Bicycle Friendly Community

Charleston, SC | Bronze Level

Community Highlights: The creation of the Bike Charleston website has served as a positive 'command center' for all bicycle related activities and information in Charleston. The city hosts a community ride with Charleston Council members to draw attention to and seek improvements for one of their best existing bicycle paths. Charleston has a number of fun community-wide events including "Do the Charleston," a car-free, pedestrian- and bike-friendly event in the heart of Downtown, the 1st annual Riverfront Race Festival consisting of a 30 and 62 mile bicycle rides, and outdoor Bike-In Movies. Three times a week, the City closes a 1-mile long public street in Charleston’s largest urban park to motor vehicles. The establishment of Charleston Cycle Chic—a social/advocacy organization modeled after Copenhagen Cycle Chic—inspires more women to ride bicycles. The City of Charleston’s Civic Design Center has dedicated a custom-made secure bicycle storage location to serve as a proto-type for other such storage units to be placed at other locations around the downtown. The Charleston Civic Design Center and Clemson University Architecture Center also sponsored a six-week bicycle-oriented lecture series. Health and fitness fairs take place annually in the city, including a Safety Town, helmet giveaways and fit instructions, riding skills courses, and maintenance stations and classes. The City also organizes helmet giveaways and safety literature distribution at the City's First Day Festival, attended by thousands of children to celebrate and help prepare for the new school year.

Recent Accomplishment: Charleston recently invested $4 million in the design, engineering and construction of a planned cantilevered multi-use path to be added (as a retrofit) to an existing drawbridge. This will provide critical linkage for bicyclists and pedestrians between downtown Charleston and popular neighborhoods. The city is also expanding on road infrastructure with striped bike lanes, bike corrals, way finding signage, and an 8.5-mile rails-to-trails route that also links over a dozen neighborhoods in the city.