SWFBUD caught up with Tampa mayoral candidate Dick Greco today to find out his views on bicycling and what he would do to make Tampa more bicycle-friendly if elected mayor. Ed Collins joined me and here are the Greco highlights:
-- "You'd be in charge, not me . . . you just educated me in two minutes." Greco would have a bicycle advisory committee to advise him on bike projects.
-- Greco floated the idea of building a bicycle lane down the center of Bayshore Blvd.
-- Greco recalled visiting Cuba and being asked by Castro about whether he rides a bicycle. Greco recalled there were few cars in Cuba and that most bike to work. "I never thought of it as a transpoprtation piece."
-- Greco said he would work to promote bicycling.
-- He said the roads are dangerous. He said motorists don't see bicyclists.
-- "I don't wear a (bike) helmet when I ride. I probably should."
-- "A lot of it is education."
-- He would create a bicycle safety advisory committee and "y'all probably have a million ideas. We would get a list of things we'd do and we'd check them off one by one as we do them."
-- "The more you talk about bicycling, the more the committee talks about bicycling, the more it gets into people's head."
-- "It's an educational process."
-- Greco is not a big fan of bicycling over the Platt Street Bridge: "You talk about the Platt Street Bridge, I wouldn't drive over that son-of-a-bitch on a bicycle."
-- "I'm sure y'all have a 100 ideas and you'll let me know what they are and we'll get it done . . . we'll educate people on TV and radio."
-- He said oldtime Tampa residents are "not used to" bicyclists on the road. They "should slow down and take care (when passing a bicyclist) but they probably don't like it."
-- Greco suggested using part of the rail track right-of-way for a bicycle path in the Channelside area to downtown Tampa.
-- On the bicycle front, Greco said, "Count me in. Get a group, we'll assign someone from the city, then have periodic meetings to see how much we can implement."
6 comments:
Sounds much more clueless than the other candidates so far... I'm not too inclined to vote for him.
I started a discussion about Bike Safety Here...Dick Greco
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=323&uid=183288588351367
If that is all Mr. Greco knows at this point in time, he probably never gave it much thought before election time.
Sounds like a politician to me. Greg.
He has absolutely never thought about this based on his comments. Based on his history as mayor, I wouldn't expect anything more than more of the same.
Jerry
I agree with Greco being clueless about cycling and especially agree w/Jerry - I, too, have been here for Greco's previous terms as mayor, very pro-business but not much on the "quality of life" front. It's Turanchik for me.
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