Salters Road widening project

Salters Road, between Verdae and ICAR, will be resurfaced and widened soon by the SCDOT. According to the handout from a public information meeting that was held earlier this month, the “proposed project would widen the existing roadway to four 12-foot travel lanes and include a grassed median, bike lanes, and sidewalks.” A new wider and longer bridge would be required over I-85 as part of the project, which would also include bike lanes (and I assume a taller and safer guardrail).

I have been out of the loop on this project, but from everything I have seen the proposed road layout sounds great. You can read more about it in the SCDOT document mentioned previously and this article in the Greenville News (do a Google search for “Salters Road project may include bridge replacement” to see the full article if you are not a Greenville News subscriber). When the redesigned road is complete, it will be a great bike friendly connection to ICAR, but it is a major project that will take up to 12 months to complete. During that time, Salters Road will be closed completely with the detour shown above as the suggested alternate. Verdae and Laurens are not ideal roads for cyclists to use as an alternate route to ICAR, so Spinners advocacy chairperson Frank Mansbach has proposed a few good ideas that could make the detour safer for all users during the year of construction :

1) Adding share the road and /or bicycle route signs on Verdae Boulevard from Rocky Slope to Laurens.

2) Reduced speed limit on Verdae from current 45 mph.

3) Re-striping all or part of Verdae to add bike lanes or shared lane markings (sharrows).

Rather than turning from Verdae onto Laurens, Frank suggests that the designated bike detour would cross to Parkins Mill, then left on Ridge Road and left on Fairforest to get to ICAR (signage and/ or sharrows would be required on Ridge Road and Parkins Mill as well).

I personally think these are great suggestions that should be considered by the SCDOT as this project is being planned. They have opened the project to public comment until February 24th (this Friday), so if you agree that a safe alternate detour for cyclists is a good idea, contact SCDOT Program Manager Tommy Elrod at (864) 241-1010 or elrodjt@scdot.org to express your support for the ideas above and any others that you might have.


Switching gears, I want to mention an event that is taking place this weekend. The BMW Performance Center and the Greenville Spinners Bicycle Club are hosting a special showing of the movie “Chasing Legends” at the BMW Zentrum this Saturday, February 25th at 6:30pm. “Chasing Legends” Director Jason Berry will there, so don’t miss your chance to see the film, meet the director, and possibly win some great prizes. You read more about the event, and purchase tickets, at Go Green Events. All proceeds from the evening are going to the United Way of Greenville, so it’s for a good cause as well. I am looking forward to it, and I hope to see you there.

 

 

 

Where is the outrage?

February has been a terrible month for bicycling fatalities in South Carolina, and I was sickened to hear of another senseless tragedy over the weekend. Obviously, one person killed on our roads is one too many, but David William Welty’s death in Anderson over the weekend was the fourth fatality that I know of in the first two weeks of the month. A couple weeks ago, 70-year-old James Premmer Frazier was killed here in Greenville while riding on Highway 183 at Old Buncombe Road. The following day, a 7-year-old girl was killed while riding a push scooter in Liberty, and just a few days after that Gerald Hooker was killed in Aiken when the tandem he was riding with his wife was struck by a driver who tried to pass as they made a left turn.

It is not hard to understand why the Alliance for Biking & Walking ranked South Carolina 49th among states for bicycling safety in their recent Bicycling and Walking in the U.S.: 2012 Benchmarking Report. The safety record on our roads is atrocious, and if this month is any indication, perhaps the problem is getting worse. I believe that the reason for the increase in fatalities (not just in SC, but nationwide) stems from the attitude that we as a society have about the use of our roads. Despite the fact that roads were not built for cars, many Americans tend to believe that drivers have a greater right to use the roads than those who are not in motor vehicles. The idea that “streets are for people”, not only people in cars, is a common attitude in places like the Netherlands and Denmark, but here in the U.S. there are many who believe that a pedestrian or cyclist is “asking for it” if they are hit by a car, particularly if the “accident” occurs on a major road. Drivers are rarely charged when they take the life of another due to impatience or negligence on their part. On top of that, there are those who use each and every cyclist/pedestrian death on our roadways as an opportunity to blame the victim by bringing up the same old (false) arguments about who pays for the roads. The comments left on any online news story about the death of a cyclist are as predictable as they are sickening, but I am afraid that those attitudes are also increasingly becoming accepted by a growing element within our society- those who actively oppose the very idea of cycling and walking as forms of transportation.

I just wonder where the outrage is sometimes…even among people who never walk or ride a bike to get anywhere. On average, 40,000+ Americans are killed by motor vehicles each year, but the majority of those deaths are simply dismissed as “accidents”.  Hundreds of Americans die on our roads every day, but it seems like there are very few people really are actually willing to call for a change. I truly believe that holding people accountable for their actions behind the wheel is the only way that we will ever see a substantial decrease in the traffic fatality rate. A driver who kills another person (on foot, on a bike, or in another car) while chatting on the phone, playing with the radio, talking to a passenger, or just daydreaming, should be held responsible for the death that resulted from that act of negligence. The operation of a motor vehicle requires complete and undivided attention to the road, and anyone who fails to do that should be prepared to face consequences if they hurt or kill another road user. It’s all about accountability…and unfortunately that is lacking on the roads of South Carolina, and the U.S. as a whole, at this point in time. What can we do to change that?

Spinners advocacy and a call to action

Photo credit: Brad Allen

I have mentioned before that I don’t get the chance to update this blog as often as I would like. Part of the reason for that is that I am not as heavily involved in local bicycle advocacy issues as I once was. I am still an active Bikeville member and volunteer, but due to other commitments, I find it harder to keep up with all the bike related issues in the city and county. The good news though, is that there are other great sources for local bike advocacy news. I have mentioned Biking the Upstate and The PCC’s Palmetto Spokesman blog in previous posts, but today I want to point you toward another source of information that I am excited about- the Greenville Spinners Advocacy page. Frank Mansbach, who recently took over the Spinners advocacy chair position for 2012, plans to post monthly updates on the Advocacy page. His first update outlines his goals as the new chair, covers some advocacy news, and provides links to a few good resources. I am looking forward to his monthly updates, and I encourage all of you to keep an eye out for his future posts as well. 

If you are a League of American Bicyclists or Palmetto Cycling Coalition member, you have seen the urgent messages yesterday and today about The American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, a House bill that threatens to eliminate federal funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects. I wrote it about it on my Bicycle Design blog this morning, so I won’t repeat all of the same points here. Suffice it to say though that as citizens of a state that ranks 49th for bicycling safety, we should be very concerned about this bill. I hope that you will take a minute and contact your Representative about this today.