Sometimes a bike lane is more than just a bike lane

When you get sick or injured in the Columbia area and you have insurance and transportation, you can go to a doctor. Or you can go to the nearest hospital emergency room. Get treatment, testing, imaging, surgery and drugs.

Three hospital systems — Lexington Medical Center, Palmetto Health and Providence Health — provide excellent treatment for diseases and injuries.

Your health status has a lot to do with where you live. Lexington is the fifth-healthiest county in South Carolina, Richland the 12th. Beaufort is the healthiest county, while people living in Marlboro County have the worst health in the state. As a whole, South Carolina is one of the least healthy states. Mississippi, no surprise, is at the very bottom.

With excellent hospitals and doctors in the Columbia area and South Carolina, providing treatment for the sick and injured, why isn’t the Palmetto State a really healthy place?

The answer has to do with what happens in our communities: We do very little to prevent disease and injuries — much less to promote actual health.

That’s terribly short-sighted.

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City of Columbia removing bike lanes from Farrow Road shortly after putting them in

Why didn’t Columbia ask us before it built that bike lane?

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Even hospitals can benefit by supporting efforts to improve community lifestyles, if only in order to reduce the number of uninsured people who come to the emergency department, where hospitals are required by federal law to “stabilize” anyone who enters, regardless of ability to pay.

Many major employers offer monetary incentives to employees and family members who refrain from smoking, exercise regularly, maintain a healthy weight, abstain or moderate their use of alcoholic beverages,and eat mostly plant-based diets with little if any sugary or highly processed foods. Some also provide rewards for participating in stress-management courses, for going a year without any motor vehicle violations or accidents or for reaching safe-workplace goals. But many don’t.

Insurance providers, including Blue Cross, Medicare and Medicaid, could help make us healthier by reducing costs of plans to people who show measurable improvement in their lifestyles.

Of course, we’d see a big reduction in respiratory disease if we reduced our dependence on fossil fuels to run our cars and electric power plants. One way of doing this is by installing safe walking paths and bicycle lanes, which has the added benefit of helping people get regular exercise by walking or biking to shop, work, church, restaurants and school.

Columbia recently spent $500,000 in tax money installing bike lanes on Farrow Road. Unfortunately, not enough time was spent involving and educating motorists who use Farrow Road and residents living along this road. So motorists were surprised, and angry, when they learned that one lane on the road was being designated as a bike lane. “Not fair,” they cried, before the project was even finished.

So now the bike lane is being removed, at additional taxpayer cost. A fast flow of traffic, about 10 miles above the speed limit, can resume. And bicyclists won’t have the safe route they were promised along this road.

South Carolina is one of the 10 worst states for bicyclists, according the American League of Bicyclists. Even Mississippi ranks one notch better than us.

The task now for the Columbia region is to have more discussions on how we can improve people’s health by encouraging exercise, diet and clean air — and by reducing the health disparities associated with income, race, age, education and gender.

This is a long-term task that requires the involvement of not only hospitals and doctors but also political leaders, neighborhood associations, grocery stores, restaurants, churches, schools, pedestrian and bicycle groups, employers, retail shops and the media.

Unfortunately, Columbia does a great job of promoting events where we can pay to sit and watch others perform live on stage or play sports while we eat hot dogs, hamburgers and candy bars and drink a cola or two.

Here’s an idea: Let’s all promise to get out in the early mornings for a half-hour or more, before it heats up, walking with our neighbors, family and dogs. When we get home, we can drink a big glass of cool water — and have the satisfaction of knowing that we’re preventing disease in our bodies and injuries in our bones.