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272 cycling, if this plan is implemented. The facilities described in this plan are intended to enable: bicycle commuters to use their bikes to ride to work, people at home and at work the option of riding their bike to shop and run errands, and also to enable recreational bicyclists to ride to their preferred recreational routes. This plan is not intended to enable children or adults without the proper bicycle handling skills and traffic navigation abilities to ride on roads. This plan does provide for the adequate education of children and adult bicyclists to enable them to learn bicycle handling and traffic skills. NOT A TYPICAL NORTH CAROLINA COUNTYBICYCLE PLAN Most, if not all, of the counties in North Carolina that are performing bicycle planning adopt a map of local bicycling routes without a schedule of improvements or performance measures to determine the progress of the plan's implementation. This is because state law (NCGS 136 -51) vests the exclusive control, management and responsibility for all public roads outside of municipalities with the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Therefore bicycling facilities outside of municipalities in North Carolina are under the control of the North Carolina Department of Transportation (see section II, Current Conditions, subsection D. Regional/State Policies, Programs and Regulations). Counties can request that bicycle facilities are constructed, but the decision to build the facilities is vested completely with North Carolina Department of Transportation. Currently the North Carolina Department of Transportation will provide for local review and comment on a proposed capacity improvement (road widening) or bridge replacement project. It is at this stage that bicycling accommodations are included in the project if there exists a local, regional, or state bicycle plan depicting that facility as part of an adopted bicycle route. It should also be noted that this plan does not make engineering design recommendations contrary to current North Carolina Department of Transportation's engineering design standards and policies as depicted in the North Carolina Bicycle Facilities Planning and Design Guidelines (NC DOT Division of Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation, January, 1994). BICYCLING IS A SUSTAINABILITY INDICATOR The number of bicycling trips and the percentage of total road mileage with bicycle facilities are sustainable development indicators (SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT POLICY RECOMMENDA- TIONS FOR THE TOWN OF CHAPEL HILL, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1997, page 19). The Shaping Orange County's Future Sustainability Committee states that "A sustainable community pursues ecological integrity and natural resource conservation as well as the satisfaction of basic human needs for the present and for future generations" (Committee Report on Sustainable Community for Orange County, Shaping Orange County's Future Sustainability Committee, Orange County Department of Planning, 1998, page 1). "Bicycling produces virtually no air pollution. Per mile air pollution savings are large because bicycling usually replaces short, cold start trips for which internal combustion engines have their highest emission rates, so each I% of automobile travel replaced by bicycling decreases motor vehicle air pollution by 2% to 4 %. " (see Section B. of the Bicycle Transportation Plan Supplement, Quantifying Bicycling Benefits for Achieving Transportation Demand Management Goals Todd Litman, Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 1994, page 2). ADVOCATE OF CHANGE This plan advocates changes at the state, regional, and local levels to statutes, programs, policies and ordinances in order to accomplish the goals as set forth by the Orange County Bicycle Plan Component Task Force. These changes are especially needed by counties experiencing growth within and between the towns in their jurisdictions. These changes are also needed to enable counties in metropolitan planning areas of poor air quality to provide alternative transportation modes to the single occupant automobile.