Anyone who chooses to ride bicycles on Silver Bluff Road will now be "totally unsafe, rather than partially unsafe," according to avid cyclist Tom Lex.
That dire warning came after the Aiken Planning Commission voted 6-to-1 Tuesday against recommending shared-lane markings on a portion of Silver Bluff Road. The painted markings, called sharrows, alert cyclists and drivers that the lane is shared.
Several Planning Commission members said safety for both cyclists and motorists were the biggest concerns to them. Commission member Susan DeBruhl acknowledged the same issue, but voted in support of the markings.
The Aiken County Urbanized Area Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan, an advisory committee of the Augusta Regional Transportation Study, asked for the markings, which include a bike logo and two arrows to be installed on both travel lanes of Silver Bluff Road between Richardsons Lake Road and Indian Creek Trail.
Lex, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee's chairman, said shared lane markings cost around $6,500 per mile, coming to a total of about $13,000 if markings were to be installed on both sides of Silver Bluff Road.
The area is within the scope of where the S.C. Department of Transportation plans to widen Silver Bluff Road to include a center turn lane - a widening project that City Council approved in 2008. That cost estimate for the requested bike markings would be included in the project's entire proposed budget.
Lex said the committee initially requested bicycle-only lanes be added to the plan to widen Silver Bluff - that request was denied. The committee also requested plans include wide shoulders to make room for cyclists - that request was denied.
"So now the next alternative from a risk, rank priority is the shared lane markings, but now (the Planning Commission) argues that it's unsafe," Lex said. "So anyone who chooses to ride on Silver Bluff is totally unsafe rather than partially unsafe."
The vote not to recommend to City Council the shared-lane markings comes on the heels of Council's recent vote to get rid of the bicycle-only lanes on Hayne Avenue. The City blacked out the bike lanes after area homeowners complained residents and visitors couldn't park against the curb without receiving a ticket.
On Tuesday, two Silver Bluff Road-area residents spoke against the shared-lane markings.
Woodside Plantation resident and Property Owners Association Board member Greg Hoffman initially stated he was standing to represent the Board, but then said he was standing to represent himself. Hoffman said he would not support the markings, and read off statistics from federal studies and news clippings that quoted shared lanes as a "cause of confusion." He said in a Federal Highway Administration study done in three cities, 94 percent of cyclists crossed over the sharrows, treating the marking as its own lane.
A second Woodside resident challenged Hoffman, saying he was in favor of the markings and did not agree that a board representing homeowners had not spoken with its residents before making the statement.
Woodside Board President Larry Wittenmyer told the Commission that the Board did, indeed, vote not to recommend the markings.
Following the meeting, Lex, a Woodside resident, sent an email to several City Council members and the Woodside Board, stating what Hoffman and others did was a "disservice" and "out of line."
"I think what they did was a disservice to what we're trying to do to make Aiken bicycle friendly," Lex said. " ... I think the Planning Commission made the wrong decision last night, and their decision was totally contradictory to a recommendation they made to City Council on the SC-19 corridor study to put markings on that roadway, which is very similar to Silver Bluff."
The vote's impact, Lex said, means "we're never going to get there" in respect to Aiken becoming a bicycle-friendly city.
"Everyone can say they want to be bicycle friendly, but as soon as we recommend something a step closer, they shoot it down. ... If we want to create an environment and lifestyle, and encourage people to live in Aiken, this is the direction we need to go," Lex said.
But for Commission member Jack Hunter, who voted not to recommend the markings, the conversation came down to safety.
"I believe in the bicycle community, I believe in bicycles; but I can't support it in a situation like this where you are putting markings there in a tremendously busy, busy two-lane road," said Hunter.
The recommendation will go to City Council for the first of two votes at 7 p.m. June 22.
Maayan Schechter is the local government reporter with Aiken Standard. An Atlanta native, she has a mass communications-journalism degree with the University of North Carolina Asheville. Follow her on Twitter @MaayanSchechter.