The accolades keep mounting for this city on the sea, with its 300-year-old French Quarter and cobblestone streets, its bohemian beaches and burgeoning restaurant scene. In 2016, Travel + Leisure dubbed Charleston the very best city in the world (an announcement applauded by native son Stephen Colbert ). The same year, Condé Nast Traveler called Charleston the world’s friendliest city.

But such proclamations often elicit ire amongst those who want to—or have to—ride bikes in Charleston. “Every time publications proclaim Charleston is one of the world’s best cities, they only tout amenities that appeal to tourists,” says Kurt Cavanaugh, executive director of the advocacy group Charleston Moves. And though there’s no denying genteel Charleston’s southern charm, the city is far from bike friendly. For all that makes Charleston so great, the vast majority of its residents can’t safely access that greatness by bike.

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When it comes to bike mobility, Charleston harbors natural advantages as well as unique challenges. The flat terrain and relatively moderate climate make for ideal cycling conditions. In the historic core of the city, a peninsula bounded by two rivers and the Atlantic, narrow streets and short blocks naturally calm traffic, making bike riding a low-stress and efficient form of travel. In fact, in this dense part of the city, nine percent of residents use a bike as their primary mode of travel to work, according to data from the US Census Bureau. In 2010, in the country. But in 2014, when we reached out to local advocates, they said, “Please, don’t put Charleston on your list.”

Cities of similar size have invested in bicycle infrastructure and implemented policies to promote bike riding. But on Charleston’s roadways, the city, county, and state governments have implicitly—and sometimes explicitly—discouraged cycling. Throughout Charleston, bike lanes and trails exist sparingly, and end abruptly. “When we ask for the inclusion of any bicycle infrastructure on roadway reconstructions, we’re frequently told by the county and state that it’s not in the budget,” says Cavanaugh.

For its part, the city pleads no-fault when it comes to infrastructure. The state and county own and maintain the majority of roads and bridges within Charleston’s city limits. Yet, the city has made missteps, too. In 2013, citing concerns that locked bikes impeded the sidewalk, Charleston enacted an ordinance restricting bike parking to bike racks and corrals on its main drag, King Street. Today, riders who lock their bikes to a street sign while they shop or socialize downtown frequently return to find their bikes impounded. When asked why law enforcement couldn’t just impound bikes that actually blocked the sidewalk, city council member Perry K. Waring conceded that maybe the city should “revisit that law.”

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Currently, no transportation issue looms larger in Charleston than a proposed two-way protected bike lane on the T. Allen Legare Bridge, a drawbridge that connects the more suburban West Ashley and James Island areas with the city’s dense peninsula, the cultural and economic heart of the city. Among the more than three-quarters of Charleston residents who reside outside the city’s peninsula, ridership numbers are dismal. In parts of West Ashley the Census-counted percentage of women who commute by bike—an important indicator of how safe cycling feels, according to advocacy experts—is zero (yes, zero). On the peninsula, female ridership is as high as 7.5 percent, showing the demand for safe bike facilities exists.

Since the bike lane on the West Ashley bridge was first proposed in 1976, county and city officials have approved the design and construction of the project four times, in total. Yet it remains unbuilt. This spring, a temporary bike lane and accompanying traffic study showed replacing one of the bridge’s four northbound lanes slowed car traffic by about one minute. But, in July, city council chose to again vote on whether to build the bike lane.

In debating whether to provide bike riders with safe access to the peninsula, Councilman Waring acknowledged that riders needed a better way to cross the river—lamenting that before such projects get approved, “bikers, in some cases, have to die”—yet still voiced opposition against the Legare bike lane, suggesting that a different bridge would be a better location. Then, seemingly unaware of the irony in voting against a project that promotes bike riding, he noted the poor cardiac health of his constituents in West Ashley, and expressed fear that the bike lane would slow down ambulance drivers. Between 2011 and 2015, 15 people were killed riding bikes in Charleston County (pop. 389,262), and two days after the city council vote on the bridge’s bike lane, a 22-year-old man riding a bike was struck by a car and seriously injured trying to cross the Ashley river.

At the culmination of the contentious public meeting, Charleston’s mayor cast a deciding vote in favor of the bike lane. And for a brief time it looked like Charleston was making progress on bike mobility. But a month later, when the Legare Bridge’s bike lane came before Charleston County Council, the entity in charge of funding the project, another public meeting was held. At this meeting, city council member Marvin Wagner, who opposes the bridge’s proposed bike lane and believes “it’s just not safe for people to ride bikes on the road with cars,” addressed the county council and asked them to “save my bacon,” implying that the county should put a stop to the project.

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Seemingly siding with the bike lane’s opponents, county council members commissioned yet another study. This time, the county gave the state DOT (which owns the bridge) 60 days to see if a travel lane that already carries thousands of pounds of vehicular traffic every day could support a bicycle and pedestrian crossing.

In response to the county’s decision, Jacob Lindsey, planning director for the City of Charleston, said, “We’ve commissioned the studies, and the bike lane is feasible.” What the city needs to move past its car-only culture, he says, is “political will.”

Yes, this beautiful community on the sea may very well be the best city in the world. Unless you actually live in Charleston, and want to safely get around by bike.

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