Bikes in the news and other updates

I have just a few things to quickly pass along today, mostly national level news. The House Congressional Resolution 305 (H.CON.RES. 305) sponsored by Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon is scheduled to be considered by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation today. The National Bike Bill as it is know passed the House in May and you can follow its status right here. I am late in passing this news along, but you can still contact your Senator to let him know that this is something you support.

I want to mention the feature story on CBS News Sunday Morning this week about bicycling. It is great to see this kind of attention to cycling as a form of transportation. As fuel prices rise and more people turn to bicycles, I expect that we will see more stories like this one. I guess it is kind of pointing out the obvious, but I want to say that with new riders taking to the streets in the coming months and years, the need to educate drivers and cyclist about safety and sharing the road will continue to become more important. I would say more than infrastructure, education should be the primary focus of bike advocacy groups right now.

Finally, I want to pass along a recent email that Natalie sent to the PCC membership about commenting on revisions to the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. I am in too big a hurry to paraphrase, so see her entire message below:

It looks like the deadline will be extended for comments, but please share with anyone that might be interested. This is an opportunity to provide feedback on bike design and the rules that guide engineers in best practices. I realize this is technical but I know some of you might be interested in viewing the proposed changes and learning more on what is happening in regards to new bike infrastructure, signaling etc.

Members (or anyone) wishing to make comments regarding the proposed revised Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices have until Thursday to do so.

Apbp member Richard Moeur has placed much of the needed information on his website at http://www.trafficsign.us/npa.html . Richard chairs the Bicycle Technical Committee of the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (NCUTCD). Here one can view the proposed new MUTCD text and view new tables and figures. There is also a link to view submitted comments for docket Federal Highway Administration(FHWA)-2007-28977, plus advice on submitting comments. Part 9 deals with Bicycles while Pedestrian matters are interspersed throughout--- This link will take you directly to bicycle issues--- http://www.trafficsign.us/npa/part09compl.pdf.

Apbp president Seleta Reynolds has prepared an overview Powerpoint presentation which is posed on our website at http://www.apbp.org/pdfsanddocs/mutcd_bpdg_6.20.08.ppt which summarizes some of the changes, as well as information relative to the California MUTCD, in case you need a quick familiarization.

To submit a comment, simply go to the www.regulations.gov website and search on "28977" (the regulatory number assigned to the new MUTCD). Then follow the instructions on the webpage.

Rock Hill Velodrome

Most of you have probably already heard about the possibility of a velodrome in Rock Hill, SC. According to an email from the Carolina Velodrome Association (CVA), a group that has worked toward this goal for many years, the project is coming along:

“Earlier this year, we were presented with an opportunity to place the velodrome in the center of a 100 acre, mixed use development. The developer has already donated the land and presented his support to the City Council. We have raised $500,000 and have the full support from USA Cycling. All the economic impact studies have been done, everything is set.”

Sounds great, but they are at a point now when they need our help. The CVA is asking the City of Rock Hill to pay for construction costs, and to jointly operate the velodrome with them. All of us who would use the velodrome need to let the Mayor and City Council know that we support it by the end of July. Take a minute to contact them (download contact info here) and let them know that you support the idea of building the only world-class velodrome in the southeast right here in South Carolina. If it helps, you can also download a sample letter to use. For more information, read about the velodrome effort on the news page of the CVA website.

Coincidently, I am writing this on the same day that I am selling my track bike of 20 years. Oh well, if the velodrome gets built, I’ll just have to buy a new one. At this point, let’s just voice our support to make sure that does happen.

Photo credit: Racing at the Lehigh Valley Velodrome in Trexlertown, PA by Fußgänger

A quick BFC workshop follow-up

The BFC workshop with Bill Nesper on Tuesday was a big success. I don’t have time to do a full recap today, but I do want to pass along the summary of the action step recommendations as determined by the workshop attendees (myself included). Also, I want to ask all of you reading this to think about volunteering to participate in one of the BFC committee based on the 5 E’s:

1. Engineering

2. Education

3. Encouragement

4. Evaluation & Planning

5. Enforcement

If you would like to participate, send an email to Andrew Meeker with the City of Greenville. You are welcome to contact me as well if you have ideas or if you would like a copy of the PowerPoint presentations from the meeting. I can’t stress enough that we really need for people to get involved to make this happen. Several cities in the southeast have received bronze level BFC designation. Here in Greenville, we have an exciting opportunity to work toward silver level. It won’t be easy, but I think it is a worthwhile goal.

Now, onto the 11 ACTION STEP RECOMMENDATIONS from the workshop:

1. Start a BFC Committee and set the goal of applying for the BFC application and reaching Gold by a certain time.

2. Set up a League Cycling Instructor seminar to certify instructors who can teach children, adults, an motorists. Start regular class for each of these groups.

3. Create a plan for improved signage (bike lanes, yield to bikes/pedestrians, share the road, bike parking) –start implementation on most traveled roads first.

4. Expand the bicycle network and increase network connectivity through the use of bike lanes, shared lane arrows and signed routes. This will provide a broader range of facility choices for users of various abilities and comfort levels.

5. Facilitate the creation of a stronger, more centralized advocacy group that will take the lead on education and encouragement program. Work with the PCC to launch this initiative

6. Create a bicycling website for Greenville that will act as a central hub for bicyclists and potential bicyclists to gather education tips, local bike routes, people to ride with, and news about events and other cycling-related activities. This site will also act as a place for bicyclists to comment on current bicycle projects and to report facility maintenance issues, etc.

7. Expand public education campaigns to promote the "share the road" message and the rights and responsibilities of all users. PAS'sPAS'S for TV, radio, and in print.

8. Adopt a Complete Streets policy in the community.

9. Develop a series of short (2-5 mi.) loops rides around the community and provide appropriate way-finding signage. Integrate these rides into a local bike map.

10. Improve marketing and education of bike rack and bus bike rack use. Ensure that drivers are educated as well.

11. Fill out BFC application!

Bicycle Friendly Community workshop

As hard as it is to do, I will take a break from following the web coverage of the Tour de France on my lunch hour to pass along a few updates and links.

Since Spartanburg was designated as a Bicycle Friendly Community not long ago, several people have asked when Greenville plans to apply for designation. It has been discussed among the Spinners and within the City for a long time, but Greenville just wasn’t ready… until now. Next Tuesday, the process begins with a workshop to educate City officials and business leaders about the benefits of becoming a bike friendly city. We are very lucky to have Bill Nesper, the League of American Bicyclists’ Director of the Bicycle Friendly Community program, here in Greenville next week to conduct the workshop. This workshop is the first official step toward BFC designation, so I will let you all know how it goes.

I was looking through the July/August issue of G Magazine (I think it is only the second issue) and I was surprised to see a short article about colored bike lanes (scroll down to read it here). When Portland started implementing the colored lanes in intersections in 2005 (if I remember correctly), I mentioned it to Jason V. who was the Spinners advocacy chair at the time. He was immediately interested in sharing information about painted lanes with Mayor White and City Council, so I pulled together some statistics from studies in Denmark, Sweden, and Montreal where the colored lanes were already in use. I hadn’t thought much about it since then, but it is good to know that the City is still interested. Of course, this is something that would most likely happen in the distant future; we need more bike lanes before we can start painting them green through intersections. But hey, we are making progress in Greenville and I do believe we could see colored lanes or bike boxes here someday.

Since I mentioned G magazine, I should point out that the same issue had a great article about a Main street bicycle shop from the 1800’s and a nice profile of George Hincapie. The other content is great too, so I encourage you to pick up a copy if you haven’t seen it.

This isn’t related to Greenville, but NBC Nightly News did a story on bicycle commuting this week. They mentioned Portland and pointed out that 6% of daily commuters in that city use bicycles. They also mentioned that Portland has 170 miles of bike lanes (not an unrelated fact to that commuter percentage). As someone who has commuted by bike off and on for nearly 20 years, it is great to see this kind of coverage about transportational cycling in the national news. Interest in bike commuting nationwide is at an all time high, so we need to prepare for more bike commuters here in Greenville going forward.

Finally, I just want to thank the guy with the Parlee TT bike who gave me his spare tube before the Spinners time trail at Donaldson last night. It wasn’t the first time I have showed up for a race or event unprepared and it probably won’t be the last. I offered to pay him for the tube, but he said something like “hey, we’ve all been there.” Very true, I have given people tubes, patches, etc. and have also been the recipient of such generosity on many occasions (including last night). Without getting too sappy, I’ll just point out that those within the cycling community look out for each other and that cyclists, in general, are a generous bunch. Sorry I didn’t get your name, but thanks again for the tube. Without it I would have just been sitting on the side of the road watching everyone else ride.

A convenience center for cyclists?

In keeping with the theme from my last post, I want to mention something else I would like to see in Greenville. I posted about this prototype cycling convenience center from Trek at my Bicycle Design blog. I would love to see one of these units in Greenville after the testing period is over. It’s a pretty cool idea for commuting cyclists who may be heading to and from work at times when the bike shops might not be open. I love the idea of being able to fix a flat with a tube from a bicycle specific vending machine.

While I am posting, I will mention the Bike MS ride this fall (Sept 27-28), a charity ride that is a 2-day, 150-mile event involving almost 2,000 cyclists. In past years, the ride has gone from Charlotte to Myrtle Beach, but this year they are moving it to Greenville. Cyclists will have start options on the first day in either Rock Hill or Greenville, and the second day all cyclists will ride a route in the Greenville area near Paris Mountain. Route options are 35-75-100miles the first day and 35-75 the second. More info is available on the MS ride webpage.

Why not here?

I encourage you to watch this short video of Portland’s first Ciclovia style street closure. With 6 miles of streets closed to automobiles for half a day one Sunday, residents had the opportunity to get out and walk, bike, skate and basically just celebrate being outside. Can you imagine something like this here in Greenville? The fact that Portland embraces ideas like this is exactly why they are a platinum level Bicycle Friendly Community. Greenville is not quite as bike friendly as Portland yet, but I don’t see why we couldn’t do something like this? We close off streets for events, including the US Pro Championship races, so why not close a handful of City streets for a few hours to remind everyone that streets really are for people?

While I am thinking of things I would love to see here in Greenville, I’ll mention the idea of a bike co-op workspace or a non-profit community bike shop. They vary from educational bike workspaces like the Bicycle Kitchen in LA to places like The Recyclery in Portland where they sell used bikes as well as teach people how to repair them. The common thread is these are places where old bikes can be fixed to get them back on the street, which translates to economical bikes for people who need them. Closer to home are the Asheville ReCyclery, Sopo bikes in Atlanta, and now the Hub Cycle program in Spartanburg. For now, any of you who have old bikes that you want to donate should direct them to the Hub Cycle program, but wouldn’t it be great to have something like that in Greenville?

Photo: kids riding at Portland’s Sunday Parkways event from BikePortland.org

Bicycle Safety Law

It’s official; the bicycle safety bill, H.3006, is now law! Governor Sanford signed the legislation yesterday at Outspokin’ Bicycles in Columbia. For any of you who don’t already know, we now have a safe passing distance law, which will make it easier to charge a driver who hits a cyclist. There is also a law against harassing a cyclist by yelling, honking, or throwing something out the window. A driver who does so will now face misdemeanor charges. Of course, those are just two elements of this legislation, which updates the South Carolina vehicle code pertaining to bicycles. All of the changes were designed to make our roads safer for cyclists, so this is a major victory for cyclists (and all road users) in South Carolina. Today’s copy of The State newspaper has a great article about the signing of the bill that I encourage you all to read for more information.

Some of you may have seen the article in The Greenville News about the legislation on Monday. Unfortunately, several of the people who chose to leave comments on the online version of that article expressed a less than favorable opinion of cyclists and our right to the road. Comments like “I too have lusted in my heart to throw stuff at bike riders” or “Bikes have no business on the road as they present an unnecessary safety issue” add no value to the news story and are most likely just attempts to cause a little trouble. Still, we shouldn’t overlook them entirely. Naturally, my first reaction to those comments is to get angry, but they do point to the fact that there is still much work to be done on the advocacy front. I hate to even acknowledge the people who left negative, even threatening, comments to that story, but I think it is important to remember that we still have a lot to do. I just want to point it out because if we don’t speak up for cycling issues and do our best to educate the cycling and driving public about sharing the road, you can bet the very small minority of drivers who want bikes off the roads entirely will make their voices heard.

Lastly, I want to share a message that Paul LeFrancois of the Palmetto Cycling Coalition sent out to thank everyone involved with the passage of this bill. Certainly, we all owe Paul, Natalie, and everyone involved with the PCC our thanks for their hard work to make this happen. This really is a big deal for all cyclist in South Carolina.

Here is the letter from Paul for any of you who missed it:

I'm not sure what role fate plays in life, but perhaps it had a little to do with the timing of today's signing of the Bicycle Safety bill by Governor Sanford. At the signing were Becky Giblin whose daughter Rachel lost her life in a automobile-bicycle crash during the 2006 MS Ride, and the family of Tom Hoskins, who died in October, 2007, in a an automobile-bicycle crash during a ride raising funds for brain injury research. As it turns out Monday, June 9 would have been Rachel's birthday and Wednesday, June 11 would have been Tom's birthday. Governor Sanford presented the two pens he used to sign the bill to Becky Giblin and to the Hoskins family. It was an emotional day with sadness for the losses these families suffered, but also a day filled with resolve and commitment to create a safer and healthier South Carolina and to reduce the likelihood of such tragedies occurring in the future. The work of the past two years did make a difference as H3006 - The Bicycle Safety bill was signed into law by Governor Sanford..

I wanted to share some thoughts on what helped us reach this achievement.

1. I'll start with the PCC's Executive Director Natalie Cappuccio-Britt and the PCC board. When you look up multi-tasking in the dictionary it should read: see Natalie. I don't think I need to go into the details of the demands on a one employee statewide advocacy organization. All I will say is that there were numerous challenges and obstacles to overcome (some expected, others not) through the two years from the initial drafting of H3006 to its signing today. Natalie handled them all with determination, endurance, professionalism and passion and with a belief that we can and will make a difference. PCC board members have given of their time and resources to invest in a better future for bicycling in South Carolina. Numerous trips to Columbia, fundraising, organizing local events, attending meetings, contacting local and state officials all took time away from what they and all of us enjoy - riding our bikes. Most of the PCC board members are also involved in advocacy activities in their local communities so they were doing double duty to advance the cause of better cycling conditions both locally and statewide. I want to thank them for the efforts they've made that led to today's success.

2. I remember a line from a movie that went something like "politics is in everything so you better get good at it." To help the PCC get good at it we hired Palmetto Public Affairs to assist us in moving H3006 through the political process. Rebecca Ramos and Matthew Van Pattern of PPA served as our eyes and ears at the State House. Their knowledge of the political process, their contacts with legislators and their ability to work with legislators across party lines were invaluable. They made a great team to support and mentor Natalie and the PCC board.

3. Politicians listen to their constituents. When we needed the cycling community to step up to the plate it did so - and it hit a home run. There were some bleak times when we feared H3006 was on life support if not dead. The contacts from constituents - in person, via phone calls, letters and e-mails proved critical to breathing life back into the bill and changing opinions of legislators about the merits of the legislation. Your voices were heard and without them we wouldn't have succeeded. Individuals matter. And each individual who contacted an elected official sent a message - I'm a cyclist, I'm a voter and I want you to support safe cycling conditions in South Carolina.

4. Champions. We had some tremendous support from legislators who went to battle for us and for a bill they truly believed could make for a safer and healthier South Carolina. Representative James Smith (D - Columbia) was the primary sponsor who the PCC worked with to pre-file the bill in December 2006. Representative Garry Smith (R - Greenville) attended every legislative event the PCC sponsored over the past two years and provided critical leadership along with James Smith in reconciling the House and Senate versions of the bill. Senator Danny Verdin (R - Laurens) moved the bill through subcommittee in the Senate and smoothed the way for final adoption when the bill came back from the House. Senators Hutto (D - Orangeburg), Hawkins (R - Spartanburg) and Malloy (D - Darlington) added amendments that strengthened the penalties against drivers at fault when cyclists are injured in crashes and those who harass or endanger cyclists. The list could go on, but needless to say these individuals were critical to passage of H3006.

What happens next?

If any of the above four ingredients had been left out of the mix we could not have succeeded. So for everyone who participated in the process please know that you did make a difference. It's now up to us to continue moving forward. H3006 wasn't a beginning or an ending - but it was a major accomplishment and part of a long-term process of advancing the idea that bicycling is a viable source of recreation, transportation, tourism and economic development in South Carolina and that bicycling can play a critical role in promoting healthy lifestyles and healthy communities and it can improve the quality of life in our state.

To all of the individuals and organizations who have supported the PCC from its fledgling years in the mid-1990s to the present - THANK YOU! Today's accomplishment would not have been possible without your support. There are still tremendous amounts of work to do in the areas of education, engineering, enforcement, etc. and we look forward to your continued participation and support in creating a truly bicycle friendly South Carolina.

Paul LeFrancois
Palmetto Cycling Coalition