We thought it important to tell a little history of how we got to this point:
This project started with a meeting in July 20115 with former City of Greenville Parks and Recreation Director Dana Souza and advocates from Bike Walk Greenville, where Mr Souza agreed that the city’s bicycle program needed more attention. This lead with a joint city of Greenville and BWG meeting in October 2015 where the idea of a demonstration project was first discussed. The E. Broad St location was subsequently selected and approved by city staff. Volunteers installed temporary tape markings on May 27, 2016 and the demonstration was open all summer of 2016. The city traffic department approved the concept to become permanent and painted striping was installed in May 2017, and the bollards were completed this week.
The city Green Ribbon Advisory Committee (GRAC) Mobility Task Force has been studying locations for a network of protected bike lanes for many months and their findings will be presented to city council at a workshop in late July. Funding for more PBLs has not been identified as yet, so it will be important for citizens to let city council know your view on this.
As BWG board member Tim Hibbard says, people will ride where it is safe to do so like the GHS Swamp Rabbit Trail, and a network of protected bike lanes will make our city safe to ride a bike for transportation for those from 8 to 80.
We are excited about this possibility.
We posted this short history on Twitter and Facebook on June 27, 2017 where we noted in takes time to transform our city. It was interesting to see that advocates from across the county (as far away as Hawaii) shared our post urging similar action in their communities.
