greenville. You can see television coverage of the races this Sunday at 5:00 pm on the Versus network. I enjoyed seeing how Greenville and the Upstate were portrayed during last year’s TV coverage of the races, and I expect similar positive coverage of our City this time around.

As I mentioned in the last post, I attended the initial Plan-It Greenville open house last week. Everyone who attended filled out a survey that covered general quality of life as well as specific issues in Greenville. The survey provided several opportunities to make suggestions for future improvements in the City. As you may be able to guess, more provisions for cycling are something that I stressed in the survey. I encourage all of you who were not able to attend to go to the Plan-It Greenville website and take the survey online.

For those of you interested in off road advocacy, the Upstate SORBA chapter is now official. Check out the website for more information about how the group plans to improve Upstate South Carolina’s mountain biking opportunities.

The SCDOT has a new section on their website that allows the public to see where resurfacing efforts are underway or planned. This is a great opportunity for us to look for places that are heavily used for cycling and to request bike lanes or wide outer lanes as part of the resurfacing.

Photo: George Hincapie on the second to last lap on Broad Street. You can see more of my race photos here.