Hello all!  Good news on many fronts:

1. The MPO’s Long Range Transportation Plan framework was adopted last Thursday including Complete Streets recommendations and a promise to devote $98 million to nonmotorized transportation over 20 years. That’s big, y’all!  It’s also a testament to the work done by our members and supporters at all the public meetings — thank you all.
2. The Midnight Garden Ride was a huge success as many of you can attest.  Thanks to all who joined in the fun — check out the ride gallery posted to midnightgardenride.com.
3. Our education program is moving forward with a Traffic Skills class for the SCAD bike club coming in the next few weeks.

Hot on the heels of all of this, we’re planning another ride — the Tybee to Savannah Trailblazers’ Ride! Often when people start to talk about bicycle facilities in Chatham County, the discussion migrates to the unridabiliy of US-80 between Savannah and Tybee, with 2 narrow bridges and rumble strips filling the shoulders between the Bull River and Lazaretto Creek:  see previous posts here and here. We’re in full agreement that something needs to be done, so we thought a ride is in order to kick things off. With the aid of the Tybee and Savannah/Chatham County police for protection, we will ride with the first 150 registrants from Tybee to Savannah on Sunday Nov 8 at 9am. We have a page devoted to it on bicyclecampaign.org, and registration is now open at active.com.

Don’t be left out — join in this fun and important ride for the future of cycling in Chatham County.

It wouldn’t be fall without a mini media blitz from the Campaign.

We were thrilled to see Bill Dawers’ City Talk column this past Sunday in which he praised the Midnight Garden Ride and mused on why folks don’t ride at night more often in Savannah: “The streets belong to all of us — that’s true both day and night. The more citizens on the streets, the safer they become.”  So true.

We were also pleased to see his support, like ours, for improvements in the draft Long Range Transportation Plan slated for adoption this Thursday at the CORE MPO meeting (10am, 112 E State St), in particular the promise of Complete Streets provisions during the next phase of the plan.

September brings college back to Savannah at SCAD, Savannah State, and Armstrong, and we were fortunate to have the opportunity to address that large mass of bike users of widely varying abilities with a column in Connect Savannah’s college issue this week. It gives some good (of course they’re good, we wrote them!) tips for anyone getting started on a bike in Savannah including basics on driving your bike and general information on preferred routes, so please check it out online or in the print edition.

Thank you to board members Ben Allen and Eric Breen and former board member Paul Razza for their excellent work on this motorist focused PSA, released today in the 2Wheels 2Work press conference with Mayor Johnson. We are very excited to have the help of the city as well, and through their generosity will be showing this piece on local cable stations across the dial. Thanks also to our talent: Rob Gibson of the Savannnah Music Festival, local cyclists Kristine Gum and Mike Grabowski, and our own board secretary David Acuff for putting themselves out there, and also to Paul for subjecting himself to unwanted mullet syndrome for the cause.

The goal was to drive home points but keep it from being preachy, all the while pointing out that those people you see on bikes from your car could be your neighbor or co-worker. Hopefully this will make a dent in the excessively high number of car vs. bike crashes in Chatham County.

Watch. Enjoy. Share.

From the press in Connect Savannah and Savannah Morning News this week, we have been getting lots of questions about how late registration will work. All the info is at midnightgardenride.com (sorry Safari and Chrome browser users, a bug in our theme makes the whole site black. Try it in Internet Explorer or Firefox!), but it’s also here if you want to take a look:

Ride weekend regisration is available for $25,

• 6-9pm on Friday, September 4 at Bicycle Link at 408 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Savannah, GA 31401 and
• 8-9am on Saturday, September 5 at the Savannah Century ride start in Ellabell and
• 6-7:30pm at the Distillery on Saturday, September 5.

Current SBC members will still receive the reduced $15 price at late registration.

We’ll see you Saturday for the Midnight Garden Ride!

You’ve seen other people doing it on your  drive to work. You’ve wondered what it would be like. You’ve pondered trying it yourself. Maybe you just need a little company and encouragement to get started.

Well, we’ve been there and we can show you the way. If you’re ready to have fun, save money and enjoy the health benefits of bicycle commuting, ride along with us on Friday, Sept. 4.

At 7:30 a.m. (returning participants, please note the earlier departure time)  the Savannah Bicycle Campaign’s monthly bicycle commuting convoy will get rolling from the Habersham Village Shopping Center. This month’s 2 Wheels 2 Work destination is Johnson Square, where participants will enjoy fresh coffee from the bike-friendly folks at Jittery Joe’s and tasty eats from the Blue Goose Cafe, new bicycling public service announcements will be debuted and local officials will talk about the positive impact bicycle commuting can have public safety, public health and public life.

Whether you’ve never ridden your bike to work — or you ride every day — please join us in this causally paced ride and stay for the festivities that follow. As always, helmets are strongly encouraged. In the event of heavy rain, the ride will be postponed until Sept. 11.

Last minute warning: set your DVR (or go to wtoctv.com later today) to check out David Acuff and Drew Wade’s appearance on WTOC’s Mid Morning Live with Sonny and Jody today at 10am. We’ll post the interview here later today. We’ll be talking about what the Campaign is up to, and promoting the Midnight Garden Ride on September 5!

As you all know, the City of Savannah has garnered an honorable mention in the most recent Bicycle Friendly Community ratings awarded by the League of American Bicyclists.  So, we’re not there yet, but we have a good start.

We now have the full feedback from the League, with suggestions from the local cycling community as well as experts in the field.  The full report is available here.  Some highlights:

Engineering:

• Adopt a complete streets policy
• Adopt and implement a comprehensive bike plan
• Develop a designated east-west bicycling corridor
• Develop a bridge access policy

Education:

• Add educational message to utility bills
• Continue to improve bicycling education opportunities for adults

Encouragement:

• Consider a “Ciclovia” or “Summer Streets” event to open streets to nonmotorized users
• Commuter challenge or bike to work pit stop for Bike to Work Week
• Consider an ordinance to require larger employers to provide showers, bike parking, and other encouragement tools.

Enforcement:

• Encourage police officers to use targeted enforcement to encourage motorists and cyclists to share the road, such as a tip card explaining each user’s rights and responsibilities.
• Host Enforcement for Bicycle Safety seminar.

Evaluation:

• Update the Bicycle Master Plan. The new plan should set targeted annual goals for implementation.
• Continue to improve data collection methods on bicycle usage and crash statistics and evaluation of this data. Use this data to prioritize infrastructure upgrades or targeted enforcement efforts.

Of course, our own Frank McIntosh who on his trusty steed bested Sean Brandon on bus and foot, and Jordan Griffin in her car and on foot from 12 Oaks to City Hall in the first Dump the Pump Challenge yesterday.  Frank got held up for a long time at the light at Bay and Bull, but still made it 7 minutes before the car driver, giving him plenty of time to freshen up for the press conference after the steamy ride in.  As the temps continue to rise, take a look at this post for tips on beating the heat for your bike commute.

Frank’s win again highlights the usefulness of the bike for short trips (this was a 4.2 mile race), and the hidden time in parking a car and walking to one’s destination, a very real addition of time for drivers especially in the downtown area. One thing not mentioned in the coverage (Mary Landers in SMN and the WJCL story) is that combining the first two modes — bike and bus — extends their range substantially, and presents another great option in our city where all the buses are equipped with bike racks.

Congratulations and thanks again to Frank!  Thanks to the City of Savannah and CAT for their help in promoting this event.

Those within the Savannah and Tybee city limits have it easy.  That is to say, they have what many communities across the country have established in the last 20 years, curbside recycling.  Sure, there are facilities available for recycling for the motivated — collect and sort, load and drive, unload and drive home.  It’s an inefficient use of time and gas.  If instead, this were rolled into a regular service as it has been in Savannah, many more would use it.

Recycle Chatham has begun a petition that has already garnered 5,000 of the required 16,626 to place the measure on the ballot.  Though our organization is focused on bicycles, we see the value in this and our board has therefore endorsed the petition.  If  you live in Chatham County and are a registered voter, please take the (very short) time to go to the petition and make your voice heard in support of this measure.  Think of it this way:  your rides will then be free from all of those cars driving their recycling to the transfer stations!