Swamp Rabbit focus groups

See the information below via the latest Greenville Rec e-newsletter. Subscribe here if you don’t already get it.

 “Greenville Hospital System Swamp Rabbit Trail users are needed to participate in two focus groups examining the impact of the trail. Results will be included in the 3-Year Impact Study administered by Dr. Julian Reed of Furman University's Department of Health Sciences. Sessions will be held on Wednesday, June 20th from 4:30pm to 5:30pm and Thursday, June 21st from 5:00pm to 6:00pm. 

Only 16 spots are available (8 per group). Refreshments and $10 will be provided to each participant at the conclusion of the focus group. If you are interested in participating, please email Colleen Grover at colleen.grover1780@furman.edu.”

The June newsletter also points out an ongoing QR scavenger hunt on the trail that sounds like fun. Find out more and get started here.

Greenville Tech section of the Swamp Rabbit opening June 5th

A new section of the Swamp Rabbit Trail, between Faris Road and Pleasantburg Drive, will officially open tomorrow, June 5^th at 11am. Mayor White will be joined by Dr. Keith Miller, Greenville Technical College President, and Jerry Howard, President/CEO of the Greenville Area Development Corporation, to officially open this section of the trail which runs along Cleveland Street through the Greenville Tech main campus. The event will take place at the Cleveland Street entrance to the college, and refreshments will be provided starting at 10:30 am.

Support Greenville County trails today!

Ty Houck, the Director of Greenways, Natural and Historic Resources for Greenville County, sent out an email last week about four possible grants for the Swamp Rabbit, the Gateway Bike Swills Trail, and other trails in the county:

‘The Greenville County Recreation District is applying for 4 grants for trails. Part of the grant application includes a public meeting.  It seems responsible and fitting that we find a way to have those meetings without asking everyone to get in a car to drive to somewhere to sit and watch a PowerPoint presentation. So I am bringing the presentations to you. Please take a few minutes to view the presentations attached and send a confirmation e-mail through the link on the presentation.  Strong public support has a significant impact on winning these grants.’

All four presentations can be found online here, so please take a minute to view the powerpoint slide shows and send a confirmation email to the address provided. The deadline for your response is today (Tuesday, March 22^nd), so please take a minute to do this right now.

As Ty said, strong public support is needed to secure these grants. Let’s make a big push on this final day and bring that grant money to Greenville.

Continue to vote for Swamp Rabbit funding

Last month, I mentioned that the Swamp Rabbit Trail was in the running for a $250,000 grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project. I have good news to pass along to all of you who voted. Thanks to you the project made it to the next round!

Now we all just need to continue voting everyday throughout December so we can bring that grant money to Greenville to make our trail safer. There are two ways to vote (and you can vote both ways each day):

• On the web at http://www.refresheverything.com/swamprabbit
• Texting the message “104074” to Pepsi (73774)

Keep spreading the word about this too. Let’s make it happen.

Update 12/13/10:  Follow the new Vote Rabbit blog for the latest news about this initiative, and if you are mentioning on Twitter, make sure to use the hashtag #voterabbit. However you chose to do it, continue to spread the word and influence others to vote rabbit everday.

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.

Bicycle infrastructure funding update and more

Thanks to all of you who attended the City Council meeting last night. A fairly large group of cyclists showed up in support of funding for bike lanes and greenways; in fact, the Greenville News mentioned us on the front page of today’s paper (though I couldn’t find the article online). As expected, City Council passed the C.I.P budget, which includes just under 5 million dollars over the course of the next 5 years for greenways and bike lanes. That is great news and I am looking forward to working with the City as a representative of the Spinners to get some of these projects implemented. Before I move on to another subject, I want to again express thanks to the Mayor, City Council, and the City Manager and his staff for including this funding for cycling and pedestrian projects in the budget.

Good things are happening in the City, but don’t forget the County Comprehensive plan workshops that are also happening this month. I plan to attend the next one on April 17th , 6:30pm at Hillcrest High. After that, only two more meetings are left; Traveler’s Rest on the 22nd and Woodmont on the 24th. Nigel Darrington attended the meeting last week at Mauldin High, and he said that his topic of Pedestrian Bikeways was voted as the number one topic at the end of the meeting. The data collected at these meeting will be used to direct funding, so it is important that cycling interests are represented at each. I hope that some of you will join Nigel and me at the next meeting at Hillcrest. Lets carry some of the positive momentum from the City efforts on to the County.
Updated 4/16: I just found out that I have a scheduling conflict and won't be able to make it tomorrow night (scheduling anything is tough with three young kids). Hopefully some of you who live near Simpsonville can attend the workshop and speak up for cycling.

Finally, I want to mention Bike To Work Week, May 12th – 16th. Planning is underway and many more details will follow, but I want to mention it briefly now so you can all plan to ride to work that week. The focus this year is “Encouragement and Education” and great events along those lines will be taking place all week. I’ll post a schedule of events here soon and I will link to the City’s official BTWW website. For now though, here are just a few of the events planned for Bike to Work Week in Greenville:

- May 12th, 13th, and 14th, we are offering FREE bicycle safety check-ups during lunch. Bring your commuter bike to Piazza Bergamo anytime between 11:30am-1:30pm to have a local bicycle mechanic get it ride ready. We'll provide air for your tires, check out your brakes, and look over your drivetrain. There will be bicycle demos and lots of commuter information available.

-Thursday, May 15th at 6:30pm on the Swamp Rabbit Trail in Downtown Greenville, the Greenville Spinners are hosting a Bicycle Commuter Training Course. This 1-hour course will give you the knowledge and confidence to safely ride your bike with traffic. This course is geared towards individuals who would like to use a bicycle as a form of transportation while getting exercise, having fun, and saving gas money. Pre-registration is required, so please visit the Bike-to-Work website (soon to come) for registration information.

-Friday, May 16th, National Bike-to-Work Day. Try making that trip from your house to your office by Bike! You'll be rewarded if you stop by Piazza Bergamo anytime between 7am-8:30am with free Bagels and Coffee.

Spartanburg in American Bicyclist

I received the March issue of American Bicyclist (the LAB magazine) yesterday and it features short write-ups about all of the Bicycle Friendly Communities that have been designated so far. As you all know, Spartanburg was designated at the Bronze level recently after a lot of effort from local cyclists and City leaders, so naturally that was the page I turned to first.

The article points out the Bike Town initiative, which helped to make bike infrastructure, and funding for it, a priority in Spartanburg. It also mentions popular events like the Assault on Mt. Mitchell and the Smith Barney Classic (now the Steadman Hawkins Classic). Interestingly, the unanimous passing of Complete Streets resolutions at both the City and County level was listed as Spartanburg’s most significant recent accomplishment. Best of all, it points out that Spartanburg has made a commitment to continue funding the Bicycle Friendly Community campaign in order to reach more ambitious goals. Congratulations again to Spartanburg. Hopefully we in Greenville can join them as a BFC designated community soon.

While I am posting, I want to mention the article in the Greenville News this morning about City greenways. For those of you who haven’t seen it, progress on the Reedy River Greenway from Greenville Tech to downtown is coming along.

Bicycle infrastructure funding

I already mentioned this on the Spinner’s email list, but it is worth mentioning again here for anyone who is not on that list. At the upcoming meeting on April 14th at 5:30, City Council will vote to approve the Capital Improvement Budget, which includes the following items.

1) $45,000 per year for bicycle lanes and bicycle infrastructure in the City limits. This 45k will be available each year for the next 5 years for a total of $225,000. The money will begin implementation of the Bicycle Infrastructure Master Plan that the Spinners and the City developed 3 years ago (see a map of that plan here).

2) $4.5 million over the next 5 years for City-wide trails and greenways. This money will continue implementation of the City's Trails and Greenways Master Plan, which was developed last year by Greenways Incorporated and the City staff.

This is great news so I hope that many of you will join me at City Hall in a couple of weeks to express your support. We have a Greenville Spinners club meeting planned that same night at 6:30 at Coffee Underground, so please plan to come downtown one hour earlier to let the Mayor, City Council, and City staff know that we support this effort and that we appreciate all of their work on cycling issues.

Swamp Rabbit Trail Roadzyme Demonstration

For those of you who might be interested, I want to pass along the following message from Greenville County Director of Greenways Ty Houck. Sounds interesting; I’ll have to see if my work schedule will allow me to get out and see this demonstration next Tuesday.

Tuesday February 26th all day, weather permitting we will be doing a demonstration of Roadzyme. Engineers will be on-site all day next Tuesday for questions.

Roadzyme is a road building product that is:

- non-toxic, made from sugar beet extract
-will not leach a pollutant like asphalt
- significantly less expensive than asphalt
-environmentally friendly
-quick and easy to install

The demonstration site is at the southern end of the Furman lake across the dam. Park at the public parking at the student center and take the short walk over the dam, at the end of the road is an access gate to the trail. This is an exciting green product that we want your opinion on so hope to see you there.

Update 2/26: Due to the rain today, the demonstration will probably be moved to Thursday or Friday. Stay tuned.


Update 2/28: Friday it is. Check it out if you can.

Some good news

The Palmetto Cycling Coalition recently sent out a press release to announce that South Carolina Bicycle Safety Bill H.3006 passed in the House in January by a vote of 105-0. That is great news and we owe the PCC our thanks for their hard work on this for the past couple years. Those of you who have been following the progress of this bill know that it revises South Carolina bicycle statutes to bring them into greater conformity with the Uniform Vehicle Code. Two of the reforms in the bill that stand out to me are the establishment of a minimum passing distance (five feet) and the elimination of a mandatory sidepath law.

In the PCC press release, Paul Lefrancios, President of the PCC is quoted as saying “We are so excited about the House passage of this bill. South Carolina is 4th in the nation for cycling fatalities. This is unacceptable. And House members agreed.” I have mentioned South Carolina’s terrible record on cycling safety before on this blog, and you can view the 2004 NHTSA statistics on cycling fatalities for yourself right here. Our state’s rate of 5.24 cycling fatalities for every million state residents is well over twice the national average; a fact which, as Mr. Lefrancios stated, is quite unacceptable.

You can read the PCC position paper on the legislation here. The bill will now go on to the State Senate for consideration as S.0354. In the Senate, the PCC is working to improve the bill by removing the Single File amendment, which would require cyclists to ride single file rather than two abreast. As the PCC’s Executive Director Natalie Cappuccio Britt points out, the Single File amendment “would prohibit parents from riding next to their children” and “It is far more difficult and dangerous for a motorist to pass a long line of cyclists riding single file versus two abreast.”

The bill is expected to pass in the Senate this year, but it still needs support from all the cyclists in South Carolina. If you are not already a PCC member, I encourage you to join them in their effort to make our state bicycle friendly.

While I am posting good news, I also want to mention that the Greenville City Council officially adopted the “Trails & Greenways Master Plan” at Monday evening’s City Council meeting. In addition, some good discussion took place at that meeting regarding implementation of additional bike lanes downtown in the near future. A few of you have mentioned that the downtown bicycle plan, which City Council endorsed in 2005, seems to have stalled a bit recently. That may be true, but I am still optimistic that we will see some progress in 2008. Mayor White, the City Council, and many members of the City staff openly support bicycle infrastructure projects, so we just need to continue to communicate our needs and desires to them. I received very positive responses from several City Council members to my comments, and to a follow up email that I sent, about a greater emphasis on bike lanes and “Share the Road” signage in the city of Greenville. As I said before, the City is working on several projects and I think we will see some notable improvements this year. Still, we can’t just wait for things to happen. We need to keep communicating with the City and helping them to pinpoint areas where improvements to make cycling safer are necessary. I don’t have all the ideas, so I am asking all of you to let me know what improvements you would like to see to make Greenville a bike friendly town.

Own a section of a Greenville County Greenway

Well, you won’t really technically own it, but this is a great way that you can support and help build the county’s Greenways network. Purchasers will receive a plaque that recognizes their ownership and list the GPS coordinates of their particular section. A 25 foot section of Greenway will only cost you 25 bucks, so you can give out sections as Christmas gifts (plaques are scheduled to be ready next Thursday).

To order a section, double click the form shown here to enlarge it and save to your computer. Email all the information to Ty Houck at ty@gcrd.org. If you are interested and need the form in a word doc format, leave a comment with your email address or just get in touch with Ty. I am sure he would be happy to forward it to you.

A Greenways presentation and more

As the header says, this is an occasional blog and lately it has been very occasional. I have been posting infrequently this month, but there is still a lot of Greenville advocacy information to pass along. My travel schedule has been a bit hectic lately and will continue to be that way until mid January. Posting here might continue to be a little slow for a while, but look for an update on the Share the Road efforts and more in the near future.

One event that you will want to mark you on your calendars is a Trails and Greenways Public Presentation on Tuesday, December 11th at 6pm in the Downtown Hughes Library Meeting Room. Andrew Meeker, Greenville’s urban designer, will be presenting the newly completed 'Trails and Greenways Master Plan' and discussing what projects are currently underway or soon to be underway. Ty Houck from the Greenville County Recreation District will discuss progress on the Greenville Hospital System Swamp Rabbit Tram Trail and other County-wide Greenway efforts. I’ll be there to see the presentation and I hope that some of you will be able to attend as well.

The City is currently working on the trail section, shown here, between Cleveland Park and Greenville Tech. Andrew has some pictures of the construction progress online for those of you who are interested. By the way, this section of greenway is scheduled to open to the public in the Spring of 08. That is right around the corner.

While I am posting, I want to mention a few other things that I have seen lately. Dual Chase Productions has online some interesting Powerpoint presentations, which show ways that cyclists interact with traffic. I have only glanced at a few of these so far, but they seem like a good resource for proponents of transportational cycling. Read more here at a post on Cyclelicious.

Not too long ago, I mentioned a few interesting pedestrian and cyclist safety campaigns in other cities. Portland has a new pedestrian campaign that recently caught my attention. I think efforts like these go a long way toward helping people to remember that cyclists and pedestrians who are killed or injured on the roadways are more than just statstics. Innovative ways to alert drivers to simply watch out is something that I think we need more of.

Also at Bike Portland is a post about the bike sharing program that is soon to be implemented in that city. The Velib bikes in Paris have received the most press lately, but bike sharing or rental programs are taking off in many cities around the world. For those of you who are interested in reading more, the Bike Sharing blog covers such programs in cities worldwide. As the Greenville City/County Greenways plans come together, I think a program like this would make a lot of sense in this area. I have a few thoughts on the subject, but I am running out of time so I will have to save those for a future post.

Recent Greenville News articles

I have been meaning to post this for the last few days, but I haven’t had the chance. If you have not already seen it, check out the article about the Greenways plan that ran in Tuesday’s Greenville News. I liked this quote from Ty Houck toward the end of the article (referring to the County greenways plan):

"We want to build the trails that are fastest and easiest first. Then, once people get to use those, they'll hunger for more."

I think that is a great approach. Of course, I want to see the greenway trail development balanced with more on-street bike lanes and “share the road” signage as it is being developed. Without the other two components, the presence of greenway trails alone can falsely reinforce the impression some drivers have that cyclists do not belong on the roads. Don’t get me wrong, I think that greenway trails are great, but I think that an effective share the road campaign becomes even more important once they are in place. The City and County jsut need to make sure that there is a balance as they facilities are being built.

Also in Tuesday’s paper was an article about Spartanburg’s bronze BFC designation. I was glad to see that the Greenville News picked up that story. We can learn something from our neighboring city as we work toward the goal of designation.

Trails and Greenways Master plan

Several months ago, I posted a preliminary draft copy of the City of Greenville’s trails and greenway plan. Since then, a few people have asked where they could find a high-res version of that map. Well, the City now has the completed Trails and Greenways Master Plan available on-line. From the webpage you can download a large pdf file of the map. The completed plan is a hub and spokes model that links parks and other points of interest (hubs) with trails that connect them (spokes). This plan calls for an additional 50 miles of greenway trail, an additional 53 miles of street based trail, and an additional 10 miles of natural surface trail, all within the city limits.

Preliminary work has already begun toward construction of the new 1.5-mile trail between Cleveland Park and Greenville Tech. The scheduled completion date will be spring/summer of 2008.

Future bicycle/ped developments in the City and County

I have a couple of pieces of information that I want to pass along today. First is an announcement from City Manager Jim Bourey that construction is soon to begin on a new 1.5-mile long section of Greenway Trail. The RiverWalk trail, which will connect Cleveland Park to Greenville Tech, will be 13 feet wide with 8 feet of asphalt and 5 feet of rubberized asphalt for runners. The trail will run along the Reedy River and will connect to the Swamp Rabbit trail as it goes through town. Read more about the new trail on the City’s news release document here.

I also want to let you know about an upcoming public presentation of the proposed GPATS (Greenville-Pickens Area Transportation Study) Regional Transportation Plan. The presentation, which will cover proposed highway improvements as well as mass transit, bicycle, and pedestrian improvement plans, will take place at 1:00pm on Tuesday August 21st at the Carolina First Center (formerly the Palmetto Expo Center). A drop-in open house will follow the presentation from 2-6. I encourage all of you who are interested in bicycle transportation to attend this event. You can find out more about it by following the “transportation planning” link from the Greenville Planning website. I would also encourage you to check out the Pedestrian and Bicycle section of the proposal document. A pdf of that section can be downloaded here. It is a large file, but it is full of great information and is worth reading before attending the presentation. This is definitely something that will be worthwhile for those of you who have expressed interest in bicycle projects in the county. I hope to see some of you at the Carolina First center in a few weeks.

Greenways Master plans

Click on the image to the left to view a draft map of the City of Greenville’s Greenways Master plan. Working with the city, Greenways Incorporated developed this plan based in part on feedback from interested citizens at a public meeting in April. You may notice that there are few prominent greenway “dead ends” at the city limits. That is where the county’s Greenway master plan will come into play.

If you want to find out more about the Greenville County Master Plan, which is currently in the proposal phase, come to the next Spinners advocacy meeting, which is tentatively scheduled for August 15th at Coffee Underground (update: the meeting has been rescheduled for Monday August 20th at 7:00pm) . Ty Houck will be available to discuss the plan and to hear your comments at this early stage. I will post again with details about the meeting, but for now, mark your calendars and plan to attend.

Meet Ty Houck, Greenways Director

You may have seen the latest article in the Greenville News this morning about the Swamp Rabbit Tram Trail, which will soon run from downtown Greenville to Travelers Rest. Ty Houck, the newly hired Director of Greenways for the county, is one of the people quoted in the article. For those of you who don’t already know Ty, I want to take this opportunity to briefly introduce him.

Ty recently moved to the Greenways Director position after serving12 years with the South Carolina State Park Service. Many of you in the local cycling community already know him because he served nearly six of those years as Park Manager of Paris Mountain State Park. Two of Ty’s top priorities in his new position will be getting the Swamp Rabbit Tram Trail built and creating a Greenville County Greenways Master Plan. The Swamp Rabbit will create the first greenway link with a paved trail from Travelers Rest to the greenways inside the city limits of Greenville.

Ty feels fortunate to have another opportunity to be involved in quality of life improvements in Greenville. If you are interested in being involved or if you just want to be kept up to date on the progress of the Greenways plan, send Ty an e-mail at ty@gcrd.org.

Swamp Rabbit Press Conference

Wow, this takes place tomorrow morning. I would really like to attend this press conference, but unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it. I would like to hear from any of you who are able to attend. Please comment if you have the chance to get out there.

If you are not already familiar with the Swamp Rabbit “Tram-Trail” plan, read a little bit about it here, or click here to see the Greenways Master Plan slideshow.