Bicycling advocates in Chattanooga are hoping to lessen some of the city’s motorized traffic – and its pollution – with a planned public bike-share system.
Organizers with Outdoor Chattanooga and the city envision dozens of kiosks throughout the city, from North Chattanooga to downtown, where local employees, shoppers or tourists could check out a bike, glide across town for lunch or shopping, then turn the bike in to the nearest secured kiosk.
The city has issued a request for proposals from companies to design and install 30 kiosks, and planners expect the system to be up and running in the spring.
Geared toward trips under three miles, the bike share should reduce motor vehicle traffic and pollution, said Phil Pugliese, bicycle coordinator with Outdoor Chattanooga. The bike-share plan’s goal is to eliminate 3.6 million vehicle miles over the next three years.
“The bikes have to be convenient. You need a certain saturation of bikes available for the public so they’re there when needed,” Pugliese said.
WHAT’S NEXTPlanners hope to announce the vendor they’ve selected to develop Chattanooga’s bike share system at the National Center for Bicycling & Walking’s Pro Walk/Pro Bike conference, set for Sept. 13-17 at the Chattanooga Convention Center.
Bike-share systems are popular in European cities but relatively new to the United States, said Kassi Webster with Outdoor Chattanooga. The project puts Chattanooga on the front line of the move toward a new norm of “active transportation,” she said.
“It’s very new, and we don’t have the same kind of cycling infrastructure that the European countries have,” Webster said. “Everybody is going to be watching to see how (U.S.) cities are doing this and what impacts it can have.”
Local employers Unum Corp. and TVA already are heavily involved in the city’s mobile bicycle fleet program, launched in 2007 in partnership with CARTA. A fleet of bikes is available to company employees from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for rides to lunch or for recreation.
The Lyndhurst Foundation has donated $100,000 for the bike share project, and other support has come from the City of Chattanooga, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local employers.
More cyclists on the road should raise awareness about the importance of safe driving, organizers said.
Tennessee law requires motorists to leave a three-foot buffer when passing a cyclist. But two deaths involving cyclists shook up the cycling community.
David Meek, 51, was killed when a bag on his bike caught on a passing truck on Ashland Terrace in Chattanooga. Also last year, Ellen Pittman, 51, died after a vehicle failed to yield right of way to her motor scooter.
Webster has been conducting focus groups to figure out the barriers to, and hopes for, a bike share system in Chattanooga. Major themes include cyclists’ safety concerns about aggressive motor vehicle traffic and drivers’ frustrations with bike riders who don’t follow the rules of the road, she said.
Both sides need to be educated for the bike-share system to succeed, she said.
“It goes both ways. Both sides have to cooperate,” she said.
“We have the beginnings of that cycling culture here and hopefully the bike share will tip that more in favor of bicycling for transportation.”
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