Two motorist-bicyclist safety videos are available on the web.
You know how, as a child, you were taught never to bicycle in traffic and to stay out of the way of cars? Well, a new video on the rights and duties of bicyclists has just been posted on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU4nKKq02BU. Among other things, it shows bicyclists how to ride in traffic, including controlling the lane and using left turn lanes to turn left.
The League of Illinois Bicyclists, with funding from the Illinois Department of Transportation, has produced a nearly seven-minute video on motorist-bicyclist safety. This file is available to view in 2 sizes to facilitate viewing using by both broadband and slower connections.
Dateline: 2008-03-30
Tired of paying four dollars a gallon for gas, but don't want to buy an expensive hybrid? Try getting out of your car and biking, walking, carpooling, or busing to work for a week! Strive Not to Drive wants Asheville to change the way we move. By registering for Strive Not to Drive, you can:
An impromptu sidewalk thank you party for the City of Asheville sidewalk crew who were building a sidewalk at the construction site on Broadway at Magnolia, was held today.
City Council tentatively plans on reviewing the draft plan during their Feb. 26th Council Meeting. You can plan to attend this council meeting and make your comments during the public comment period and/or send an e-mail to your city council member letting them know what you think about the plan. They can be reached at:
Asheville is updating its master plan for parks and recreation, which includes updating the Greenways Master Plan. A series of public meetings will be held over the next two weeks to gather input for Asheville’s Parks and Recreation Master Plan. This is a critical opportunity to provide input on what you want to see in terms of parks, greenways, public art and recreation facilities and services throughout Asheville. Please try and attend one of the public meetings and provide your input. Also, please help spread the word to others who will advocate for greenways and parks and recreation needs.
The public meetings are on January 10, 14 and 17 at a few different locations. Please see the press release for times and location details.
Dateline: 2007-11-30
Tuesday, November 27th, the city council voted in favor of being the lead agency with NC DOT to do the maintenance on new sidewalks along North Louisiana Road for Emma Elementary School. The school is in Buncombe County just outside of the city limits up behind the K-mart on Patton Avenue. The group "A Safer Walk for Emma" has been working for the past two years to get sidewalks so children who live across the street in the two mobile home parks could safely walk to school. This brings this group one step closer to their goal. They will be applying for a Safe Routes to Schools demonstration grant this December. The DOT will only work with municipalities who have the capability of maintaining sidewalks. This municipal agreement has to be determined before the sidewalk can be considered. Emma was one of 4 local schools who participated in an all day workshop last March. These workshops included members of the community, school officials, parents, city and state DOT engineers and planners. Besides learning about the requirements which make a successful walk to school program which includes a safety education program, encouragement program, enforcement, engineering improvements and evaluation of how well the program worked, these individuals walked the grounds around the school to evaluate what is already there and what was needed to make the program successful. Safe Routes to Schools is a Federal program which encourages children to walk or bike to school when it is safe to do so and if it is not safe works to make it safe. These programs are happening in an effort to improve the health of children who are not getting enough physical exercise, reduce pollution and congestion around schools and reduce costs. The positive side affects are that children gain confidence, learn quicker, know their community, are better students and develop skills which improve their driving skills as they become adults. There were 30 schools who participated in workshops this year that are now eligible to compete for the Federal SRTS funding. Other funding programs will be available for other schools in 2008.
As cyclists who are interested in seeing Asheville become a bicycle friendly community and after working on this goal for over 25 year we are starting to make strides. The city of Asheville has applied for a NC DOT grant to develop a comprehensive bicycle plan. It is almost finished and hopefully some time next month it will be presented to city council to become enacted. However, that is just the beginning. Then the council needs to find funding and put the plan into action. It is imperative that we have bicycling advocates on our city council to ensure that this plan gets accepted and enacted. There are two men running for council in November who understand our needs and are willing to work on these issues. If you would like to hear what Brownie Newman and Bryan Freeborn feel, let them know how you feel and learn more about the Asheville Bicycle Plan come to Asheville Brewing on Coxe Avenue on Saturday November 3rd between 4 and 6 PM. Also pass the word to your friends. We are calling this meeting the Bike Ballot.
Dateline: 2007-09-27
Another nice, big, thank-you is due to David Foster, the Asheville Street Superintendent. David attended the Safe Routes to Schools workshop at Vance Elementary School last March. When we walked the neighborhood around the school comments were made about the fact that the sidewalk connecting the school to the crosswalk on Sandhill stopped just past the school driveway causing the kids to cross the road with no crosswalk or crossing guard on Harnett Road. The crosswalks around the school were almost invisable and there were no curb cuts. David made all those improvements to the school neighborhood with available city funds. Now the kids walking to Vance School have much safer accomidations. Thank you David for taking care of things.
Dateline: 2007-09-14
A nice, big, thank-you is due to both the NC DOT and engineer McCray Coates for fixing the drain grates on Merrimon Avenue. All the drains which were below grade have been raised and those which were parallel with the road have been turned.
Dateline: 2007-09-14
We need some pedestrian information.
The city sidewalk crews have been busy this summer repairing old damaged sidewalks, curbs and adding new curb cuts. Now that a lot of improvements have been made in the immediate downtown area they are branching out to the near- downtown areas. Many improvements have been occurring on Merrimon Avenue and South French Broad Avenue, a new sidewalk has been placed on Fairview Road from Sweeten Creek Road to Westview along with a new waterline, a crew is now repairing sections of sidewalk on Hilliard and they just finished Sherwood Road and are working on Forest Hill Drive in the Kenilworth area.
Please let us know when you are seeing improvements to sidewalks being done in your neighborhood.
Dateline: 2007-08-22
The draft network and action maps presented at the July public meeting, a memorandum detailing existing conditions, and results of the over 800 bicycle questionnaires you and your neighbors completed are now available on line at http://www.fbrmpo.org/Bicycle_and_Pedestrian.html, and in the French Broad River Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) office on the first floor of Asheville’s City Hall. The MPO is seeking comments on the proposed plan. Email comments to mpo@ashevillenc.gov, mail them to the address below, or deliver them to Room 100-C, Asheville City Hall, 70 Court Plaza, 20081. If you have problems with the electronic data, or if you have accessibility needs, please contact Barb Mee.
Additionally, the MPO is accepting comment on NCDOT’s proposed Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP) for Buncombe, Haywood and Henderson Counties until September 17, 2007. This is a multi-modal plan: it covers bicycle facilities and public transportation as well as highways. The pedestrian portion of the plan will come later. The plan maps and a table of recommendations is also available on the MPO website at http://www.fbrmpo.org/Comp._Transp.html as well as the MPO office. Comments can be made via email to mpo@ashevillenc.gov, by mail to the post office box address below, or can be delivered to the MPO office, Room 100-C, Asheville City Hall. As on the other plan, if you have problems accessing the drafts, please let us know.
Feel free to stop by the MPO office to take a look at the web site. You may also contact Barb Mee for any questions:
Barb Mee, Transportation Planner
French Broad River MPO
P.O. Box 7148, Asheville, NC 28802
828-259-5457
Dateline: 2007-07-27
Last night there were approximately 66 people attending the Public Works Building to hear about the proposed bike plan for Asheville. The information is exciting. Some things will be able to happen quickly without a lot of cost just paint and educating the public about what is happening.
These things might include:
Climbing lanes on some roads going up hill and a shared road marking on the down hill side.
Shared road marking shows the cyclists where to ride on the road with the traffic and gives the motorist the impression that cyclists will be on the road. It is made up of two chevrons with a bicycle on the roadway.
Lane diets which is a narrowing of the existing road lane and a painted shoulder on the road. This is narrower than a bike lane so it has no bike lane symbol but gives the cyclist room on the road to be.
Actual bike lanes are items that will take some time in places where new pavement is needed but could come sooner on roads where a road diet is made.
A road diet is the narrowing of lanes and reduction of lanes to make room for a bike lane on each side. This will take a little longer due to the need to get approval from DOT to do and have public comment.
The bike plan proposes about 100 miles of these type of improvements for cyclists, as well as parking improvements, better maintenance.
