- Greenville County has 1,700 miles of County maintained roads. Greenville County has only 35 miles of sidewalks!
- I had a chance to talk to one of our County Council members and offered that we need to spend more money on bike/pedestrian projects in the County — not just in the City. He responded that, “most will say that is the Cities’ job — not the County’s.” I responded that our County is becoming increasingly urban, and that it is time for the Council to recognize the need for a better ped/bike infrastructure. I followed up with a friend on the Greenville County Planning Department staff that provided me with some rather interesting statistics:
75% of the urbanized area of Greenville County is outside city limits and subject to the jurisdiction of Greenville County Council. This urbanized area has grown from 152 to 204 square miles from 2000 to 2010 , a 34% increase.
Research on Greenville County Transportation Spending
This month I was able to put together some facts on our actual transportation spending in Greenville County, and you may find this interesting:
- The County has invested $8.5MM in acquiring the right of way and constructing the Swamp Rabbit Trail — including the Lake Conestee trails. (The City of Greenville has invested an additional $6.5MM to date, thus we have a total of $15MM spent.
- Sidewalks expenditures by the County total $5.5MM from 2001-2011 and bike lane expenditures are less than $100K
- Road Projects funded by SCDOT and the County for 10 years cost $1.088 billion ($968.4MM SCDOT and $120MM County repaving program)
Thus the percentage to sidewalks and bike lanes is ½ of one percent, with an additional 0.77 percent of our spending for the Swamp Rabbit.
The below chart is County and State Spending only and does not include spending by the six cities in Greenville County.
An interesting statistic — we have 1700 miles of County maintained roads and the County had averaged 28 to 32 miles of repaving a year.
Bike Walk Greenville 
As I recall from Mia Birk’s recent appearance in Greenville, the amount of money the City of Portland has spent on bicycle infrastructure over the past 30 years would build one mile of urban freeway. In that time, Portland’s percentage of all vehicular trips via bike has risen to nearly 10%.
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BTW, Mia’s book has been revised for its second printing. It’s available from the iBooks Store and the Kindle Store for $10.99.
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Mia’s presentation was great! Thanks for the info on the availability of the 2nd edition of her book.
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