Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Locals Start Petition to Voice Support for the Return of Main Street Greenville's Bike Racks

Last year, Main Street Greenville crowd funded new, colorful bike racks that were then installed in several locations along Broadway in downtown Greenville.

After being installed and used for many months, city council determined they were unsafe and had them removed all within hours after a late evening council meeting. Now, council will vote in two weeks on whether or not to reinstall the racks, assumingly with modifications proposed in committee meetings (primarily, removing the seats and painting them all a uniform forest green color).

Residents have started an online petition to support the reinstallation of the bike racks.

Personally, I believe the racks added a dimension of color and uniqueness to the area, not to mention the functionality of being able to lock a bike to one while grabbing a bite to eat or shopping downtown. While it would be dangerous for someone to attempt to sit atop one of these, it is also dangerous to climb up the sides of the courthouse steps, use the retaining walls as balance beams, or to use any other structure inappropriately.

The colors of the bikes are one of the primary attractions for me, although I can understand if they aren't to others' tastes as they are mine. However, I do not understand how their bright colors can be cited as a reason for them to be a danger to children, as if they are a toy to be played with. If we think anything appealing visually is a danger to attract children to use them inappropriately, we either aren't parenting very attentively or wish to live in a very dull environment (or perhaps both).

Please join me in signing the below petition to demonstrate to the city how much support this program and things like it have. If good intentioned citizens are ostracized and belittled for doing their best to make our communities more livable, what reasoning would the good intentioned people have of continuing the work they do, let alone to stay in our area?

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