The electronic version lacks the same impact, though it includes some great Frank factoids (in his riding, Frank has tallied 46,000 miles since his first bike to work in 1993).  One particularly fine Frankism is also found within:

It’s imperative that cyclists wear their “brain bucket” when riding, McIntosh said. “My helmet has only really hit the ground twice in all the riding I’ve done,” he said. “But I’m real glad I had my helmet on when it did.”

Y’all keep your brain buckets strapped, and let’s send up three cheers for Frank!

As we hinted, next Thursday, June 17th, the City of Savannah, CAT, and a host of community organizations including your Savannah Bicycle Campaign will hold a National Dump the Pump Event to encourage residents to use alternative forms of transportation.

The main event will be the 2nd Annual Dump the Pump Challenge; a race between a cyclist, bus commuter and car commuter from the 12 Oaks Shopping Center on Abercorn to City Hall. Each competitor must obey all applicable traffic laws in racing to City Hall, where a local elected official will crown the winner.

Savannah Bicycle Campaign Executive Director Frank McIntosh as defending champion will again represent bicyclists in the competition. “In a city as flat and bikable as Savannah, there are a huge number of trips that are as fast or faster by bike as they are by car”, said McIntosh. “As the results of last year’s race proved, this can be one of them. I’m not guaranteeing victory—our bus system is extremely fast and efficient—but I feel good about my chances.”

McIntosh and the other competitors will be joined at the finish line by participants in the Savannah Bicycle Campaign’s monthly bicycle commuter group ride, Two Wheels to Work. The group ride, which is free and open to the public, will leave from Habersham Village Shopping Center parking lot at 7:30 a.m. and end at the finish line around 8:00am.

The finish line itself will be stocked with donated fruit from Polk’s Produce, free coffee from our friends Jittery Joe’s, and will be a carbon-neutral undertaking courtesy of a tree planting by Half-Moon Outfitters. For those thinking about trying an alternative commute for the first time, all Chatham Area Transit busses will operate fare free all day.

For more information on the event, contact Garrison Marr at (912) 651-6470 or garrison_marr@savannahga.gov.  Click on the image for a printable poster you can display at work.

Last Saturday, with much fanfare, the block around Tiedeman Park next to Savannah Arts Academy was opened to bike and pedestrian traffic only for the dedication of the newly finished Washington Avenue bike lane.  LCI’s led bike safety games for kids, Perry Rubber Bike Shop provided some minor repairs, and also gave away 2 kids bikes and helmets to a couple of lucky winners!

In addition to the opening of the 1.6 mile east-west bike lane on Washington, which we have covered already, we at your SBC, together with the City of Savannah and Perry Rubber Bike Shop are proud to be the recipient of a Specialized Bicycle Components (the other SBC) Advocacy Grant which provided 10 kids bikes and 40 kids helmets, together with a 10 foot utility trailer provided by the City of Savannah, for use by LCI’s to provide bike education to kids in local schools, youth organizations, and neighborhood associations.  This is an excellent resource, and including the local match the total value of this project is around $7500, so our thanks go out in a big way to Specialized, the City of Savannah, Perry Rubber Bike Shop and, as always the support of our members who know that bicycles make Savannah better.

On Friday’s National Bike to Work Day 2Wheels 2Work bike convoy, we were joined by an impassioned public servant in Patrick Shay, who in solidarity delivered a helmeted speech on bicycles and their relationship to spewing gulf oil, and how our small actions can change that situation, the full and slightly shaky version of which is below.

“It’s not about changing the world all at once, it’s about changing our individual actions.”

Campaigners, you are the forefront of at least part of the solution. Join us in celebrating these words and in making them into deeds, each small individual choice putting pressure on the system to change and ultimately creating the transformation we seek: the Age of Bicycles in Savannah.

To usher in that age, and now further armed with staff to carry out this mission, Savannah Bicycle Campaign announces another change. The change is again in words, and in a meaningful way. Our present tagline, Making Savannah Better for Bicycles, while true, focuses too much on us and what we aim to do. Therefore, in a change we think that focuses on the truth of what we hope to accomplish, the truth of our movement, and the transformative power of bicycles, we move to a new tagline, the title of this article: Bicycles Make Savannah Better.

And therefore, during this National Bike Month, ask first what bicycles can do for Savannah.  Ask next what you can do with your Savannah Bicycle Campaign to bring it about.

Tomorrow morning, on National Bike to Work Day, your Savannah Bicycle Campaign is hosting a special 2 Wheels 2 Work departing Habersham Village at 7:30 AM for a spin downtown to Ellis Square where we will again be treated to free coffee and breakfast from Jittery Joes and our partner for this month, the Chatham Environmental Forum (CEF). Chatham County Commissioner and CEF Chairman Patrick Shay will join us for the convoy and say a few words at Ellis Square about the CEF and its Join In Plan. We like the way they think, since one of their transportation goals is to increase trips by bicycle in the county to 3% by 2012 and 5% by 2015.

Much ado about the new bike lane on Washington Avenue (see column by Tom Barton in yesterday’s SMN), and it looks as if the striping is nearly complete! Noon to 2 PM on Saturday, ride the brand spankin’ new Washington Avenue bike lane into Tiedeman Park for the Kids’ Ciclovia, where the streets will be opened to bike and pedestrian traffic only (i.e. no cars) in the block surrounding the park. There will be bike games and activities for kids, food, a ribbon cutting for the new Washington Ave bike lane, and giveaways for 2 new bikes from Perry Rubber Bike Shop!

We’ll see you there!

Many articles have been coming in on new bike lanes, the first our city has seen in 10 years. In case you were out riding or at Savannah Bicycle College on Saturday, Saturday’s article from Lesley Conn in the Savannah Morning News includes a mostly pro-bike facility wrapup of the Washington Avenue lane. Earlier, Bill Dawers weighed in on adding parking and bike facilities to Price Street, a project still in the conversation phase, more still to come there.

Conn’s article also has a good outline of Bike Month activities (which you can also see at this post), not the least of which will be the Sat May 22 Kids’ Ciclovia, where the streets will be opened to bike and pedestrian traffic only in the block surrounding Tiedeman Park (in front of Savannah Arts Academy). There will be bike games and activities for kids, food and a ribbon cutting for the new Washington Ave bike lane.  There will also be a raffle for 2 new bikes from Perry Rubber Bike Shop!

Mayor Otis Johnson had a heart attack 4 years ago today. On the heels of that, he has been pushing a consortium of groups organized together as the Healthy Savannah initiative. Healthy Savannah goes beyond what you might typically think of in terms of affecting health outcomes for our community. Sure, there are areas looking at nutrition and curbing smoking, but also a look at deeper and more lasting changes (though potentially more difficult problems) through civic master planning and transportation.

This focus on how the built environment can contribute to a healthy community is of course right up our alley, so when they asked us to be a part of tonight’s community forum at the Civic Center, it made perfect sense. Come on by and see us, and also take a look at what the City of Savannah and other groups are doing to change our built environment to make it more bikable and walkable in the transportation and civic master planning sections of the forum.

What: Healthy Savannah Community Forum
Where: Civic Center
When: Today, Thu 4/29 at 6-8pm
Why: Learn about how the built environment affects the health of our community.

Washington Avenue and Price Street Bike Lanes at City Council
In the wake of that success, more lies on the horizon. Engineering is complete and public comment has been issued on bike lane striping on Washington Avenue between Waters and Bull.  As noted in the WSAV story from last night including our own Frank McIntosh and City of Savannah Parking and Mobility Director Sean Brandon, Washington Avenue would be the first new bike lanes installed in 10 years.

The project awaits only a resolution at City Council this Thursday.  SBC will be there to say thank you to the city for the fine work they are doing to live up to the commitment they made in their first Bicycle Friendly Community application and following up on the recommendations there, including addition of East-West bicycle facilities and, potentially given the will and favorable neighborhood approval, a southbound bike lane on Price Street in the coming months!

Next up, every other street!
The process of updating the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Long Range Transportation Plan has begun, and they are soliciting comments on bicycle and pedestrian projects in the county. They specifically want to know where people are currently walking and bicycling and where they might if given the appropriate facilities. Mapping exercise is this Thursday April 22 at 5pm at the MPC building (see below), and an online version should be available soon.

Development of the Non-Motorized Plan element of the Total Mobility Plan MPO staff encourages public participation through the any of the methods listed below. With the
exception of the online survey, these mostly are multiple ways to do the same thing; it is not necessary to participate in more than one mapping option unless you want to. The online survey will include some questions that are not as location-focused as the mapping options.

Mapping exercises at the CORE MPO Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) meetings
o Apr. 22, 2010, 6:15pm, in the MPC Hearing Room, 112 E. State Street, Savannah, GA. CAC meeting begins at 5pm and will include additional information between 5 and 6:15pm which may be of interest but will not be directly related to this process.
Mapping exercise at the CORE MPO Advisory Committee on Accessible Transportation (ACAT) meeting
o Apr. 26, 2010, 1pm. Meeting begins at 1pm and mapping exercise will be at the end of the meeting, some time before 3pm.
MPO staff will announce the availability of an online survey and an online, interactive map soon.

Contact staff directly anytime:
Jane Love, Transportation Planner
912-651-1443
lovej@thempc.org

Where would you go? Everywhere? Us too — that is why we will be pushing again for adoption of Complete Streets policies for the MPO and all its included governmental entities. That’s why we will stress the importance of developing safe bike access on bridges that are the only points of access to the islands in particular. That’s why we’ll be there and that’s why you should too (or at least fill out the survey when we let y’all know about it).

Luminaries of the bicycle industry were there, including the ever fashionable Gary Fisher, pictured above  with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Inspiring words came from elected and appointed officials including Jim Oberstar, Earl Blumenauer (both above right), LaHood and many others. I was particularly pleased that Representative Jack Kingston, himself a regular bicycle commuter while in DC, joined us for the Congressional Bike Ride on Friday even in the face of rain and cool temps (as also chronicled on the League of American Bicyclists’ blog).

A suite of bicycling-related bills is under consideration, but since the vast majority of legislation that is introduced never becomes law, we need your involvement to ensure that our government takes action on these bike-partisan issues:

• HR 1443/S 584: The Complete Streets Act of 2009 requires state and local transportation agencies to adopt complete streets policies to ensure all road users (bikes, pedestrians, transit and cars) are included in the design of transportation facilities funded with federal dollars.
• S1156/HR 4021: Safe Routes to School reauthorization (first was in 2005, expires with current transportation bill) to include high schools and an increase in the amount of funding available to states for the programs.
• HR 4722: The Active Community Transportation Act (ACT Act) establishes a competitive funding program in the surface transportation bill for concentrated investment in communities to complete active transportation networks.
• HR 3734: The Urban Revitalization and Livable Communities Act authorizes funding for development and revitalization of urban parks and community recreation infrastructure.
• S 2747, The Land and Water Reauthorization Act rededicates funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund through which park and trails programs can compete for funding.

Go to congress.org and find your representatives. Let them know you support these bicycle friendly federal policies — Georgia’s advocates at the bike summit briefed staffers of all Georgia’s members of congress on Thursday, so they should already know about them.

The geography may differ, but many of the issues we face are common to everyone.  Help make your government work for you by calling for better policy.