Scooters

Athens Rising breaks down the impact of the scooter/moped trend, especially on UGA's campus.

Scooters have made traffic move a little more slowly and safely, creating a better environment for bicyclists and pedestrians as well. Sure, there are bad scooter drivers, but those kids would be just as bad behind the wheel of a Suburban, which is where this change in policy will likely send them. If scooters are made to be inconvenient to use, then we’ll likely see a host of other unintended consequences kick back up.

I agree. Scooters are a much more bike/ped friendly mode of transportation than automobiles. They're less noisy than cars, have good gas mileage, and they travel at much safer speeds. I'd rather bike next to a 35 mph scooter than a 55 mph Expedition. For folks whose physical condition or geographic location prohibits cycling and/or walking, scooters are a much more sensible transportation than a full-size car for short, in-town errands.

UGA does need to come up with a solution for the crowded and haphazard scooter parking on campus, however. Scooters block entrances and sidewalks, and they are frequently chained to bicycle racks, which are in high demand. Pushing scooters to the frontiers of campus is not the solution. As Williams notes, "any hasty move which disincentivizes this mode of transportation will cut off a whole realm of possibilities for the future of Athens."

Any other perspectives on this?

Free bus rides for ACC employees?

Perhaps, if a proposal by several commissioners moves ahead.

This idea is definitely leading Athens in the right direction- public transit will increasingly become a feature of America's livable cities. Transit-oriented development is development that accommodates walking, cycling, historic preservation, mixed-use, and all the other features people routinely identify as markers of a higher quality of life.

It might make more sense to offer a deep discount instead of a totally free pass, however. Plenty of other populations have as much of a claim to free bus service as people employed in public service. Why not give free passes to residents of public housing or to people using the bus during high traffic times of day?

The biggest issue facing public transit use in Athens is how to provide a level of service that most people will find equivalent to private automobile use. Most people simply will not ride the bus unless it is as convenient as driving alone. Buses need to run every 20 minutes or so, and they really ought to run in both directions on each route. Night service and full weekend service would be ideal. The problem, of course, is how to pay for this expansion of a needed public service.

For several years, we have advocated for a T-SPLOST, a small sales tax dedicated exclusively to public transportation infrastructure, operations, and maintenance. Gov. Perdue has proposed a version of the T-SPLOST, but it wouldn't be voted on until 2012, meaning no funds would be collected until the following year.
We don't have time for these delays. We're already 30 years behind where we should be with public transportation. Perdue's proposal is certainly better than nothing, but it really needs to be on the 2010 ballot.

Bicycles as a boon to state budgets

"A new study by University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate students says bicycling generates more than a $1.5 billion economic impact in Wisconsin, exceeding the impact of even the deer hunting industry," reports the Greenbay Press-Gazette.

Among the policy recommendations included in the report are to: accelerate investment and development of bicycle routes, lanes and paths throughout the state for safety and convenience; encourage people to replace short automobile trips with bicycling trips; and develop a culture of bicycling for recreation and transportation, especially among the younger generation.
...
With the current economic climate, the report said promoting bicycling tourism could encourage visitors from places like metropolitan [cities] who choose to forego more exotic vacations. Increasing nonresident bicycling by 20 percent has the potential to increase spending by more than $107 million and create 1,528 full-time equivalent jobs.

Town of Menasha resident Tom Ales, who bikes about eight miles year-round to his job as a research scientist at Kimberly-Clark Corp., estimated he spends $500 to $1,500 annually on bike equipment, apparel, tools and components.

While biking 8,000 to 10,000 miles a year, Ales spends money at "local convenience stores, the mall, movie theaters" while avoiding other costs. "I save a ton on gas and only put 2,000 to 4,000 miles on my car a year as a result," he said. "I ride all year-round and from March to the end of November I ride everywhere I can."

There's no reason this article couldn't be written about Georgia in a few years. Our road-building, suburban sprawling fiesta is over, our elected leaders & transportation planners need to realize that immediately, and we need to actively engage in (re)building a responsible state worth caring about.

Parking it at UGA

The Red & Black compares UGA's parking facilities to those of its peer institutions.

“Parking is one of the biggest problems on most any large university campus,” [ University of Florida vice president of Business Affairs Ed] Poppell said. “On our campus we say, ‘We have enough spaces, but just not in the right places.’”

The saying is a result of one of UF’s initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and congestion on campus by enforcing certain regulations, such as the university’s “auto-free interior campus,” where only buses and service vehicles are allowed on the interior of campus from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

“We have significant policies on our campus limiting what students can do and where they can park,” Poppell said. “We have also continuously increased the price of our decals, encouraging people to find alternative means of transportation.”

At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the parking is highly selective. With 16,000 total parking spaces on campus, the school allows only 3,900 of its 28,136 students to park on campus. Unlike the University, UNC does not offer parking to incoming freshmen.

“There are a lot of folks who prefer to utilize the transit system,” said Randy Young, spokesman for the UNC Department of Safety. “We’ve gone to inordinate measures to make sure that the congestion and dependence on single-occupancy vehicles are attended to here on campus. We have 6,000 people on the Commuter Alternative Program.”

The program offers students an incentive to walk, ride bikes or use transit on campus by rewarding them with prizes and merchant discounts.

The University has a similar program called the Alternative Transportation Program, with a student participation of 1,200.

The program allows students who walk or take the bus* to receive 22 days of free parking per year in specified parking locations.

*ATP is also available for cyclists. With its campus pedestrian malls, campus transit, and bike racks, UGA certainly leads the county in supporting alternative transportation infrastructure.

Still, more can be done to encourage alternative behavior among a student body overwhelmingly conditioned to drive enormous SUVs for 2 mile errand trips. Increasing ATP participation should be a top priority. Given the comparatively low levels of participation, UGA has a ways to go before it can say it has "gone to inordinate measures to make sure that the congestion and dependence on single-occupancy vehicles" are minimized.

Indeed, since its inception, the Alternative Transportation Program has grown more restrictive, due to concerns that the program was being abused. Instead of marginalizing a good idea, UGA ought to develop creative enforcement solutions and then widely publicize the program's availability and benefits. Fewer cars means less need for bond-financed parking decks, which means less congestion, both on our roads and in our air.

Unfortunately, other considerations tend to distort the University's thinking on these things.

Sidewalk biking debate continues

Local Reps. "Doug McKillip, D-Athens, and Ed Lindsey, R-Atlanta, introduced House Bill 965 this week, [which] would give local governments the option of allowing bicycles on sidewalks," reports today's Banner-Herald.

I stated my opinion publicly, but I'll reiterate it by re-posting a comment from the ABH website:

Sidewalks might be ok for kids and folks wishing to putter, but there is no way a sidewalk is safe for even for the speeds a newbie on a road bike can make. Most road bike groups are going to average 14-18 mph, maybe a bit slower on hills, but that is pretty close. Elite groups will be faster, and some riders will be slower. While bikes may delay you a few seconds on your journey, it is safer for pedestrians, pets, and the bikers themselves, to have them on the road at those speeds than on a narrow unregulated sidewalk.

By definition, bikes are "traffic" and have the same rights to the road as slow drivers, garbage trucks, busses, postmen, etc., and any other vehicle that might slow you down. Share the road works when everyone is respectful and considerate.

While I agree with the above 100%, I recognize my opinion is informed by my experiences on Prince, Milledge, and Lumpkin. Any thoughts from other commuting corridors? I'd like to hear both cyclists' and pedestrians' perspectives.

If you don't want to comment here on the blog, respond to the poll on the right!

Bad news/Good news

The bad news:
Our great state's short-sighted, issue-neglecting leaders have squandered the chance for millions in high speed rail money.

Georgia appears to have won as little as $750,000 from the $8 billion pool of high-speed rail grants.
...
Last fall, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told a number of states, including Georgia and Florida, that they had better get their act together on rail transit or risk losing out on the high-speed rail grants.

In a special session weeks later, Florida voted additional annual funding for one transit rail line and expedited buying track for another.

What did Georgia's legislators do? Not a thing. And what are they doing now? Talking about more tax cuts for big business (and campaign contributors) and ethics re-form.

All of which nets us, the traffic and air pollution-beleaguered residents of the state, with .0094% of the federal funding available for high speed inter-city rail.

The good news?

Maybe folks will finally get fired up about the ridiculous priorities of our state government and demand some actual governance, the kind that faces reality and seeks informed solutions to our common problems.

Gov. Perdue sure likes talking the talk. Will we ever see any action? That's largely up to us. We'll have to drag our highway-loving legislature kicking and screaming, but we can make it happen.

Let your legislator know how disappointed you are!

Share your commute

Inspired by this bike commuter diary, we're looking for some show-and-tell from Athens' bike, transit, and pedestrian commuters.

Send us a narrative, photographic, and/or mapped description of your commuting route in Athens, and we'll share it here on the blog and on our website. We encourage you to share your thoughts on the route, including ways it could be improved, what you like about it, interesting experiences, etc.

Please submit to chair[at]bikeathens.com

We look forward to hearing your story!

UPDATE
We have one submission in the comments below! And, here's a short video of my walking commute from New Town to campus. The intro has a 3-4 second delay for some reason. Enjoy!

How a town becomes bike friendly

This video, from Bikes Belong, shows how Boulder, CO became bike friendly (and how Athens could too):

Boulder Bike Story from Bikes Belong on Vimeo.

Cash & prizes

If you walk, bike, ride transit or carpool, Clean Air Campaign wants to give you Visa gift cards and other prizes.

Check out their Commuter Rewards program. Register, enter your commuting method and be entered to win cash & other prizes. The more who register, the more who win. Pretty sweet deal.

Decent bike parking

Slate.com's Tom Vanderbilt asks, "What would get Americans biking to work?"

His answer: decent bike parking

Surveys have shown that the leading deterrent to potential bicycle commuters is lack of a safe, secure parking spot.

A number of American cities are now waking up to the fact that providing bicycle parking makes sense. Philadelphia, for example, recently amended its zoning requirements to mandate that certain new developments provide bicycle parking; Pittsburgh's planning department is weighing requiring one bicycle parking space for every 20,000 feet of development (admittedly modest compared with the not-uncommon car equation of one parking space per 250 square feet); even the car-centric enclave of Orange County, Calif., is getting in on the act, with Santa Ana's City Council unanimously passing a bill requiring proportional bicycle parking when car parking is provided. In Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities, pilot projects are investigating turning car-parking meters—once semireliable bike-parking spots, now rendered obsolete by "smart meter" payment systems—into bike parking infrastructure.

Few cities are doing more than Portland—which has been experiencing a particular boom in bicycle commuting—to increase bicycle parking. In September, for example, the City Council will vote on code changes that would require residential buildings to have the same bicycle parking requirements as commercial buildings. Granted, Portland, Ore., is an unusual place for the United States: a place where business owners actually petition the city to build "bike corrals," or collections of racks that tend to swap one or two car parking spaces for a dozen bike spaces, in front of their establishments, and where residents casually drop lingo like staple, meaning the type of bicycle parking structure that looks like a staple stuck into the concrete. And in a move that is sure to give John McCain fits, the city is spending $1 million of federal stimulus funds on bicycle parking at transit hubs.

Much more in the full article. Thanks to Mike E. for sharing this article.

D.C. demonstrates

If you make the investment, the people will come.

Watch & learn!

UGA Bike Planning Workshop

If you cycle to, on, or around the UGA campus, you are invited to a ...

UGA Bike Planning Workshop

When: Monday 27, 2009, drop in between 4:00 - 5:30 PM

Where: Jittery Joe's Roasting Co. (780 E. Broad St. Athens, GA)

Why: The Office of University Architects is working with a graduate student in Community and Regional Planning to develop a Bicycle Plan for UGA. The intent of this workshop is to verify existing conditions; identify areas of concern for cyclists; and document ideas for improving bike facilities to, from and within the UGA campus. Feedback from the workshop will provide a basis for planning and design. The result of this study will be a refined bicycle plan for campus with recommended steps toward implementation.

Bike commuting & tax benefits

This NYT article discusses the federal stimulus bill's provision offering a monthly tax benefit of $20 for bicycle commuters.

Accor Services USA, one of the nation’s larger administrators of commuter tax-free benefits, began offering a bicycle commuter check to employers only last month, said Jeremy Doak, a marketing manager with Accor. But interest in the program was high. Mr. Doak estimated that an average of 100 businesses per month since the law was passed had asked about offering the credit to their employees.

So far, the company has set up accounts only with smaller companies, those with fewer than 50 employees. And a majority of those that have actually ordered credits, perhaps not surprisingly, come from the West Coast, primarily from the San Francisco Bay area. Mr. Doak noted that the company had orders from Illinois and Massachusetts as well.

For more information, look at Commuter Check, and definitely talk to your workplace about offering this tax incentive!

I've already written UGA administrators about this. I'll pass along the response I receive.

UGA-ACC land deal opens door for greenway expansion

From the Banner-Herald:

The University System Board of Regents today should approve the University of Georgia's decision to donate 1.35 acres of land off East Campus Road to the Athens-Clarke County government.

[R]iverside acreage [will] extend the North Oconee River Greenway from Oconee Hill Cemetery all the way south to College Station Road.

Athens-Clarke will get land along the North Oconee River to extend the North Oconee River Greenway from Oconee Hill Cemetery to College Station Road. The planned bridge will allow cyclists on the greenway to get to bike lanes on College Station Road.

A serious form of transportation

The Infrastructurist brings you "A Vehicle for the Times":

Reminder: BTWD 2009

Austin, TX bike sharing program

Our big sister city is introducing a new bike-sharing program for city employees. Good idea!

Deep decline in driving

I'm a sucker for alliteration.

AJC relays:

It may not feel like it, but the American road is a lot more open these days.

In a year of historic changes in how we live, the federal government today is expected to announce yet another blockbuster. From November 2007 to October 2008, the U.S. saw the biggest sustained decline in miles driven in recorded history, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

Never before have Americans put the brakes on automotive travel in such a decisive way. Month after month, for an entire year, drivers put fewer miles on the road than they had the year before. It was an unprecedented stretch of highway-driving decline, according to FHWA spokesman Doug Hecox. The agency has been keeping records since 1942.

Vehicles on U.S. roads clocked 100.6 billion fewer miles in the year ending in October than they had traveled the year before, according to a monthly federal report expected today.

Georgians were among those helping drive the trend. Every month, they drove less than they did in that month the previous year. In August —- traditionally a big month for vacations —- Georgians chose to stay off the road by the biggest margin of the year.

In contrast, buses, trains and HOV registries are packed.

State Department of Transportation Commissioner Gena Evans is one of those people who cut down on driving.

After she and her new husband, former state Transportation Board Chairman Mike Evans, saw the rising cost to fill up his Hummer, she started riding mass transit to work in downtown Atlanta much of the time.

Gas prices encouraged the GDOT Commissioner to switch from a Hummer to public transit. No baby steps for Gena Evans!
Let's see if she takes her personal realization and packs that "ready to go" list of state transportation projects with desperately needed mass transit infrastructure (bike paths and sidewalks would be nice stocking stuffers as well).

An open letter to our state legislators

I just sent the following to two of Athens' legislators. I encourage you all to contact them as well. You can find your specific legislators' information here.

Dear Senator Cowsert & Representative Heard,

According to a recent AJC article, Governor Perdue said that "if the federal government sends stimulus money, the state will have projects ready to go." Simultaneously, "Georgia Transportation Commissioner Gena Evans said that the state could have $1 billion worth of projects ready to go in 180 days."

As a state employee, I am keenly aware of the budget woes we face. I am excited about the potential for postive, forward-thinking investment and job creation that this federal assistance could provide.

Our roads and bridges certainly need to be upgraded for public safety, but I am hopeful that a significant portion of this $1 billion will address our state's lagging and inadequate public transit, bicycle, and pedestrian infrastructure.

Governor Perdue has affirmed his commitment to improving Georgia's public transit, as have both of you. I hope the "ready to go" projects list incorporates mass transit projects, which can include design and construction for commuter trains and train stations, as well as the purchase and maintenance of trolleys and buses. Many citizens have already worked tirelessly to implement the long-overdue "Brain Train" from Athens to Atlanta. Federal funds could make convenient rail travel in Georgia a reality.

Likewise, our state needs to reevaluate its commitment to car-based development and car-centric road design. Family-friendly, sustainable communities include safe, networked, and accessible bicycle and pedestrian options. Increased walking and cycling opportunities will reduce traffic, improve air quality, and increase general physical activity, which, in the long run, will reduce the burden on our state's health care providers.
Cities and towns that are walkable and bikeable are widely considered to possess a high quality of life, making those communities desirable destinations for tourists and high tech industries alike.

In short, investing in public transit and other transportation choices will benefit our state in a number of important areas. Please make every effort to direct the General Assembly, the Governor and GDOT to invest in this infrastructure.

If you do decide to write, be sure to include your full name and address so they know you're a bona fide constituent.

About that public works plan

Shocker! David Brooks, notable NYT supporter of bad ideas, argues for investing that massive public works money in transit and a post-suburban living arrangement:

Barack Obama has said that he would start an infrastructure project that will dwarf Dwight Eisenhower’s highway program. If, indeed, we are going to have a once-in-a-half-century infrastructure investment, it would be great if the program would build on today’s emerging patterns.

To take advantage of the growing desire for community, the Obama plan would have to do two things. First, it would have to create new transportation patterns. The old metro design was based on a hub-and-spoke system — a series of highways that converged on an urban core. But in an age of multiple downtown nodes and complicated travel routes, it’s better to have a complex web of roads and rail systems.

Second, the Obama stimulus plan could help localities create suburban town squares. Many communities are trying to build focal points.

Because we’re going to be spending $1 trillion now on existing structures and fading industries, there will be less or nothing in 2010 or 2011 for innovative transport systems, innovative social programs or anything else.

Before the recession hit, we were enjoying a period of urban and suburban innovation. We could have been on the verge of a transportation revolution. It looks as if the Obama infrastructure plan may freeze that change, not fuel it.