Bicycle Master Plan Workshop

Along with Bikeville and the Greenville Pickens Area Transportation Study (GPATS), the City of Greenville has been working on a Bicycle Master Plan for a while now. The City has contracted with Alta Planning + Design to develop the Master Plan. If you are not already familiar with Alta, I can tell you that they are probably the best known firm in the U.S. for bicycle and pedestrian planning and design.

As part of the process, the City will host the first of two community workshops on Tuesday, November 16 at 5:30 p.m. at the Hughes Main Library.  Unfortunately, I will be traveling for work and will not be able to attend this first workshop. I really hope that many of you can be there though. At this stage, input from those of us who ride in Greenville is really important.

Read more at the Hincapie Sportwear blog and be sure to mark your calendars for this first workshop. This really is a great opportunity to shape the future of cycling in Greenville.

Vote for the Swamp Rabbit Trail

When I stepped down from the advocacy chairperson position with the Greenville Spinners in 2008, I quit writing this blog. I needed time to focus on family, work, cycling, and my Bicycle Design blog, so I decided to end this one. Since that time though, I have continued to be active in local bicycle advocacy issues. During the past few years, Greenville has continued to make strides toward becoming a bike friendly place, and we were even designated as a Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists. So after a 2+ year hiatus, I have decided to resurrect this blog…well, sort of. New posts here will likely be few and far between (it’s an occasional blog as the header says). Even if it is not frequently updated though, I want to have a place to share some of the bike advocacy related news that affects us all as cyclists in Greenville. I hope that you will subscribe to the feed and follow along.

Right now, the GHS Swamp Rabbit Trail is in the running for $250,000 from the Pepsi Refresh Project. On the Swamp Rabbit Pepsi Refresh page, they outline how the money will be used if it is awarded:

• $ 175,000-Safe crossing devices at the 22 road crossings and 1 rail crossing
• $ 50,000-advance warning lights on roads
• $ 25,000- Construction of "Tree Roundabouts"

If you have ridden on the Swamp Rabbit, especially with kids, you know that those safe crossing devices are something that the trail really needs. Click here and vote today, and everyday until November 30^th, to push the “Create transportation equality” grant up into one of the top two positions. Pepsi will be giving the money to someone, and it would be great to have it here in Greenville to make our trail safer for all users. It is worth a shot, so vote early and often.