While browsing a favored site of mine, The Digitel, I came across a topic that I simply could not put in my 2 cents on. Apparently, The City Of Charleston is looking to refine it’s bicycle registration policy an proposing a ban on bikes that park or attach to pretty much anything but a bike rack. The present code (Section 19-121, manner of parking) has more vague language requiring that one must not park their bike in a way that blocks the public right of way. The proposed ordinance would delete that, and replace it with a much lengthier Section 19-123.

That section outlines that parking must not be done on street signs, lights, trees and so on as they create a walking hazard and “diminishes the aesthetics of the surrounding area.” The ordinance also says the city is “working diligently to install bike racks … in areas of heavy bicycle traffic. ” (I would love to see what they consider areas of heavy bicycle traffic)

Offenders would be subject to a fine, “booting” of the bike with a city lock, or seizure of the bike and $45 reclamation fee. This statment is Absurd,  ”diminishes the aesthetics of the surrounding area” this is hilarious. I am pretty sure that if you polled 95% of the locals asking what diminishes the local aeshetics more, cars or bicycles, that cars would take the cake. Whomever made this statement is clearly a moron (you can quote me on that). I have a feeling that the city picked the wrong topic to pick on with this one and I would like to know the underlying motives of this proposal and what blue blood asshole is pushing for this. The wheels are definetly getting greased somewhere.

I know this post is a bit late but you need to head over there if you can and protest this change.  I am sorry I was only trying to #1 Be healthy and work on this so called battle against obesity in the United States, #2 Doing my part to help the environment by cutting down on emissions #3 Save money on gas thanks to another blunder due to big business, ie. BP #4 Enjoy this beautiful city of Charleston, Sc. Well making it against the law to park pretty much anywhere is basically taking away a big right of the people in the local community.

The King Street area has around 4,000 parking spaces currently. There are probably fewer than 100 bike racks along the same street, leaving bikers who want to visit King Street to shop or hang out the unfortunate option of attaching their bicycles to other things – parking meters, light poles, and signs. Let’s watch the sales go down at some of these King Street establishments as well.

Or, I used to. I guess all of those struggling businesses won’t be getting one red cent of my money anymore, particularly if I find out they’re behind this accursed “make bike parking illegal” nonsense.

What’s even more ludicrous – and hyper-hypocritical, I might add – is that the City of Charleston just applied to be certified a Bicycle Friendly Community by The League of American Bicyclists. On what planet can a city that doesn’t support bike parking, that would propose such a ridiculous ordinance, actually obtain this certification? Perhaps Charleston should look into the model that is followed in Austin, Tx which is one of the largest biking communities in the nation.

The City currently doesn’t require businesses to provide bike racks for patrons of a given area, nor does the City itself install nearly enough bike racks to service the number of folks who obviously want to ride their bicycles to visit King Street establishments. Check out another nice post from Andra Watkins and there is also one in The Post And Courier.

Here’s the full text of the proposed section change, or you can check out the whole PDF.

If you want to get involved, the city council meeting is today, July 20, at 5 p.m. at 80 Broad Street.

In other news, people are being murdered, robbed and shot at a higher rate than ever it seems in the Charleston area.  Let’s focus on an innocent bike bill that destroys much good instead though and worry about the serious issues later. Giving me a $45 dollar ticket for parking my bike. You sirs can kiss my Caucasian ass because that ticket would be used for nothing more than a rough piece of toilet paper. Catch me if you can in your police cars. Trust my my bike can maneuver in many places your environment killing machine cannot.

-The Ice Cream Man