News Release

Hold For Release: Friday, May 18, 2012 10:30 am

A study released today by the advocacy organization Charleston Moves details economic benefits that the Battery2Beach (B2B) Route for bicyclists and pedestrians will bring to the greater Charleston area. It details a multi-million dollar boost for tourism and provides data on how it can reduce health care costs. The report asserts that the route will have a profoundly positive effect on our communities quality of life and upon regional economic competitiveness. The study assigns a dollar value to those benefits: $42 million annually. Charleston Moves first proposed the Battery2Beach Route in the summer of 2010. The Charleston County Parks and Recreation Commission has embraced it as a key element in a wider network of bike and walking routes. Just this week, Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley enthusiastically embraced the Battery2Beach Route designation for specific streets on the Peninsula, including Concord Street along the Cooper River waterfront, passing the Aquarium, Ansonborough Field, the planned African-American Museum, and the SPA Cruise terminal. Officials in both Mt. Pleasant and Sullivans Island are factoring the B2B Route into their planning, as well. The cost-benefit analysis, conducted for Charleston Moves by College of Charleston Environmental Studies Graduate student Tiffany Norton and Citadel Civil Engineering students under the supervision of Prof. William Davis1 yields statistics on the following monetary benefits:
Category Air Pollution Reduction Congestion Reduction Reduction of Direct Medical Expenditures from Physical Activity Reduction in Use of Gasoline Increased Tourism (40,800 Tourists, prolonged stays) Total Annual Benefit $15,766.88 $259,866.96 $1,234,595.60 $27,000.78 $40,624,339.00 $42,161,569.222

COMMUNITY VIBRANCY While it is helpful to have a dollar value assigned to the benefits the B2B will bring, the routes fundamental promise lies in its ability to provide joy and delight for people locals or tourists alike by enabling them to navigate the Lowcountry safely under their own power for any purpose. The B2B route winds over approximately 32 miles of Lowcountry streets and roads and is a component of the 3,000-mile-long East Coast Greenway from Portland, Maine to Key West, Florida. It stretches from the Charleston County Park in Isle of Palms through downtown Charleston to the County Park in Folly Beach. It links neighborhoods, shopping districts, schools, parks, and many tourist attractions including Patriots Point, Fort Moultrie, Shem Creek, the Mount Pleasant Farmers Market, two Waterfront parks, the iconic Ravenel Bridge,

Primary advisor: Burton Callicott, College of Charleston Librarian & liaison to the Colleges office of sustainability

Consult full study for statistical details

downtown Charleston and Rainbow Row, the Battery. It then crosses the Ashley River and traverses James Island toward Folly Beach, terminating at the County Park there. Charleston Moves foresees the completion B2B Route as another in a series of historic gamechangers for the city, in the same tradition as Mayor Joseph P. Rileys decision thirty years ago to build Charleston Place. That decision helped bring about a wave of development and commercial vibrancy and helped the city achieve its world-class status. If you think of the Battery2Beach Route as just a bike route, you miss the point, says Tom Bradford, Charleston Moves Director. The B2B route will enhance life and vitality everywhere it passes. Charleston Moves firmly believes projects like the B2B Route are critical to enhancing regional competitiveness and attracting the well-educated workers of tomorrow. POPULATION AND PROXIMITY TO THE ROUTE Thirty-eight thousand people live within a half-mile of the route; 67,000 live within a mile. For them, the B2B Route will make it convenient to safely make short bicycle or walking trips to schools, parks and shopping. There are 18 schools and over 40 parks and recreational spaces within the two-mile-wide swath (a mile on each side of it). And a study done after the new Cooper River Bridge documented that a large number of people said it induced them to exercise more, and made exercise convenient and pleasant. But the B2B Route affords much more than exercise. It affords connections, and the ability to make them without getting behind the wheel of a car. INACTIVITY AND ILL-HEATH Evidence of the negative impacts of our dependency on the automobile abound. Over 25% of the trips made by Americans are less than a mile, but a shocking 75% of those trips are made by car. The number of Americans considered obese is expected to rise from the current 34% to 42% by 2030 according to the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. In our quest for convenience, we have succeeded in fashioning a built environment that virtually eliminates physical activity. Mustering the political will to change this to again make it possible to bicycle or walk to work, to school, to the store can provide a multitude of health benefits. The study finds a potential savings in health care costs of $1.2 million annually, achievable because the B2B route affords people the chance to easily increase their daily physical activity. Its the same if you build it they will come effect already seen on the Cooper River Bridge. And even a small reduction in the number of autos on our roads can result in improvements in air quality. THE COST OF TRAFFIC DELAYS IN DOLLARS The new study found that because of traffic delays the average auto commuter in the Charleston-North Charleston area burned through $646 annually. This sum includes the cost of the wasted gasoline, as a vehicle uses around 30% more gasoline when in congested conditions, and the cost of ones time. Even a small dent made in auto congestion by a relatively small number of bicycle commuters has the potential to cut these costs significantly. METICULOUS RESEARCH Bicycle and pedestrian facilities such as this can often be dismissed as frivolous because it may be difficult to assess their potential monetary benefits. This study, however, accepted the challenge and put in the long hours to provide the bottom line information often necessary for these facilities to be built. On the research side, the study utilizes information only from credible sources such as the US Census and other government reports. The methods and formulas used are widely-accepted, found increasingly more often in peer-reviewed journals.3 While the study estimated five distinct areas in which the B2B would provide benefits, the most significant in monetary terms is its predicted boost for tourism, with an estimated 40,000

Two Examples: (1) A 2012 Study by South Carolinas Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) points to significant health and economic benefits derived from establishing bike lanes on a Spartanburg arterial road presently geared only for autos. The full report can be seen at http://imph.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/HIA-ofProposed-%E2%80%9CRoad-Diet%E2%80%9D-and-Re-Striping-Project-on-Daniel-Morgan-Avenue.pdf (2) A 2011 London School of Economics report commissioned by British Cycling found that bicycling in the UK generates about 3 billion each year in economic benefits. The full report can be found at: http://corporate.sky.com/documents/pdf/press_releases/2011/the_british_cycling_economy

visitors spending as much as $40 million annually. This research was patterned upon a similar study done on the impact of bicycle tourism in the Outer Banks of North Carolina that found that 17% of tourists who bicycled during their visits stayed, on average, three days longer than non-bicyclists, which amounted to an average extra spending of $600 ($200 per day).4 On the engineering side, the project entailed an exhaustive block-by-block assessment of the route. Ms. Norton and the 15-member Citadel civil engineering class walked, measured, assessed and photographed every foot of the 32-mile route in order to arrive at specific cost estimates for the improvements needed. The engineering objective was to suggest ways the route can meet nationally-accepted design standards so that it is safe for all but the youngest novice bicycle riders. (The Citadel class won prestigious national-level awards for their work on the B2B project.5) STEPS TOWARD COMPLETION? In many places, streets and roads that will be part of the B2B Route are already in popular use by cyclists, particularly experienced ones. The term Battery2Beach Route has been adopted formally or informally by officials and planners in several municipalities. A standard design for Battery2Beach way-signs must be agreed upon, and a signage plan drawn up and agreed to. This will entail formation of a Battery2Beach multi-jurisdictional working group. Formation of this working group will depend on obtaining formal buy-in by all participating municipalities possibly facilitated by Charleston County Parks and Recreation Department plans for a countywide system of trails linking all its facilities. Editors: Information: Tom Bradford (843-813-0101) or Stephanie Hunt (843.442.1161) A full copy of the report may be downloaded from http://www.scribd.com/doc/93324754/Battery2Beach-Route-Cost-Benefit-Analysis

4 The full report can be seen at http://www.ncdot.gov/bikeped/download/bikeped_research_EIAfulltechreport.pdf 5 The Citadel Engineering Class awards include:
2012 Robert Ridgway Award for the most Outstanding Student Chapter of ASCE (1st out of 25,000 students at 281 colleges/universities across US and 11 countries) 2011 Winner, SC ASCE Service Award for outstanding service to the profession 2011 National Winner, Richard Scranton Outstanding Community Service Award (1st out of 281 colleges/universities) 2011 National Finalist, Robert Ridgway Award (top 8 colleges/universities)