BikeWalkNC

North Carolina’s advocate for safe cycling and walking

Education

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.

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.

NC BikeWalk Transportation Summit Recap

Maybe it’s because we were coming off of two years of virtual or semi-virtual Summits, but the energy at this year’s NC BikeWalk Transportation Summit was palpable. The entire local Summit committee was stoked and ready to welcome everyone to Greenville. The speakers and sessions were off the charts. The locally catered food was delicious, as was the beer at the local breweries.

The planning committee from Greenville, NC, along with the leadership of BikeWalk NC’s former Programs Manager, Trish Farnham, was phenomenal. It included Rosalie Calarco, Chad Carwein, Yolanda Davette, Eliud de Jesus, Dionne Evans, Debra Franklin, Anu Hanumanthu, Steven Hardy-Braz, Toneisha Jones, Alice Keene, Suzanne LaFollette-Black, Terry Lansdell, David Manning, Andrew Meeker, David Miller, Tony Parker, Sarah Parkins, Heidi Perov Perry, Mike Ross, Bion Schulken, Mary Schulken, Ted Silver, Carol Stein, Ellen Walston, Rachel Whitten, Larry Widman, Ben Wise, and Rich Zeck. BikeWalk NC thanks each of them for volunteering their time, expertise, and knowledge to the success of the event.

We could not put on the Summit without a grant from the Governor’s Highway Safety Program and the generosity of 40 sponsors. We highlighted each of our sponsors on social media prior to the summit. Please visit our Summit Page and scroll down to see all of them, and click on their icons to learn more about each.

Our speakers were inspiring and our presenters were well-informed, giving all of us so much to take home and adapt to our own communities. And, we were thrilled to help the town of Winterville secure a generous grant from AARP for a permanent Traffic Garden, and to walk them through the design and construction process. It felt good to see such a wonderful new recreation/education facility for young riders being left as a legacy of our Summit.

During the Summit, we encountered several technical issues with the live streaming and recordings that were out of our control. Some of the session recordings from the summit are available at BikeWalk NC’s YouTube channel. (While you are there, please subscribe to our channel so we you can be notified when new content appears.) Other sessions, unfortunately were recorded incorrectly by the IT group we hired for this purpose. Therefore, we are preparing pdfs of the slides for each presentation and post them on the site when they are ready.

BikeWalk NC’s first permanent traffic garden coming to Eastern NC

In collaboration with the Town of Winterville, AARP and others, BikeWalk NC will establish the first permanent traffic garden in Eastern NC this fall!

A traffic garden is a painted surface that serves as a bicycling safety course.

Local community members are now providing input and feedback on three proposed designs from internationally recognized traffic designer, Fionnuala Quinn. 

Stay tuned for information about the winning design, or better yet, come see it in person at the 2022 NC BikeWalk Transportation Summit in October! 

Safer Roads for Us All: online presentation

“When you have a brain injury, you have to start over with everything…”
-Diamone Ricketts, artist and crash survivor

A person’s story can affect  us in a way that data and statistics never fully can.  

The Bicycle Friendly Driver Program was recently honored to partner with the Brain Injury Association of NC, the NC Department of Health and Human Services and others to present Safer Roads for Us All, featuring the stories of North Carolinians directly impacted by motor vehicle crashes.  

Ben Barry, Diamone Ricketts and Onnr Grogan honestly and powerfully shared through their personal stories how our behavior as motorists can forever impact other people.

The presentation’s recording is available here. We encourage you to watch it, share it with others, and most importantly, drive in a way that respects the experience of these presenters and so many other vulnerable road users.