This election brought a lot of new progressive leadership to Cary (new mayor) and Raleigh (new progressive majority on council). The times they are a-changing.
There was one upset in Chapel Hill and pundits are still puzzling over how the “dark horse” candidate beat out the incumbent. I don’t know, but I do note that he pledged to bike to all city council meetings and to be a “forceful advocate for cycling in Chapel Hill”.
In San Francisco, real estate developers introduced a proposition that would increase parking spaces--in direct contrast to the city’s “transit first” policy. Local human-scale development activists organized the “Yes on A, No on H!” campaigning to defeat H and promote the proposition to increase funding for transit and the transit agency’s authority over the streets.
Activists won. “A” passed by a wide margin and “H” got totally trounced!
In Charlotte:
Mecklenburg County voters overwhelmingly backed the transit sales tax Tuesday, dismissing an aggressive grass-roots effort to repeal it and endorsing CATS’ ambitious plans to expand light rail and buses.
The margin of victory stunned even transit supporters…
Indeed. It’s no time to rest on our laurels though; we need to make sure it’s built right--with NO RESTRICTIONS on bicycles-on-board. Transit needs cycling accommodations. Each transit stop is estimated to serve a quarter-mile radius of pedestrian traffic, but can easily serve a five-mile radius of bicycle traffic. That’s four-hundred times larger, 40,000%. Atlanta’s MARTA, for example, allows bicycles on trains at any time of the day or night. All Santa Clara Valley light rail vehicles are equipped with interior bike racks. Each Caltrain train can accommodate a maximum of 24 bicycles. Designers too often overlook the need for bicycles on-board and have to retrofit to add bikes on-board later. We don’t have to repeat that mistake, if we plan for bikes on board from the start. Our lack of super-high density is a challenge for rail. Bicycles are part of the answer to that challenge.
North Carolina Railroad is studying the possibility of passenger service from Goldsboro to Greensboro. Passenger trains currently running between Greensboro and Raleigh either terminate in Raleigh (Amtrak Piedmont) or continue to DC/NYC via Rocky Mount, not Goldsboro, so this would be additional passenger rail in Raleigh and additional trains through (but not stopping) in Hillsborough (unless Hillsborough is successful in establishing a new depot).
We have two independent and completely separate pedicab operations in service in the Triangle. Pedicabs are a beautiful way to extend and enhance transit. We need our transit planning to include pedicab bike-commuter friendly designs. The newest funding for airport facilities for the first time includes bicycle facilities. We need to push RDU to apply for the funding and build the bike facilities--being located right on state bike route #2, and u.s. bike route #1, RDU should be a priority for bike facilities at airports.
The time is ripe for alternative transportation advocacy, and bicycling should be an integral part of all transportation planning.
Bike commuter and weekend bike-packer, Adrian Hands feels Raleigh is a great city for cycling, having lived on the south side from 1995 to 2007 and gone car-free in 2001. Having moved to Carrboro in August 2007, he feels he's missing out on the great new Raleigh Renaissance, but for the fact he still works (and bikes) in Raleigh.