Quality of Life
I have just returned from the Florida panhandle and area around route 30A in particular. In overwhelming evidence is - Quality of Life sells homes and communities. Every development now promotes the New Urbanism that Seaside made famous. With bicycles everywhere and the infrastructure to support them, the city planners leave little doubt of their importance in promoting the assets of the community. They constructed simple, inexpensive bike-friendly solutions to many of the same issues every city faces. As I rode along bikeway on route 30A, I compared this older design to the more recent Indian Lake Boulevard design. I understood why the members of the past Bike/Pedestrian Review Committee were upset.
Before I begin a comparison of 30A to Indian Lake Boulevard, please note that I have not been able to get an explanation as to why bikeways were not built along it. They were in the City's Master Plan, but the engineers apparently chose to leave them out, even after the oversight was brought to their attention. Instead the boulevard has two four-foot concrete sidewalks, designed to add to the aesthetics of the road complex, but find virtually no use, while Florida's 30A has one eight-foot asphalt multi-use path on only one side of the road, designed and maintained primarily for bike traffic, and has extensive use. My guess is the Florida route, more useful to bikers and pedestrians, was less expensive to build and is less expensive to maintain.
Relative to the cost issue, Florida designs consider the purpose. When the pathway is intended strictly for pedestrians, they save a little expense by reducing the width of the sidewalk. In a few case along 30A, the pedestrian only walkway was two-feet wide.
In Florida the walkways are intended to be shared by pedestrians and bikes with emphasis on bikes. They also have bike racks at every major destination point. In Hendersonville, the city has an ordinance that prohibits bikes on pedestrian walkways and bike racks are virtually non-existing.
The bike paths are traveled primarily by children and recrea-tional bikers. Serious bikers on road bikes continue to travel on the street. Since they move at 20 mph, this route is safer for everyone. However, the road engineers seem to understand that fact. At narrow, potential dangerous locations, such as bridges, they bring the bike path to the road, thereby providing an opportunity for the biker on the road to move out of the way of automobile traffic in this constricted section.
On Indian Lake Boulevard the overpass over the railroad is extremely dangerous to bike traffic. The raised curb does not permit bikers to move out of the way of traffic, it has drainage grates in the narrow region were a biker can ride, and the city has an ordinance against the biker using the walkway.
FLORIDA
Route
30A
Florida Route 30A demonstrates that passageways for alternate transportation can be included inexpensively and safely "if" that is the objective of the engineers. Furthermore, it shows the importance that city planners place in bikeways to promote the recreational assets on their communities. I invite you to visit the Web Site they created to sell their bikeways. The existence of this Web Site clarifies that this bikeway is not just an "after-thought" but a key part of their strategy in New Urbanization. Even though they have beaches and park systems superior to any-thing in Hendersonville, they have invested in bike activities.
Seeing the large groups of oldsters and youngsters in every 30A community on bikes makes it certain that you build it and they will come.
The bikeway along 30A is only 8-feet in width in most sections. and narrows to 6-feet when it boarders a road. Having ridden on this bike path, my opinion is that this width barely allows room for the safe passage of bikes and pedestrians. The multi-use paths in Hendersonville are slightly wider than 8-feet.
The engineers of Tennessee Department of Transportation requires multi-use paths to be at 12-feet in width.
