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Board moves ahead on bicycle planning

By James Galloway

Haywood County is one agreement with closer to having designated bicycle routes now that a expert is on board to develop a plan.

On Monday, the Haywood County Cabinet of Commissioners voted to hire the Asehville-based Transpo Club to develop a county-wide comprehensive bicycle scheme. No county funds are required for the $51,458 present.

A $40,000 Federal Highway Administration donate alloted to Haywood County through the French Unspecific Metropolitan Planning Organization, will fund the size of the planning and engineering services. The county has received an $8,000 supply from the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina/Next To Fund, and the remainder of the plan costs will be covered by own donations.

Bicycling is not simply a recreational searching, stressed cyclist Cecil Yount, but has an trade benefit as well.

Yount said it can be proved cyclists are traveling to Haywood County to bike, and with ever-increasing gas prices, many may be acquiescent to ride their bikes to work.

“There’s a perception out there that it is not right to ride,” he said.

Haywood County has a costly obesity rate, with more than one-third of the elementary school children who are weighed and planned each year rated as either overweight or obese.

“Cycling, we credence in, is one of the answers to obesity,” Yount said.

The planning deal with will incorporate a number of community meetings, interviews with cyclists, law enforcement and others in the county about “hot” and “relaxed” corridors for bicycle routes, an inventory of existing facilities and comprise an implementation plan.

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