Moving Beyond the Automobile

“Moving Beyond The Automobile is a 40-minute series of documentary film shorts that highlights real-world solutions to address America's dependence on the automobile. The film series explore strategies that integrate active living and effective multi-modal transportation.”

UpstateForever and The Mary Black Foundation will be showing Moving Beyond the Automobile this Thursday, Jan. 26^th at Spartanburg Community College from 6 to 7 pm.  The event is free, but space is limited, so RSVP to Upstate Forever in Spartanburg if you wish to attend. More information and contact information can be found here.

Speaking of real-world transportation solutions, read about this plan for a superhighway for cyclists in Sweden. Interesting, but the last paragraph is what really grabbed my attention. Perhaps if Sweden goes ahead with this project, America will revive its superhighway system for cyclists. I won't hold my breath...but it COULD happen in my lifetime.

Update:  One more event that some of you may be interested in attending this week is the City of Greenville's Green Ribbon Advisory Committee Public Workshop. The workshop will take place tomorrow, Jan 24th at 6:30 pm in the Hughes Main Library. See the City's Sustainability webpage for more information.

What can bicycle advocates learn from The NRA?

Yeah, that headline got my attention too. Bike Advocacy from the NRA Playbook is the title of an interesting new post at Commute by Bike written by corporate attorney and bike commuter Tom Bowden. I definitely agree that the various subcultures within the cycling world can sometimes be counterproductive to the goal of getting more people on bikes.  I also believe that bicycle advocates (perhaps myself included) tend to get preachy and somewhat condescending when discussing the virtues of pedal powered transportation. Instead of standing on a soapbox and telling people about the health/environmental/financial benefits of riding a bike, we need to remember to sell them on the fun factor. Almost everyone remembers the joy of riding a bicycle as a kid, so tapping into that feeling is the best way to convince those who haven’t ridden as adults to give it a try. As the article suggest, “don’t paint (cycling) as extreme, radical, hip or too intellectual. Just ride.” If we ever want cycling to truly be a mainstream activity, that’s a basic idea that we need to keep in mind as we communicate with others in our communities. Riding a bike is fun…and all of those other benefits are just a bonus.

Thanks to Richard at Cyclelicious for pointing me to the Commute by Bike post. I recommend that you add both of those blogs to your feed reader if you haven’t already.

A few overdue updates

If you ride in downtown Greenville, you have most likely seen the new bike lanes going in on  North Main. For those of you who haven’t seen the redesign, take a look at this picture on Greenville Daily Photo.  The view from the Academy Street intersection shows the preliminary bike lane layout with turning lanes and on street parking. After a few recent setbacks, it is great to see this expansion of the city’s on-street bicycle network underway.

Another bit of good news in the upstate is the success of Spartanburg’s B-Cycle bike share program. The Spartanburg Herald-Journal reports that, since the system was launched this summer, the 14 bikes have been ridden more than 9,000 miles. The demand has exceeded expectations, and Spartanburg is considering adding a third B-Cycle station in the near future. Greenville has recently been considering a bike sharing program as well, so let’s hope that city leaders will take note of the success of the program in Spartanburg.

Unfortunately, not all of the news I have to share in this post is positive. The PCC blog recently pointed to another Herald-Journal article which pointed out that South Carolina roadway fatalities are up for first time since 2007.  The article states that “the number of people killed in vehicle wrecks actually went down in 2010, from 591 to 559. But the number of pedestrians killed in South Carolina has gone up nearly 20 percent since last year, with 110 pedestrians killed so far in 2011, compared to 89 last year.” That is a disturbing trend, and one that those of us who care about complete streets and bicycle/pedestrian issues should be very concerned with.

What can we as concerned citizens do to improve the bicycle (and pedestrian) friendliness of our communities though? Frank Mansbach, the new advocacy chairperson for the Greenville Spinners, points out this excellent article from Mia Birk titled, “50 Keys to Transforming Communities and Empowering People, One Pedal Stroke at a Time.” The list might seem overwhelming at first, but if many people are involved, we really can transform our community. If you are not already a member of the Greenville Spinners and the PCC, I encourage you to join both organizations and get involved. I would much rather post good news here than bad news, so let’s work together to continue making Greenville a great place to live and ride.