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a newsletter for Greenville’s Bicycle Master Plan

Vol. 1 • Winter 2010 • bikeville.org/masterplan

The 6 E’s are Essential to the Bicycle Master Plan In 2009, the City of Greenville received the prestigious Bronze level Bicycle Friendly Community designation from the League of American Bicyclists.The League developed the Bicycle Friendly Community Program (BFC) to provide incentives, handson assistance and award recognition for communities that actively support bicycling.

A Bicycle Friendly Community designation encourages bicycling for recreation, as well as transportation, and communities that apply for the award are judged in five categories, which the League refers to as the Five E’s: Engineering, Education, Encouragement, Enforcement and Evaluation & Planning.

The plan will also provide the vision for a Greenville bicycling environment in 2020 that not only takes a comprehensive approach to the Five E’s, but also adds a 6th – Equity. Communities must demonstrate achievements in each of the categories to be considered for an award designation. (cont. on next page...)

Greenville’s Cycling Plans Underway The City of Greenville and Alta Planning + Design, the firm hired by the City to develop its Bicycle Master Plan, hosted the first of two community workshops on November 16 to discuss the future of bicycling in Greenville.

At the workshop, representatives from Alta introduced the project and asked attendees for their input on both the current state of bicycling in Greenville and their vision for future programs and improvements. Maps of the current routes were on-hand for attendees’ recommendations and during this interactive workshop, the group, which consisted of members of the general public as well as cycling enthusiasts, had an opportunity to actively participate in the master planning process.

Alta is expected to complete a draft master plan by early spring 2011. The draft plan will incorporate citizen input from the community workshop, the online survey and the project website. Plan recommendations will include both short and long-term goals. A second community workshop will be held to present the draft plan and gather additional feedback from the community.

Councilwoman Amy Ryberg-Doyle

The key to developing a comprehensive bicycle master plan is ensuring that a wide variety of citizens participate in the process. It’s not too late to get involved. Click here to view a copy of the presentation that was made at the workshop and take a few moments to complete the online survey here. You can also submit your suggestions for routes and parking options directly on the interactive map here.

Visit www.bikeville.org/masterplan for additional information and resources.

Bicycle Ridership Statistics Identified If you were bicycling around Greenville the second week of October, there’s a chance that you were among those counted in the City of Greenville’s first major bicycle count. The count was one component of the Bicycle Master Plan project and was modeled after bicycle counting methods used by other cities across the country. Over the course of two days, local volunteers conducted bike counts at various locations throughout the city to identify current ridership patterns and trends. More than 1,100 bicyclists were counted on Greenville’s roadways, and while the bike count only provides a snapshot of Greenville’s bicycling community, the data offers clues to where and when local bicyclists are out and about. The counts were conducted during (cont. on next page...)

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In addition to granting Greenville its Bronze designation, the League also provided feedback on what Greenville can do to become even more bicycle-friendly, citing three priority areas for improvement. The Bicycle Master Plan will address the priority areas to help Greenville achieve a higher designation in the future. Below are Greenville’s goals for each of the six E’s: Engineering • Improve physical infrastructure for bicycling (paths, bike lanes, bike routes, bike parking and bicycle detection devices) Education • Market the benefits of biking • Promote sharing the road between bicyclists and motorists • Promote existing bicycling facilities • Teach bicyclists how to follow the rules of the road and safely operate a bicycle in traffic Encouragement • Increase participation and awareness with special events and contests, outreach campaigns and media coverage • Target every level of bicyclist Enforcement • Increase awareness of bicyclists and pedestrians • Improve driver behavior • Decrease perception of danger Evaluation • Determine if projects and programs are making a difference through various means of analysis Equity • Target outreach with a diversity of programs and events • Ensure appropriate geographic distribution of bike facilities, programs and educational opportunities

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two-hour observation periods on both a weekday and a weekend day at 37 pre-determined locations. In addition to the count, volunteers also recorded a variety of bicyclist characteristics, including gender, helmet use and whether they were riding on the street or the sidewalk. Below are the results: • 76% of the bicyclists counted were male • 64% of the bicyclists observed wore a helmet • More than 60% of the bicyclists counted were riding on the street rather than the sidewalk • Bicycling was more common on the weekend than during the week • The most popular areas for bicycling were near Willard Street, the Swamp Rabbit Trail and McDaniel Avenue at Ridgeland Street Thank you to all of the volunteers who took part in this year’s bike count!