ARIANA PERNICE, vice president of the Hilton Head Island Visitor and Convention Bureau, knows a lot about the preferences of island visitors, especially when it comes to their feelings about bicycling.
At the Second Annual Southeast Biking Symposium, March 22-24, she told attendees that 91 percent of visitors listed safety as their top priority when bicycling, which explains why 93 percent of visitors said they prefer using the island’s more than 100 miles of dedicated bike paths.
The symposium, organized by the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce, attracts tourism professionals, cycling advocates, planners, and government officials. The conference focuses not only on trends in bicycle tourism, but how destination cities can use bicycling to improve quality of life for residents.
Hilton Head is one of only 21 cities to earn gold level Bicycle Friendly Community status from the League of American Bicyclists and is the only gold level community in the Southeast. For comparison, Savannah and Tybee Island are both bronze level Bicycle Friendly Communities.
The Town of Hilton Head Island has constructed 64 miles of public pathways through its capital improvement program and another 50 miles or so of trails and paths have been built within private developments.
It’s no surprise that 48 percent of visitors rent bicycles during their stays, according to Pernice, and many others bring bikes with them to Hilton Head. When a community provides a safe walking and biking infrastructure network, visitors and residents use it. It’s a pretty simple equation.
Additions to Savannah’s woefully inadequate inventory of bike lanes, and multiuse paths would surely encourage more visitors to explore our city by bike. However, in the wake of the troubling Savannah National Historic Landmark District “Condition Assessment” released last week, some might wonder if we should be encouraging more visitors of any kind.
Yet there’s a difference between the affluent, well-educated demographic that goes in for bicycle touring and those for whom to-go cups are the main attraction.
Consider that 82 percent of touring cyclists in the United States have a college degree, 8.1 percent are international visitors, and 58 percent make over $75,000 per year.
What’s more, when people use bicycles during their visits, they don’t compete with locals for parking and don’t add to wear and tear on our streets.
Plus, they spend more than other types of visitors and are less likely to get into fist fights in City Market at 2 a.m.
How big is the potential for bicycle tourism in Savannah? Pretty big, if you consider the extent to which our city has emerged as a bicycle tourism destination despite the fact that no significant improvements have been made in our bicycle infrastructure in more than six years.
In addition to local businesses like Savannah On Wheels and Perry Rubber Bike Shop, which offer bike rentals to visitors, national bicycle tour companies including VBT, based in Vermont, and Pennsylvania’s Wilderness Voyageurs are operating van-supported tours in our city almost year round.
To understand how putting more visitors on bikes can benefit residents, consider another example from Hilton Head.
When a symposium attendee complained about traffic congestion on the island, Pernice asked him to imagine what would happen if everyone who rides bicycles on the island decided to drive instead.
In Savannah, the scenario would be flipped. Imagine how many cars would be taken off our streets if more visitors and residents felt safe walking and riding bikes.
And that’s the most frustrating thing about our situation: Projects that would allow more visitors and residents to get out of their cars and travel on foot or on bike are often dead on arrival because of fears, often exaggerated, about traffic congestion and loss of on-street parking spaces.
Our fixation on avoiding even the slightest inconvenience to drivers has prevented us from providing transportation options for people who would rather leave their cars at home. Even worse, it’s perpetuated unsafe conditions on our streets that endanger people who walk and bike out of necessity.
In his March 30 keynote address to the Sixth Annual Savannah Urban Planning Conference at Savannah State University, Tom Sanchez pondered our continuing preoccupation with cars, especially when there are so many changes on the horizon.
A professor and chair of the Urban Affairs and Planning Program at Virginia Tech, Sanchez reminded the audience that not too long ago, cities were similarly focused on another kind of conveyance. People once thought horse carriages would always be a primary transport modes in cities, he said.
We will never eliminate the need for transportation, but we may not need cars in the in the cities of the future, Sanchez said.
Right now in Savannah, we need more transportation choices.
This article appears in Apr 4-10, 2018.
Oh the Hilton Head bike paths, yes they are nice and almost everyone uses them during their stay at the beach resorts. As a resident of Savannah I can attest this is not a beach resort and you should know better, its an old and aging, very diverse, historic City!
To compare HHIs bike infrastructure, which was built in the 1980s along with the rest of Hilton Head, is almost as short sighted as your other comparison of tourist income and spending. Its obviously apples to oranges but alas, this continues to be printed.
Maybe a more appropriate comparison would be Charleston, that does make sense right? Do you even dare compare our traffic congestion fears to theirs? No, you do not. And while we are on that note, have you ever read their City Paper? Its so different because they actually love their town, or at least act like it, and dont bash it at every opportunity. Yall should do a separate article on why Connect hates Savannah.
Responding to the previous comment. I have spent a lot of time in the Netherlands for business and they have created the world standard of bicycle friendly infrastructure in cities that are much older than Savannah or Charleston. Having the right accommodation makes a huge difference, in the Netherlands there are children and adults cycling everywhere and their cities would be much more congested if all of those people drove into town everyday.
Of course its a good idea to invest in things that make our beautiful city more enjoyable, and whod argue against bicycling by tourists and residents alike? But stereotyping is of very little value, and the arent we cyclists grand folks? is overdone here. And for those reasons I find the tone of this article rather off-putting.
As a downtown resident I am puzzled by the following quote, and I wonder if the author interacts much with the mostly wonderful people who come to Savannah as tourists. He says: “… theres a difference between the affluent, well-educated demographic that goes in for bicycle touring and those for whom to-go cups are the main attraction. Really, to-go cups are drawing in hordes of rabble, those hypothetical others who “get into fist fights in City Market at 2 a.m.??
I encourage local residents to interact with the typical tourists in Savannah and then see if we’d characterize a sizable slice of them as some kind of bad actors. Ive done just that manner of social interaction for 15 years and have a whole different impression of our typical guests. Most often the visitors I meet are likely to walk here/there and everywhere in the District, soaking it all in. They know parking can be a challenge and thus dont drive much once here. To think that they disproportionately (to quote again) “add to wear and tear on our streets is just silly speak, and if thats an argument against tourism its a real stretch. Tourists who bring cars (lots of them dont) pay a pretty penny to park them here; my hunch is its a lot more than it costs the city to take care of whatever impact they have on the infrastructure during their brief visits, a lot of them on weekends.
Considering lodging is pretty expensive in Savannah, the city is going to attract people who are coming for more than to-go cups and to get into pre-dawn fist fights. In fact, if that were our calling card, how to explain the popularity of Savannah for destination weddings, family reunions, Girl Scout pilgrimages, the tours of homes and gardens, Savannah Music Festival, graduation celebrations, and the like? They arent going to Topeka, Kansas for that stuff.
Another point of criticism regarding the article content: the citation of demographics like bikers education and income levels is irrelevant. Lets see the demographics of the tourists who come to Savannah without bicycles — drawn by its beauty, its arts and entertainment and architecture, its history, its proximity to the ocean, and its reputation for hospitality, its cuisine, and so forth. Then we can compare that data with the data cited for prospective cycling enthusiasts, for what its worth. Not worth much, really, in my opinion … but it might make for an interesting discussion.
I have some avid cyclists in my family, living elsewhere. They often vacation where there are trails and hills and rural highways to ride; when they come to Savannah, cycling is not on their to do lists other than perhaps to rent a bike to go on side trips. They might find Hilton Head to be attractive for biking but the similarities between Savannah and Hilton Head comprise a very short list. And, I submit, that will always be true. Sure it would be nice if Savannah were very bicycle-friendly (if its not already). But its not going to change life here in any notable way, nor does it need to in my opinion.