Dear Terrence,
The proposed amendments of the City code to control unicycles on sidewalks and streets could damage our efforts to reduce traffic congestion and to make Morgantown a Bicycle Friendly Community. Our concern is that those who are bicycling on the sidewalks and get tickets will end up driving cars.
The Bicycle Board recognizes that sidewalk bicycling is dangerous to bicyclists as well as to pedestrians. Our approach to getting bicyclists off the sidewalks and onto the streets is to educate them that the law gives them same rights to the road as motorists and subjects them to the same duties. We produced 5,000 police information cards (http://bikemorgantown.com/articles.php?str=2012/01/ticketing-cyclists.html) and gave them to Chief Preston and WVU police for this purpose. We encourage police to give these cards to bicyclists as well as motorists that violate laws that jeopardize bicyclists' safety.
Now, I recognize that the subject for Tuesday's Committee of the Whole is unicycles but since one of the code amendments is to article 373. Bicycles, specifically 373.08 Riding on Sidewalks, the discussion is likely to stray from unicycles to bicycling on sidewalks. I explicitly request that you consider our points above if discussion does stray to sidewalk bicycling. Perhaps you could even distribute some police information cards.
One element of the procedural guidelines under which the City chartered the Bicycle Board is "review and support the implementation of Article 373 on Bicycles of the Morgantown Municipal Code." We have been working on this for years and have preliminary recommendations for code updates but we are not yet ready to propose them to the Traffic Commission. One of those recommendations is to remove 373.08 (d) from 373 since 373.08 (d) has nothing to do with bicycles. Another reason for removing the language of 373.08 (d) from 373 is that doing so would diminish the grouping of bicycles with skateboards, roller skates, and soon, unicycles.
We need to recognize that one reason residents may choose to bicycle on the sidewalks rather than on the streets is that they perceive the streets to be more dangerous. Until we can educate them that they can ride safely on the streets and until we can make the streets safer for bicycling, e.g. by enforcing laws whose violation endangers cyclists, we could consider amending the 373.08 Riding on Sidewalks to make riding on sidewalks safer for bicyclists and pedestrians. One such measure could be to amend 373.08 to permit bicycling on the sidewalks at a speed no greater than the prevailing speed of pedestrian traffic.
I hope that we will discuss this matter before Tuesday's Committee of the Whole meeting.
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