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.

More Share the Road news

In a recent post, I mentioned a few places in the City of Greenville where “Share the Road” signs will soon be installed. I just found out about one more road, Chick Springs. It sounds like two signs have been approved for that road and are currently being fabricated by the City. Many local cyclists use Chick Springs as a route from Altamont/ Paris Mountain to downtown, so it will be great to have the signs there to remind motorist of the presence of cyclists. Thanks to the City Staff for getting this done. I hope to see many more STR signs popping up in the City limits as the year progresses

So far, my attempts to get more “Share the Road” signs in the County have not been very successful, but I still consider that to be a major advocacy goal for 2008. I don’t want to blame the County entirely though; part of the problem has probably has been that I have not had the time to spend and have not been talking to all the right people. Any help that all of you can provide with contacts would be greatly appreciated. “Share the Road” signs are a cost effective way to spread the message that cyclists have a right to use the roadways, so there is no reason that we shouldn’t be able to get signs installed on the routes that we most often use.

One thing that all of you can do is use the form that is shown here (click to enlarge) to let the SCDOT know which roads in Greenville County need “Share the Road” signs. I encourage any of you who have a specific route in mind to identify specific locations on that road (with pictures if possible), fill out this form, and send it to the SCDOT (or just send it to me and I will forward it for you). As I mentioned before, Old Buncombe is the highest priority road in my opinion. Let’s work to get signs installed along that road before the US pro races in August.

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.

Share the Road update

In September, I asked members of the Spinners email list to suggest roads in Greenville County that would be good candidates for “Share the Road” signage. Many of you responded to help me put together a great list. Some routes on that list stand out as clear priorities and work still needs to be done to get signs installed in several of those locations. To be honest, the effort to get additional “Share the Road” signs in the County has been slow, but I do want to share with you a few locations where you will see new signs soon in the City of Greenville.

Cleveland Park will get six new “Share the Road” signs very soon, most likely by the end of February. Many local cyclists ride through Cleveland Park so we all owe Greenville’s Urban Designer Andrew Meeker a big thanks for his efforts to get these signs approved and implemented. In this case, the City's Traffic Engineering Division is doing the sign fabrication and installation, so I think we can expect to see them installed without much delay.

Another location where signs have been officially approved and will appear soon is on Roper Mountain at the 385 bridge crossing and also on Roper Mountain as it crosses Woodruff. Though this seems like a busy location for cycling, it is a route used by several cyclists (myself included) to get to the ICAR/Millennium Campus/Verdae area. As this area develops further, bicycle traffic on the roads leading in will greatly increase, so it is important to get out the Share the Road message early. I brought this location to the attention of City Councilman Sudduth, and I really would like to thank him for his prompt attention to my emails on this subject and for his support of cycling in general.

In my mind, the next big priority for “Share the Road” signs is Old Buncombe. That road is heavily used by local cyclists and came out at the top of my informal poll. As I mentioned early, efforts to get signs in the County have been slow, but I think we can do it if we focus on locations one at a time. I don’t know if it will happen, but my goal is to have new “Share the Road” signs installed on Old Buncombe before the US Pro Championships at the end of August. I’ll let you know in the future what you can do to help make this happen. It is a slow process and it takes a lot of support from the public to get these things done. Thanks again to those of you who have helped so far. Trust me, I will be calling on you again.

I also owe you all an update on the progress toward new bike lanes, both downtown and beyond. Some of the news is good and some is not so good, but I will save that for a future post. Again, making Greenville a bike friendly place is something that we can do if we work together as a cycling community. I would love to see it all happen faster, but sometimes it takes baby steps to make a positive change.

"Reward" for the apprehension of the white pickup

I briefly mentioned the troublesome white pickup in my previous post. Bill Reichert is offering a reward of sorts for the capture of the driver. He will donate $100 to the Palmetto Cycling Coalition when the pickup is apprehended by law enforcement officials.

Bill challenges other cyclists that ride Dividing Waters and nearby roads to pony up and make cycling safe again. If you are interested, email me your reward/donation commitment now and I'll see all are complied and posted later.

Threats to cyclists, here and elsewhere

Some of you may have seen the December 27th article by Matthew Parris in the London based paper, The Times. The column, titled What’s smug and deserves to be decapitated?, has sparked a bit of outrage among cyclists on the Internet. In his column, Parris says "A festive custom we could do worse than foster would be stringing piano wire across country lanes to decapitate cyclists." In the course of his article he goes on to make several more threatening statements aimed at the “panting, sugar-gulping, chocolate-chewing, Lycra-clad leisure-cyclist?” Read the article for yourself to see how truly sickening it is.

Bike Biz, the British trade journal for the cycling industry, now reports that the Press Complaints Commission has received over 200 complaints making this the 3rd most complained about article of 2008. Parris has since apologized saying, “It was meant humorously but so many cyclists have taken it seriously that I plainly misjudged. I am sorry." Yeah right. It just sounds to me like he just wants to keep his job (for the record, I don’t think he should).

Since Parris' column appeared in a major world newspaper, it has received a lot of attention. When I first read it though, it reminded me of the article that was recently written by a columnist in the nearby Boone, NC newspaper, The Ashe Mountain Times, about cyclists on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The author of that column, Ron Fitzwater, though less directly threatening, was just as ignorant as Parris saying things like, “Roads are made for cars and are not safe for bikes, these are facts that are not debatable and it is time cyclists came to grips with them.” Fitzwater also suggested to cyclists, “when cars are coming, get off the road. After all, having to stop and start over again is better than getting a real close look at the undercarriage of a Cherokee.” For those of you who have not seen the Fitzwater article, The Incidental Cyclist posted about it a month ago and his post includes a link to a pdf file of it.

The Boone article hits closer to home than the London one, but even closer to home for cyclists in Greenville are the repeated threats and attacks on individual riders that have been made by the driver of a white truck on the route to Saluda. As has been mentioned on the local cycling clubs’ email lists, several local cyclists have had altercations with this driver who obviously wants us off the road. Hopefully, with renewed attention on these incidents, the driver will be caught and off the road himself soon.

Though only one of the people I mentioned in this post is physically acting on his aggression, the behavior of all three of these cyclist-hating individuals should be cause for great alarm. Unfortunately there are others out there who feel the same way and don’t want us on the roads. Personally, these attitudes only increase my resolve to work on “share the road” initiatives and other local cycling advocacy issues. I hope that many of you will join me in 2008 to really push for a cycle friendly Greenville County. We may not be able to win over everybody, but we can definitely work make the streets of Greenville and the surrounding area safer for all users.

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.