What can a business do to become truly bicycle friendly?  The first step might be to correct policies that discourage bicyclists from patronizing an establishment. Providing secure bicycle parking is another way to attract those who shop by bike. To truly make the leap from bike tolerant to bike friendly involves rewarding cycling customers and supporting groups that promote bicycling.  B Street Salon in Savannah is leading the way. According to Savannah Bicycle Campaign Chairman Drew Wade, the partnership with the salon is important for a number of reasons.

“We’re thrilled about the concept. We are encouraged to see more businesses taking voluntary steps toward sustainability, including more sustainable forms of transportation like bicycling. A large proportion of  people who ride bikes regularly are men, and we are especially pleased to have this connection with B Street to promote bicycling as a safe and healthy activity for women as well.”

Read more about it on the Savannah Bicycle Campaign Web site.

While the big news on the streets of Savannah yesterday involved a presidential motorcade, a different sort of vehicle should get more attention as bicycle-related events round out the week. On Thursday, March 4 at 9 p.m., the bicycle culture movie “Veer” will be screened at SCAD’s River Club. Sponsored by SCAD’s student news organization and Desoto Row Gallery’s “Spoked” bicycle art festival, the Matthew Modine-narrated film is free and open to the public. It’s preceded at 7 p.m. by a screening of the indie rock music poster documentary, “Died Young Stated Pretty.”

On Friday morning, the Savannah Bicycle Campaign’s 2Wheels 2Work bicycle commuting event returns, this time with the support of Savannah’s legal community. You don’t have to be a lawyer to enjoy free coffee from Jittery Joe’s in Davant Park or ride in the Wheels of Justice bicycle convoy from Habersham Village. You might even win a free bike!

On Friday evening from 6-9 p.m. an opening reception for Spoked will be held at Desoto Row, located in the Starland District. Artists included in the show are Graham Carswell, Ashley Dowling, Angela Petsis, Evan Pomerantz, George Retseck, Cecily Upton, Kevin Willsey and Jessie Jones.

Spoked continues on Saturday from noon-6 p.m. with a Bike Expo. The event will feature demonstrations, contests, informational booths and a group ride sponsored by the Savannah Bicycle Campaign.

News the next day that his condition improved must have been a bummer to the person who hoped Godwin’s injuries would be a “lesson to the jay walkers on Bay St.”

During the same time period, the Savannah Morning News published numerous stories about car crashes including:

2-vehicle accident blocks southbound Abercorn

Several accidents delay morning traffic

Driver cited in midtown crash

Car crashes into Carol’s Pampered Pets, goes through building

None of these articles attracted a single comment, not even the one about an SUV crashing into the lobby of a pet shop.  None of the drivers were called criminals. No one said they got what they deserved. No one said they hoped these crashes would serve as a lesson to other drivers.

The message is clear: Crash your car? It happens to the best of us. Get hit by a car? You’re a menace and you had it coming.

Forgive the use of this obvious and overused phrase: Americans have very special relationships with their cars. But it’s true and a couple things I read this week reminded me of this.

First, this letter to the editor of the Savannah Morning News (scroll down to “Safe driving a personal responsibility”) that acknowledges the danger of texting while driving, but warns  we should keep government our of our cars.

“People can do what they want while they drive. The state representatives cannot stop anyone from reading and responding to text messages. It is neither their phone nor their car, so they should back off.”

Of course we can do anything we want while we drive. Isn’t that in the constitution or something? But why limit it to cars? I’d like to ride down the middle of Broughton Street on the back of my moderately tame grizzly bear while swinging my baseball bat. Also, I will be blindfolded. While I don’t mean to intentionally hurt anyone, I understand that my bear could maul a bystander and that my bat could conk someone on the head. Still, it’s my bear, my bat and my blindfold. So back off!

If we get government out of our cars, what should they be doing? Our letter writer knows:

“I can understand them feeling responsible for what goes on, but they should be taking care of more important things like fixing roads, helping people who need jobs and insurance, and the necessities that the state has to deal with.”

It is important to note that “fixing roads” is code that usually means widening them to five lanes or more without any consideration given to road users who do not travel in cars. These “fixed” roads are dangerous by design. Two local teenagers were serioulsy injured on one such road this week. At least our letter writer can take solace in the fact that our elected officials are taking care of more important things, like drafting laws that punish drivers who fail to speed.

As reported by the Savannah Bicycle Campaign last week,  The Savannah-Chatham County Metropolitan Planning Commission and the Savannah Development and Renewal Authority are holding a three-day public workshop and charrette “to examine feasibility of removal of the I-16 exit ramps at Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd and Montgomery Street, and to address redevelopment along the 52-block corridor.” The event is scheduled for Feb. 17, 18 and 19 at the Con-Ed Resource Center Ball Room, 714 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. A flier for this event can be downloaded here.

Eric Curl wrote about the potential for flyover removal in the Savannah Morning News last year. He quoted Lise Sundrla of the SDRA commenting about the economic impacts of the flyover:

“There are social and cultural reasons that support the removal,” Sundrla said. “From an economic perspective, (property values) drop drastically from south of the flyover to the north.”

And Christian Sottile described how removal of flyover would position the city relative to other communities grappling with the negative effects of highways on urban areas.

“The flyover would be another model project,” Sottile said. “In this point in history (its removal) would place Savannah in vanguard of cities reclaiming their urban centers from world of high-speed travel.”

All sessions are open to the public. For more information, call Ellen Harris, I-16 Study Project Manager, 651-1482; or Lise Sundrla, (SDRA)  at 651-6973.

The event begins at 7 p.m. at River Club, 3 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. The event is free and open to the public. A complete minute by minute schedule is available on the sustainability council Web site. The event will be streamed live by District, SCAD’s award-winning student news source. Video from the last two days of [Un]disciplined can be viewed here and here.

• Matt Nolan, project architect for Belay Architecture in Tacoma, Wa.
• Ursula Tischner,  professor of Design for Sustainability at SCAD and CEO of econcept, Germany
• Dror Benshetrit of Dror multidisciplinary design (pictured, right).

Additional biographical information on the keynote speakers is available on the SCAD Sustainability Council Web site. The night begins with a reception at 6:30 p.m.,  at River Club, 3 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The event is free and open to the public.

The Savannah College of Art and Design Sustainability Council announces a  series of events focusing on Sustainability, Jan. 26-29 at River Club, 3 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. [Un]disciplined is aimed at examining and understanding the full scope of sustainability. All events are free and open to the public.

The series begins Jan. 26 with an opening reception at 6:30 p.m. and keynote addresses from 7-9:30 p.m. Scheduled to speak are Matt Nolan, project architect for Belay Architecture in Tacoma, Wa.; Ursula Tischner, professor of design for sustainability at SCAD and CEO of Econcept, Germany; and Dror Benshetrit, multidisciplinary design, Dror, New York, NY.

On Jan. 27, a panel discussion from 7-9 p.m. features professional journalists discussing how media coverage has shaped public understanding of sustainability. The panel discussion is co-sponsored by SCAD’s chapter of the Society for Collegiate Journalists.

On Jan. 28 from 7-9:30 p.m., representatives from local organizations working on sustainability issues will describe their efforts and explain opportunities for participation. Scheduled to speak are representatives from the Emergent Structures Project, the Savannah Bicycle Campaign, SCAD physical resources and others.

Hands on workshops on a variety of subjects will invite participants to learn more about topics including bicycle design and modification, wind turbines and rainwater showers. Workshops will be held on Jan. 29 from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

A complete schedule of events and presenters can be found on the SCAD Sustainability Council Web site. [Un]disciplined is sponsored by the Office of Innovative Teaching and Learning and the Industrial Design Department.

Landers describes the study’s methodology, which uses a variety of data sources “to come up with a block-by-block analysis of how convenient it is to choose fresh and healthy over fatty and fast. The group calculated a ‘food balance’ score for each city block by dividing the distance from it to any mainstream food provider (such as Kroger) by the distance to any fringe food venue (such as McDonald’s).”

The story  notes that lack of healthy food options is not exlusive to low income, inner city neighborhoods:

Kathryn Martin, chair of Healthy Savannah, knows that from first-hand experience. She’s lived in Southbridge since she moved to Savannah six years ago. “Southbridge is considered affluent, but when I moved there the closest place to access healthy food was 7 miles away in Pooler,” said Martin, a former administrator of the Chatham County Health Department who now is the Medical College of Georgia assistant dean for Southeast Georgia campus. “Officially, I was in a food desert.”

The difference, of course, between affluent communities such as Southbridge and some other neighborhoods is that nearly everyone in Southbridge has access to a car (sometimes more than one car) and thus easy access to healthy food. In other parts of Savannah, where residents depend on public transportation to travel outside their neighborhoods, the food that’s easy to find is often not the healthiest choice. And the study addresses this in one of its recommendations:

Identify traffic routes, especially pedestrian pathways, to mainstream food venues and identify ways to shorten and improve those routes. The dot maps showing the locations of mainstream and fringe food venues will aid in prioritizing where to start on this task.

The study, “A New Day in the Garden: A Food Desert and Food Balance Analysis in Savannah, Georgia,” can be downloaded here.