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| | Issue #21.11 :: 03/12/2008 - 03/18/2008 | City Ramping Up Bike-Friendly Efforts
Professional Race Scheduled
| BY ERIC K. WARD
| City government is ramping up its efforts to make Columbia more bicycle friendly as organizers plan for what could be one of the first professional bike race in the Capital City.
The race, part of regional USA Crits Speed Week events, is scheduled for May 3 in the Vista.
The two-wheeled set has long bemoaned Columbia as hazardous to their transportation mode. Their message to the uninitiated: Ride at your own risk.
However, slowly but surely it’s getting better out there for bikers. Several improvements have been made and more are planned.
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| Cycle Center employee Aaron Bayard, 25, pedals in a bike lane along Harden Street in Columbia. Bayard rides his bike on his other job, as a deliverer for Roly Poly sandwich shop downtown, and says he has had several close calls with vehicles quickly turning into his path without signaling. Photo by Jonathan Sharpe |
On March 5, City Council voted unanimously to authorize staff to apply for two S.C. Department of Transportation grants that would pay for bike lanes and sidewalks. The grants also would fund bike racks and lockers at all city-owned buildings and parking garages.
The grants total $146,000 each. “We would have to match that with $96,000 [each] in local funds,” said Steven Gantt, senior assistant city manager for operations.
That would make for nearly $500,000 in bike- and pedestrian-friendly upgrades. The city must apply for the grants through the Central Midlands Council of Governments by Friday.
The city says it would use the dollars to add bike lanes to Fort Jackson Boulevard from Devine Street to the fort entrance and, in Rosewood, along Jim Hamilton Boulevard from Airport Boulevard to Ott Road.
The fort features miles and miles of bike-accessible pathways, including part of the statewide Palmetto Trail, and is a favorite destination for pedaling. Access requires a driver’s license and helmet.
The city says it also would use the grants to build sidewalks on Pinehurst Road from Forest Drive to Harrison Road and Jackson Avenue from Monticello Road to Abingdon Road.
“Sidewalks are a need in neighborhoods across the city,” says Dana Turner, assistant city manager for commerce and development.
So are bike lanes. And in an effort to create more of them, and realign the city to better accommodate bicycling in other ways, Turner is working with a bike-friendly committee of residents the city has put together.
The committee organizes monthly lunchtime rides — the latest on March 11 — and other activities, including plans to participate in a bike festival at USC on March 26-27 and the nation’s annual bike to work day May 16.
The city’s and committee’s efforts build on recent bike-friendly accomplishments in Columbia, such as an ongoing expansion of the bike-accessible Three Rivers Greenway and new bike lanes along part of Harden Street and Olympia Avenue.
The upcoming bike race is called the Congaree Vista Grand Prix and is planned as four competitions: men’s and women’s professional races, a men’s amateur race and a public fundraiser ride to benefit Capital Senior Center.
In February, City Council allocated $5,000 to the Columbia Regional Sports Council to promote the event. | |
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