Spinners Advocacy
2009 Initiatives (overview- keep scrolling for activities and news!)
Greenville Spinners Advocacy Committee - Primary Initiatives for 2009 (as adopted by Spinners Board)
• Support the efforts of municipal areas in the County to become Bike Friendly, encouraging the use of the Bike Friendly Cities program of the League of American Bicyclists. One specific target: Silver status for City of Greenville.
• Promote the agenda of the Palmetto Cycling Coalition in Greenville County, especially the advertisement of, and explanation of, the new state cycling laws they helped create. “Share the Road!” emphasis, with even-handed application toward both bicyclists and motorists, involving education of both.
• Increase the membership of the Spinners by 100-150 members by active recruitment (and involvement in Advocacy) of people who are interested in promoting bicycling in Greenville but who do not currently identify themselves as “Spinners”, because many are what might be called “casual bicyclists”, “bicyclists of necessity”, or people with only an interest in seeing the opportunity for others. The recruitment will involve partnering with local bicycling shops and similar organizations to convince this population to join our group.
Contact:
Scott McCrary
Greenville Spinners Chair of Advocacy Group
864-419-3181 jsmccrary@charter.net
Useful web links for Advocacy activities
www.bikeville.org THE site for the activities of the group working to help make the City of Greenville a Bicycle-Friendly Community. Lots of Spinners are actively working on the City's committee, and you can click on links on this website to learn about ongoing projects, as well as to join the effort. The Spinners help fund the Bike to Work program thru a grant we received from the League of American Bicyclists, and the 2009 Bike to Work event will be the biggest yet! It is a part of the larger National Bike Month program being sponsored by Bikeville- check out all the month-long activites in May, as rest as the remainder of the year.
www.bikeleague.org A great place to see what's happening at the national level, particularly in this transitional political year when many new bicycle-friendly initiatives are getting a fresh look. The yearly National Bicycle Summit in March was the biggest yet, and was attended by six South Carolina delegates, including Scott McCrary from the Spinners. Scott has materials, Washington contacts, and recollections to share with all who are interested.
www.pccsc.net The Palmetto Cycling Coalition is our very own, and very effective, state organization for cycling in South Carolina. This group is supported each year by the Spinners, and its new Executive Director, Rachael Kefalos, addressed the Spinners in February. All Spinners are exhorted to support their worthy efforts by joining the PCC, who successfully lobbied to get our progressive new set of state bicycling laws in 2008. Spinner Sally Nicholson is a Board member of PCC.
www.roadrelations.com A new-in-2009 homegrown Greenville County effort to improve road relations between cyclists and motorists in our local area. Its "Code of Conduct" has been adopted in principal by the Spinners Boaord and is being hammered out this spring. It was presented to the membership at the April meeting by Tim St. Clair and Scott McCrary. Many Spinners are members of the group (check them out on the website).
www.scbikelaw.com The definitive place to go for information on our state's new bike laws, with links to the law and commentary on its use. The site also has a useful set of links to biking organizations statewide.
http://bicycledesign.blogspot.com The Spinners' own James Thomas, previously the Head of Advocacy for our group, has a rich commentary on internnational bike design as well as a very nice, long list of blog sites of great interest to Advocacy-oriented folks (like www.urbanvelo.org )
http://greenvillerec.com/parks/swamp-rabbit The homepage for the Swamp Rabbit Trail, which is our area's first Rails-to-Trails site. The central city portion is complete, the upper four miles (through Travelers Rest) will be done in late April, and the remainder (to connect the two) is predited for late 2009. This trail connects downtown with city extensions which currently go as far as Greenville Tech and are pushing toward Connestee, south of Greenville. Take a look- there is a map here, and a place to get monthly email updates.
Important new effort underway to monitor/affect county/D.O.T. Road resurfacing priorities
Spinner Blake Sanders has volunteered to led an important effort to learn about the plans to use Stimulus Funds and other funding to improve Greenville County roads, in order that the voices of bicyclists might be heard in establishing priorites and considering alternatives. It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that "Pave, baby, pave" might be the motto for what is in store for us in the near future! The haste to spend stimulus funds is a good excuse NOT to consider "Complete Streets", bike lanes, or other improvements which give pedestrians and bicyclists an appropriate share of the expenditures in meeting transportation needs. We don't need perpetuation of the bicycling-unfriendly infrastructure that we have now, but there is a narrow window of opportunity for effecting change.
Blake is a Land Planner who works for SeamonWhiteside+Associates, the firm that the Spinners are using (on a continuing retainer) for engineering for city bike lane initiatives. He'll be reporting what he learns to the Spinners for our action. Blake can be reached at rsanders@swasc.com or 298-0534. He will welcome help with this task! Call or write him to get involved.
Sepember 2009- Spinners funding design of 2+ miles of East-West bike lanes for East North Street from Laurens to White Oak Street, in downtown Greenville
The Spinners are using $4000 in previously designated funds to fund this design, which would give bike lanes on a street reccomended by the City to undergo a "road diet" to reduce it from a 4-lane road to a two-lane (plus turn lanes) road with bike lanes. Seamon Whitesides Associates is doing the design, One engineering challenge is the complexity of the East North/Laurens Road intersection (go look...right now it would be impossible to ride safely thru the intersection and dangerous to try it as a pedestrian!)
This road was designated in the 2005 Spinners City Master Plan study as a major artery for biking. With the completion of bike lane marking on Park Avenue (connecting to the Richardson Street bike lane), this bike lane would safely connect a large population with biking access to the immediate downtown area. (With a $5million bridge over the dreaded S.C. 291/East North intersection, you could begin to go East all the way to Spartanburg County, but THAT won't happen any time soon...so, the lane stops at White Oak.)
Needed to get to completion of a useful bike lane:
-completion of the public comment period. Although local residents usually overwhelmingly prefer the lowered average sppeds, increased safety, and ambience associated with such a change (AND the increase in land value), there are "cars first at any cost!" advocates in the community (check your Greenville News letters to the editor)
-acceptance of the completed plan by the D.O.T.
Stay tuned!