Response to John Bennett
Regarding the recent column by Savannah Bicycle Campaign’s John Bennett:
Mr. Bennett is a lobbyist for the interests of bike riders. As we have learned, lobbyist spin can differ widely from fact.
Bike riders do not have the right to use sidewalks around Forsyth Park. This is against state law.
They also violate state law when they ride on sidewalks at Gaston and Park streets to reach the central path through the park.
If the city fails to enforce state law, it will be liable for damages should a pedestrian be seriously injured by a bike rider on a sidewalk.
Mr. Bennett questions whether accidents have really occurred. Residents of the West Forsyth Neighborhood can document numerous incidents of people and their pets being hit by bikes.
Does Mr. Bennett want the city to do nothing until someone is badly hurt?
Failure to enforce the law also encourages people to believe they may select which laws they will obey. This leads to problems such inappropriate use of handicapped parking spaces, littering, rolling stop signs, etc.
Public safety comes before anyone’s convenience. Government’s first responsibility is to protect the safety of its citizens. As the walks through and around Forsyth Park become increasingly congested (with tourists, students, residents and pets) bike riding on sidewalks creates safety hazards.
Do we want tourists telling their friends that they felt unsafe walking the sidewalks of our park (and squares)? I have personally seen many visitors badly shaken by speeding bike riders as they attempt to take photos of the Forsyth fountain.
Sadly, Mr. Bennett seems not to understand that cooperation with residents is necessary to find policies which serve the interests of walkers and riders alike. I personally support the creation of additional north-south bike lanes and I believe that banning bike riding from Forsyth Park would force the city to do this expeditiously.
Without such pressure, it took the city two years to create the south bound bike lane on Price Street.
Ken Zapp
This article appears in Jan 13-19, 2016.
Rather than ban bicycles, how difficult is it to create a bike lane?????
Cars approaching the intersection of Price St. and say Hall St. or Gaston St. can’t see the bikers in the bike lane due to all the parked cars. So when the City should build the lanes Ken speaks of, they should make them responsibly and not be another Chicago – where lanes were designed on cars and box trucks being smaller than they actually are (there’s a true study done on this – google it) and bikers are constantly hit by car doors as well as being aware of sight lines from cars approaching intersections where bike lanes are located. This would prevent bikers from being hit by cars who “couldn’t see them because of the parked car”. Tourists do constantly walk out into traffic in front of my car when there aren’t pedestrian crossings because they are “viewing the beautiful architecture” without caring for their own personal safety. Ken’s right about public safety coming first, but it should be with the police policing real crimes while they’re understaffed instead of being in Forsyth handing out tickets to bikers who are just trying to get safely to class or work. I’ve been mugged while walking in Forsyth before the sun was down and the park was still open, so I def. won’t stop riding a bike through it with crime being worse now than 8 years ago. Do you want tourists to tell their friends they got mugged on foot in Forsyth while the only cop there was handing out a ticket to a biker? There were tourists still walking into the park when my incident happened, and I warned them as I was getting out of dodge, but they looked at me puzzled and continued to walk into the park. So yeah, again, tourists make the best decisions, and we should base all of our biking laws on them while they’re all making turns onto clearly marked one way streets – in the wrong direction – and walking into traffic while looking up at the beautiful buildings. I personally feel with the more bikers and pedestrians – the safer the park will be – there just needs to be a marked path for each use. The City should have more things to do than police bikers right now, esp. concerning the safety of its citizens and tourists with the high crime rates we’re seeing now.