BikeWalkNC

North Carolina’s advocate for safe cycling and walking

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Friendly Driver Program in Fayetteville

Last week Program Manager, Laila Horton delivered the recently updated NC Friendly Driver Program to the City of Fayetteville Police Traffic Support Unit.  

This represents the first presentation of the program to include new content related to pedestrian safety in addition to the existing bicycle safety content.  It is also the first presentation to take place in Cumberland County, one of the priority counties of the program, as determined by bicycle and pedestrian crash rates.

Both Laila, and Community Outreach Coordinator, Oliver Sendall, were in attendance to engage in dialogue with officers on traffic laws and how to safely co-exist on the road with pedestrians and people on bicycles.

Please contact Laila or Oliver if you have questions or are interested in hosting a NC Friendly Driver Program in your area.

North Carolina Governor’s Highway Safety Program Deadline on Jan 31

On January 1st, 2023, the North Carolina Governor’s Highway Safety Program (GHSP) began accepting grant applications for highway safety-related projects for Federal FY 2024, which starts on October 1, 2023 and ends on September 30, 2024. The application period will close at 11:59 p.m. on January 31st, 2023.

Please keep in mind that all grants are funded for one year only. If you wish to continue your current project in FY24, you must meet the application submission deadline of January 31, 2023.

In the process of completing a new application you will need to have a UEI (Unique Entity Identification) number for your agency. This number is 12-digits and is alphanumeric. You can visit this website to obtain this number.

If you do not have access to the Grants Management System (GMS), you will need access to complete an application for FY24 funding. If you do not have access to GMS, please visit our website and download, complete, and submit the Grants Management Access Authorization Form which is located under the Applying for Your GHSP Grant subheading.

NC Year of the Trail

BikeWalk NC is proud to be partnering with The Great Trails State Coalition to promote and support 2023 as the “Year of the Trail” in North Carolina.

The Great Trails State Coalition is a group of  organizations, agencies and supporters advocating for the establishment of a Great Trails State Fund, with funding for all kinds of accessible trails, including natural surface and paved greenways.

The NC Year of the Trail will represent is the largest statewide celebration of trails and outdoor recreation in North Carolina history. Goals of the program are:

  • Inspire people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds to try trails,
  • Demonstrate the importance of trails to elected officials.
  • Boost outdoor recreation tourism across the state through Year of the Trail events in all 100 counties.
  • Promote safe and responsible use of trails, with the Outdoor NC Principles.
  • Advance diversity and inclusion on trails.

The Year of the Trail Toolkit is available for communities to learn how they can host and participate in events throughout the year.

Click to learn more about the coalition, or to become a member organization.

Safe Routes to School Grant Opportunities

North Carolina communities will soon be able to promote the importance of walking and bicycling to school, thanks to a federal grant program. 

Community organizations have until February 6 to apply for Safe Routes to School grant funding, the N.C. Department of Transportation announced.

“Communities can use the funds to develop creative programs that educate community members about safe driving, walking and biking practices near schools,” said Ryan Brumfield, director of the Integrated Mobility Division, the unit of NCDOT administering the grants. “This an important way to improve child safety and promote the healthy benefits of walking and biking.”

Visit 2023 Safe Routes to School – Non-Infrastructure – Project Application to apply for a grant.

Those eligible to apply for grants include local governments, regional transportation authorities and planning organizations, state agencies, school districts and schools, nonprofit organizations and tribal governments.

Proposals should be designed around a collaborative program that works to reduce the number of bicycle and pedestrian injuries and fatalities, and promotes safety through education, encouragement and evaluation. 

Safe Routes to School is a Federal Highway Administration program that encourages a healthy and active lifestyle by facilitating the planning, development and implementation of projects and activities that improve safety and reduce traffic, fuel consumption and air pollution near schools.

Additional information can be found at the NCDOT Connect website.

A Brief Look Back at 2022

2022 was an exciting and very busy year for BikeWalk NC. Through a generous grant from the Governor’s Highway Safety Program, we began to take our Friendly Driver Program across the state with the hire of our first Programs Manager, Trish Farnham. The program has been extremely well-received, and we will continue to offer it this year with our new Programs Manager, Laila Horton. We are also excited to add another staff member, our new Community Outreach Coordinator, Oliver Sendall.

We published our online Bicycle Safety Quiz and will be looking to have that translated into Spanish this year.

We offered LCI training as well as the Traffic Bicycling Workshop, held an incredible statewide NC BikeWalk Transportation Summit in Greenville, and helped the Town of Winterville secure a grant from AARP for a permanent Traffic Garden. 

We advised community advocates around the state on things to look for and request from NCDOT for various road-widening projects. 

We followed bills and came closer than in the past on two laws that we feel need to be changed. One is the law that restricts the use of state funds for standalone bicycle and pedestrian projects. Another is the contributory negligence law that can have serious consequences for vulnerable road users. Unfortunately, neither of these changes made it all the way through the session, but we will keep working for their passage. (BIkeWalk NC board member Ann Groninger recently wrote about a case involving a bicyclist that BikeLaw won for its client, but it highlights why the contributory negligence law is so bad, especially for vulnurable road users.)

We have lots more work to do in 2023. Won’t you join us in our quest to eliminate deaths on our roads?