We did it! Well, more appropriately, Savannah City Council has approved it. A longstanding goal of ours has been to convince our city government to place an on-street pavement marked southbound bike lane to provide a safe alternative for all too common and self destructive wrong-way bike-salmon traffic headed south in the norhtbound Lincoln Street bike lane.
Today, city council approved the plan that has been in the works for months, which takes 2 auto travel lanes and transforms them into a parking lane, a bike lane, and an auto travel lane. City staff tell us that the plan is for completion of this now approved project by the end of 2011. Neighborhoods along Price Street have supported this project because it calms the speeding traffic that commonly resulted in numerous car vs. home crashes, provides on-street parking, and returns a sense of neighborhood to a corridor that pedestrians — families with strollers, dog walkers, anyone headed from a to b on foot — currently avoid.
Which begs the question, “Why just Price Street?” Aren’t there other neighborhoods and streets that have been needlessly overtaken by the virtue of maximizing motorized vehicle speed? We know as you do that there are, and we’ll keep working to support the city’s efforts to bring similar treatments to other neighborhoods and expand the network of dedicated facilities, especially on higher traffic through-streets. We will especially make this point clear as we discuss the future of transportation and sustainable development in Savannah at next Tuesday’s candidate forum, so be sure to join us at the Coastal Georgia Center at 6pm!
So what is the end result of a few new stripes of paint? Better neighborhoods, filled with people interacting on a human level — a safer, saner, and healthier place. We all know it — bicycles make Savannah better!