Frank, et al,
At one time it was possible to find the Uniform Vehicle Code (UVC) online and as near as I can remember it had language to the effect of...

Safety is determined by operator behavior rather than conveyance. If a cyclist rides on the sidewalk at pedestrian speeds, aware of and yielding to pedestrians, then there will be no difference in safety than if he were a pedestrian. I thought that seemed pretty sensible, and it agreed with my experience. If one of our transportation professionals has access to the UVC please look this up and verify it. If that language is still in there I recommend that any new law be modeled on this language for these 2 reasons...
- It will guide cyclists and pedestrians in safe behavior
- It is enforcable and justifiable
- It is based on a national criteria that might be followed by other municipalities, instead of the current nutty patchwork of vigilante sidewalk laws that are impractical to know and often selectively enforced.

Nick Hein LCI# 1705
Director, Positive Spin
803 East Brockway Ave
Morgantown, WV
ph 304-276-0213

-----Original Message-----
From: "Frank Gmeindl" <frank.gmeindl@comcast.net>
Sent 1/29/2012 6:57:09 PM
To: "Bicycle Board" <bikeboard@cheat.org>
Cc: "Christiaan Abildso" <christiaan.abildso@mail.wvu.edu>
Subject: [Bikeboard] Sidewalk cycling

Bicycle Board Members,

At this Tuesday's meeting, City Council will discuss riding on sidewalks. See Agenda.

WHAT SHOULD WE DO? We have 2 days to decide.

Primarily, in response to a request from Chief Preston, they're banning unicycles from sidewalks and streets, effectively banning unicycles. I imagine this will lead to discussing bicycling on sidewalks which I imagine could lead to police ticketing bicyclists who ride on sidewalks. IMO, that won't exactly help us realize our vision of every resident being able to bicycle safely and fearlessly anywhere, anytime for any reason or to achieve our goal of having 1 or every 20 vehicles on Morgantown streets be a bicycle by 2020.

I would like to turn this around from being negative to some kind of positive action to support our vision, goal, objectives and recommended action but I don't know how. Ideas?

Specifically, they're going to revise two parts of the code: 311.02 TOY VEHICLES ON STREETS and 373.08 RIDING ON SIDEWALKS, specifically 373.08 (d). Personally, I've always had a problem with 373.08 (d) because 373 is entitled "Bicycles" but 373.08 (d) is about skateboards and roller skates and soon to include unicycles. If they had asked me about this ordinance change, I would first have recommended that they remove part (d) from 373. (See Bicycle Law .)

Frank D. Gmeindl
Chairman, Morgantown Municipal Bicycle Board
LCI #1703
491 WilsonAvenue
Morgantown, WV 26501
304-376-0446
Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles

_______________________________________________
Bikeboard mailing list
Bikeboard@cheat.org
http://cheat.org/mailman/listinfo/bikeboard