Jim Shirk Newest Friend of SWFBUD

SWFBUD thanks all-world bicycle volunter Jim Shirk for becoming a Friend of SWFBUD. If it's a bicycle event in the Tampa Bay area, you can count on Jim offering his helping hand. Jim is a citizen member of the Bicycle-Pedestrian Advisory Committee in Hillsborough County, has volunteered at SWFBUD's Bicycle Bash every year, and contributed to the TampaBay Cycle efforts to get people commuting to work.

Great work Jim, who will be joining me at this year's National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C. from March 9-11.

BRAINy Award Visits Chainwheel Drive in January

The 2009 BRAINy Award given by Bicycle Retailer magazine to SWFBUD for our advocacy work in the Tampa Bay area is spending a month at each SWFBUD member bike shop. The award spent November at Bicycle Outfitters in Seminole and December at Carrollwood Bicycle Emporium.

In January, the BRAINy will stay at Chainwheel Drive in Clearwater.

Chainwheel Drive also has a nice page on its Web site showing a short summary of SWFBUD's work in 2009.

We are also working on creating a new Bicycle Bash experience for 2010. Stay tuned.

SWFBUD Works With HART To Get Bike Safety Signs On Buses

On Dec. 23, a HART bus nearly hit me while passing me on Rowlett Park Drive in Tampa. It was the third time a HART driver nearly bashed me while passing and each of the three drivers -- when confronted -- told ne they did not know that drivers had to pass bicyclists on the road with a space of at least three feet in Florida.

Today, I spoke on behalf of SWFBUD before the HART board and retold the story and told them the agency needed to do a bicycle awareness campaign in response to the bus drivers' ignorance of the three-foot buffer. That is, they need to post signs about passing bicyclists with at least three feet and without honking while also slowing down.

I was told by HART at today's meeting that the signs will go on the buses and deliver messages such as this on outside Clermont.


Katharine Eagen, HART's chief of service development, will be in charge of this bicycle safety awareness campaign. Her email is EaganK@goHART.org if you want to contact her about the importance of the three-foot buffer law.

Enlisting HART To Help Protect Bicyclists

When a HART bus driver (pictured above) nearly hit me on Rowlett Park Drive last week and then told me to bike on the sidewalk when I confronted him about the incident, let's just say he picked the wrong bicyclist to try and blow off.

I filed a complaint with HART as soon as I got home. The incident is in HART's files as "Transaction 23317."

Yes, my putting on the record of nearly being struck by a HART bus is described as a "Transaction."

Bureaucratic euphemisms aside, I spoke today with HART's customer service director, Sylvie Castillo, who advised me that the agency looked into the matter and confirmed my report -- that the bus driver did indeed violate the 3-foot minimum buffer law and was counseled about the matter.

I was told HART drivers will be instructed to give bicyclists the required three feet of buffer space when passing a bicyclist.

I appreciated the customer service director's follow-up conversation.

But I still plan to speak at HART's Board meeting on Monday at 8:30 AM about the incident and advise the agency that as a response HART wiould be required to post signs on its bus exteriors to tell motorists to give bicyclists the requited three feet when passing and to share the road.

The bus driver's response of telling me to bike on the sidewalk is part of a bicycle culture in Tampa, where bicyclists are marginalized and intimidated by car drivers who don't understand that they are required under law to share the road, meaning passing a bicyclist by a margin of space of at least three feet.

I plan on enlisting HART Monday to help spread the word to the local Tampa-area citizenry.

SWFBUD Requests More Funding In Long-Range Transportation Plan

WMNF radio had some excellent coverage of SWFBUD participating in the
MPO 2035 Transportation Plan hearing on Wednesday, Dec. 9.

SWFBUD's message: Bicycle and pedestrian improvements deserve more funding under the MPO long-range plan.

I Hope A Bike Rack Grows At Wal-Mart

When you're a bicycle advocate, you have to be resourceful -- like using the name and phone number of the Wal-Mart manager on your Wal-Mart receipt to contact her and request a bicycle rack in front of the store.

That's exactly what I did Wednesday afternoon when I went to Wal-Mart today on Dale Mabry near I-275 and noticed no bike rack and at least five bikes locked to trees and sign posts on islands in the parking lot.

What a mess.

So I called the Wal-Mart store manager, a woman named Debbie because her name and phone number was right on my receipt.

I asked her to please install a bike rack.

And she said she would include a new bike rack when the store is remodeled in February.

Let's hope Debbie the Wal-Mart manager was not BSing me.

Tampa-area MPO Board Takes Notice Of Bike Lanes

On Wednesday night, I represented SWFBUD at the MPO2035 Long Range Transportation Plan hearing at the county center in downtown Tampa. The Plan was approved by the MPO Board, a collection of county commissioners, city council members and transportation officials to make decisions about transportation planning.

No surprise the 2035 was approved.

But what was a major surprise was when MPO Board members Tampa City Councilman John Dingfelder (interested in running for county commission), County Commissioner Rose Ferlita (interested in running for Tampa mayor) and County Commissioner Mark Sharpe (you know he's going to run for something) talked about a bike lane.

I know, who knew three politicos were so interested in a bike lane?

But the bike lane issue surfaced at the hearing when local South County activist Mariella Smith did a terrific job explaining how the proposed bike lanes under the 2035 Plan were centered around the Tampa area and that bike lanes were lacking on Shell Point Road and 19th Avenue in south county.

Dingdfelder, Ferlita and Sharpe all voiced concerns about making sure the bike lane would be striped under the plan.

For the record, I told the MPO Board that the tiny slice of the proposed money pie for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure was too small compared to the money spent on light rail and cars under the proposed plan. The MPO spent a lot of time working on this 2035 Plan, and MPO staffers Beth Alden and Gena Torres who are Seminole Heights residents do support bicycling and pedestrian improvements.

But if the Tampa Bay area is going to move up from being near the bottom of the barrel in the U.S. in terms of bicycle and ped safety, our region needs a Marshall Plan-like overhaul of our bicycle and ped infrastructure and needs the city of Tampa Transportation Dept. to do more than build more than bike lanes on TWO roads (Manhattan Avenue and 40th Street) in the six years that I have lived in Tampa.

* * *

Mariella Smith summarized the meeting and sent out a notice about the MPO meeting:

Although we didn't get our bikeways added to the 2035 Transportation Plan's list of funded projects, we did make progress at tonight's final hearing of the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) board.


Thanks to all of you who sent in comments and e-mails, some of our elected officials got the message loud and clear tonight -- that South County citizens want to see our community connected with greenways, trails and bikeways. The issue is now on the radar of our transportation planners and decision-makers, and they are promising to find some other way of funding these amenities, which we have spent years planning for.

I spoke about the need for SAFE bikeways down here, and showed their own map of funded bikeways on the ELMO, pointing out that there are LOTS of little purple lines indicating bikeways being funded all through Tampa, downtown, north Tampa and Brandon, but NOT ONE south of Bloomingdale. (They do plan to fund the Sun Coast Trail, one of our 2 major paved trails [shown as a dashed green line], but NONE of the connecting bikeways like they plan to fund in the rest of the county [shown as solid purple lines]. Our connecting bikeways are on their "needs" list, but not on their list of "funded projects.")

Joe Smith spent a good part of his allotted 3 minutes speaking in support of Greenways & Bikeways for South County, too, highlighting our area's history of planning for these corridors as part of our goal of promoting ecotourism. Alan Snel (cycling advocate supreme) spoke in support of more funding for bikeways throughout the county. Thank you, Joe & Alan!

John Dingfelder really went to bat for us! (He's a member of the MPO Board, a Tampa City Councilman, and a candidate for County Commission.) He reiterated the point I made that MANY bikeways were being funded everywhere else, but NONE in South County, and he asked the board to look again at that map of funded bikeways. When county staff said they couldn't fund any bikeways in South County because so many other roads elsewhere were higher on the priority list, given their criteria of population & accidents etc., Dingfelder argued that the criteria needs to include some consideration of equity. He said as it stands, they're treating all of south county like we don't ride bikes.

John Dingfelder acknowledged the years we have spent working on community plans that include these trails, and he pressed hard for staff to revisit the issue within the next 6 months, and find some other sources of funding. Transportation staff began tonight thinking of ways this could be done -- possibly in conjunction with resurfacing projects. County Commissioner Mark Sharpe also voiced support for bikeways in general, and Commissioner Rose Ferlita indicated a willingness to work on this in the future with us.

Thanks to all of us pulling together, we made our county leaders & planners aware of the need for viable, connecting greenways & bikeways; particularly in South Hillsborough; and specifically the bikeways looping east-west along Shell Point Rd. & 19th Ave. -- connecting Ruskin, Sun City Center, 4 schools, 2 libraries, 2 parks, the Suncoast Greenway and the bus/transit station. They now know that this IS important to us, and they are listening, and trying to find ways to turn these "needs" into funded projects.

Thanks for all your help!
Mariella Smith