Collaborative Public Input
This past week, the Coalition dug deep into the draft 2040 Statewide Multimodal Transportation Plan and the Strategic Highway Safety Plan, and we wrote up very specific public comment. This was comment on planning documents drafted by the SC Dept. of Transportation and SC Dept. of Public Safety, and these are important in steering priorities in traffic safety for the next five years, including safety for pedestrians and bicyclists. What we wrote and strongly suggested you can see in the collaborative comment letter Sept 2014 (PDF).
In forming the public comment, we collaborated with many other organizations, including 4 statewide and 7 local. This group represents a huge slice of the SC constituency, which only reflects the broadening movement. Our growing movement is from our widening base of people that just want to walk and bike more often; but perhaps more importantly, we all want to do it more safely and unencumbered by the fears of poor road design, enforcement, etc.
We’re all in this together.
Let me just get comments started by saying this is great. There is almost always a but, but…comments are great, plans are great, however, there has to be enforcement. We can have a statewide or city plan that is well structured, but if DOT or the construction guys ignore it we as the general riding populous get more and more frustrated. We need to have something in place to give our plans some teeth.
Thanks so much for drafting and submitting these comments! I hope DOT takes them to heart!