I mentioned this recently on the Bike Greenville Facebook page,
but in case you missed it, check out Bicycling
Magazine’s “Best Small Cities for Cycling” article. Greenville is listed along
with only two other towns, Bend, OR and the platinum rated Bicycle Friendly Community of Davis,CA. As always, I am glad to see positive press about cycling in Greenville, but
I was frankly a bit surprised by this one. There is no doubt that Greenville has
improved greatly for cycling in the last 8 years or so, but I believe that we
still have a way to go to really become one of the best small towns in America
for cycling. The city does a pretty good job with a very small budget for
bicycle related infrastructure projects, but I would like to see a greater focus on completing the
goals and objectives outlined in the Bicycle
Master Plan and improving our safety record for cyclists and pedestrians.
It is nice to be listed as a great small town for cycling and we should all be proud
of the recognition, but I really hope that we can continue to work to make this
area an even better place to live and ride.
Don’t get me wrong. I love living and cycling in Greenville,
and I have been involved with bike advocacy in some way or another for many
years because I really do want to see Greenville become one of the best towns
in the US for cycling. We are making progress, but I don’t quite see us there
yet. I am curious what you think though. Is Bicycling Magazine correct in calling
Greenville one of the best small towns for cycling at this point?
1 comment:
greenville is really great for an american small town. i think greenville could really make a big difference by using some of the intersection designs and plaza designs used in some european towns. things like open plazas that show no distinction between sidewalk and road, where pedestrians are not stuck on the edges of the area, and greenville could have the all-way-stop intersections, where traffic lights stop all directions, and pedestrians can go across the whole intersection instead of the individual lanes. ideally, i would like cars to go a speed reasonable for the pedestrian and bicycle traffic, by enforcing a sense of the correct speed for the driver to understand. for example, even at the Swamp Rabbit crosswalk between the linky stone park and riverwalk, cars go way too fast. the stripes on the road give no sense that it is a heavy pedestrian crossing. it can be really unnerving for drivers not to sense the right of way.
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