“I have found repeatedly that the person that takes their bicycle on an inhospitable street is trying to do the very thing that many complain those in poverty don’t do: get to and from their job.”

You can read the whole post here.

“The Total Mobility Plan is an in-depth planning effort which will emphasize sustainability, Complete Streets, Context Sensitive Design, non-motorized transportation and transit. The Plan will address the transportation network and specific facilities, but also the interaction between transportation and the community as a whole.  The thoroughfare planning component will address facilities for auto traffic, bicycles, pedestrians, and public transit vehicles, including intersections.  Workshop attendees will map context areas, creating a vision of the desired character in each community. The thoroughfare standards will then be shaped to achieve that vision.”

It’s encouraging to hear the phrase Complete Streets used in this context, as many of the area’s most important streets are woefully incomplete when it comes to safely accommodating pedestrians, bicyclists and transit riders. The meetings will be held at the following times and locations from 5-6:30 p.m., and will use a “Drop in when you can!” format.

Tuesday, Jan. 10
Islands High School Career Counseling Center, 170 Whitemarsh Island Road

Tuesday, Jan. 17
Armstrong Atlantic State University – Armstrong Center, 13040 Abercorn St.

Thursday, Jan. 19
First Presbyterian Church, 520 Washington Ave.

For more information, contact Mark Wilkes at (912) 651-1451 or wilkesm [at] thempc.org

“As we choose our next mayor, it’s more important than ever to ensure that Savannah grows into the future and grows wisely,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, Chair of the US Green Building Council-Savannah Branch. “Through this forum, candidates can express their vision for how Savannah can be a leader by demonstrating responsible stewardship of our environment while incorporating innovative strategies as part of that solution.”

“We’ve seen a tremendous increase in the use of bicycles for transportation in the community. The City of Savannah government has been a positive influence in that growth, and we hope this forum allows candidates the chance to address how they will help continue this trend and also make transit and pedestrian options more viable,” said Drew Wade, Chairman of the Savannah Bicycle Campaign. “Several long-term transportation planning efforts are reaching the point where those decisions become a critical part of the community we live with for the next several decades; we need to make the right decisions.”

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Frank McIntosh at 912-272-1074 or frank@bicyclecampaign.org.

Bill Dawers does a fine job on his blog of addressing this oft-repeated objection to removing the flyover:

“The single weakest argument against the removal is also the one that I hear the most, at least among those objections dealing with traffic. As I noted in the column, I’m constantly hearing people say that MLK can’t handle the additional incoming traffic, but every single car leaving the city via I-16 has to travel on or across MLK already.”

Read more here.

Alderman At-Large candidates will gather to field questions regarding their positions on transportation and sustainability issues. The forum is free and open to the public, will be moderated by Orlando Montoya, news producer with Georgia Public Broadcasting in Savannah, and Jim Morekis, editor-in-chief of Connect Savannah. Candidates will answer formal questions delivered by the moderators during the program before taking questions from the audience and from the media.

More information is available here.

Bill Dawers  has strong feelings about parking lots, which he shares in his City Talk column, “Another parking lot detracts from downtown’s vibrancy” in today’s Savannah Morning News:

“They tend to rend the residential and retail fabric. They repel pedestrians. They generally generate far less economic activity than more intense uses. They create heat islands. They contribute to problems with drainage and polluted stormwater runoffs.”

And he’s not alone in his thinking. Here’s Donald Shoup quoting Jane Jacobs on how parking lots affect the sidewalks they border and the city at large:

“The presence of open shops and people on the street encourages other people to be out as well. People want to be on streets with other people on them, and they avoid streets that are empty, because empty streets are eerie and menacing at night. Although the absence of parking requirements does not guarantee a vibrant area, their presence certainly inhibits it. ‘The more downtown is broken up and interspersed with parking lots and garages,’ Jane Jacobs argued in 1961, ‘the duller and deader it becomes … and there is nothing more repellent than a dead downtown’.”

John A. Jankle and Keith A. Sculle review Jacobs’ ideas about what parking lots do to neighboring properties:

“A kind of ‘unbuilding’ or running-down process was set in motion. Thus, parking lots were ‘instruments of city destruction that could ‘disembowel’ a city. ‘City character is blurred,’ Jacobs continued, ‘until every place becomes more like every other place, all adding up to Noplace.”

And they offer a quote of their own:

“Nothing over the past century in America has proven as disruptive of the traditional urban landscape as parking. Perhaps nothing has made American cities less memorable…nothing fragmented the urban space more than the parking lot.”

It’s important to remember that the preservation movement in Savannah, which has prevented downtown from becoming “Noplace,” has its roots in a fight over a parking lot.

“Savannah was becoming Anyplace, USA and it was losing its soul. By the mid-1950s, the loss of the Wetter House, beloved City Market and demolition threats to the Isaiah Davenport House sparked the formation of Historic Savannah Foundation. Led by seven visionary women, HSF purchased the c. 1820 Davenport House and thus began the organization’s formal entry into the world of preservation and real estate.”

Why was Davenport House being threatened with demolition? So the land could be used for a funeral home parking lot. The question now is how to promote better uses for spaces left behind by buildings that were not saved.

Dawers offers more thoughts (and photos) on his blog.

It’s hard to imagine a better example of backwards-looking ideas than House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica’s proposed transportation reauthorization bill, which he announced yesterday. It will eliminate dedicated federal funding for bicycling and walking. Mica apparently deems spending in these areas to be “not in the federal interest.” Meanwhile Sen. James Inhofe, the lead Republican negotiator on the transportation bill in the Senate, has stated one of his top three priorities is to eliminate “frivolous spending” on bicycle facilities, according to the League of American Bicyclists.

These merciless cuts are not aimed at reducing the deficit, reviving the economy, creating jobs, improving transportation choices or serving the American people.

• Did the lawmakers consider a national study finds that bicycle and pedestrian projects create 46 percent more jobs per dollar invested than road-only projects?
• Did they consider the impact of transportation spending that will keep millions of Americans dependent on their cars for every single trip they make, contributing to obesity rates that have climbed at least 90 percent in 17 states from 1995 to last year?
• Did they consider the medical care costs of obesity totaled more about $147 billion on 2008 dollars?
• Did they consider the real economic benefits millions of individual Americans derive from using bicycles for transportation?

It’s clear they did not.

“Don’t they like to get somewhere during their walk or run? How many times can a person walk or run around the park without wanting to use that time and energy to arrive somewhere?”

She quickly and astutely zeroes in on the problem, which is one pedestrians and cyclists share: Many local streets, having been designed (or redesigned) exclusively for cars, are not enjoyable places to walk.

“Of course, who can blame them? Have you tried to walk on Eisenhower Drive? How about Waters Avenue? Not even the reliable Abercorn Street, which traverses Ardsley Park, has a sidewalk that will accommodate your walking.”

These thoroughfares are dangerous by design. It’s unfortunate that using these streets requires pedestrians to be “adventurous and bold,” but the fact is that many citizens have no choice but to walk on streets that are unwelcoming at best and deadly at worst.

Thursday, Sept. 16

6-8 p.m.

Tybee Island City Hall

403 Butler Ave.

Tybee Island

“The purpose of the study is to determine the feasibility of replacing or modifying the existing bridges witha design that includes shoulders, as well as protected facilities for bicycles and pedestrians, either on one bridge or a separate bridge.”

What four words would you use to describe a community that is ideal for bicycling? What four words would you use to describe a community that is ideal for walking (or using a wheelchair)? You can provide the answers to these questions and others designed to solicit input for the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Non-motorized Transportation Plan. What in the world is that?

Non-motorized transportation includes walking or using a wheelchair, bicycling, skating, and using pedicabs. The Non-motorized Transportation Plan, as part of the Total Mobility Plan, will serve as an update to the MPO’s Bikeway Plan of 2000 and as well as providing a plan now to address the needs of pedestrians, and other self-powered travelers. The Plan will be developed by:
•    Identifying needed improvements for the non-motorized modes;
•    Identifying areas for amenities to help create a human-scaled environment that encourages use of physically active modes;
•    Prioritizing improvements and identifying funding opportunities

A pedestrian survey and a bicycle survey are now available on the MPO Non-motorized Transportation Plan page. But July 22 is the last day to take the surveys, so hop to it. Also available is an interactive map that allows citizens to “report problem areas” or highlight “preferred routes and frequent destinations.”