HomeMy WebLinkAboutBicycle Advisory Committee - Minutes - 08/11/2009MEETING MINUTES of the
BICYCLE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Aug 11, 2009
6:00p.m.
Community Room
215 N. Mason
Fort Collins, CO 80521
FOR REFERENCE:
Chair: Dan Gould 970-482-1074
Vice Chair: Chris Gaughan 970-223-1146
Staff Liaison: Dave “DK” Kemp 970-416-2411
Administrative Support: Emily Francis
BOARD/CITY ORGANIZATION MEMBERS PRESENT
Downtown Development Authority: Kathy Cardona
Fort Collins Bicycle Co-Op: Doug Cutter
Transportation Board: Bill Jenkins
Air Quality Board: Greg McMaster
Bike Fort Collins: Jeff Morrell
Senior Advisory Board: Marcia Richards
Lands Conservation and Stewardship Board: Chris Gaughan
University Connections: Rick Reider
Economic Advisory Committee: Rick Price
Natural Resources Advisory Board: Clint Skutchan
Poudre School District: John Holcomb
Colorado State University: David Hansen
AT LARGE MEMBERS PRESENT
Dan Gould
ABSENT
Parks and Recreation Board: Michael Chalona
At Large: Kim Sharp Cathy Mathis
OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE
Dave “DK” Kemp
Kristy Frank, Citizen
1. CALL TO ORDER
Chair Gould called meeting to order at 6:06 p.m.
2. AGENDA REVIEW
Agenda was approved with additions shown below under Board Member Reports or
Comments.
3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
July 8, 2009 minutes approved as amended
4. PUBLIC COMMENT
One member of the public were present but had no comments. Dave Kemp reported on Tim
Anderson’s serious accident with major injuries which occurred Saturday in a Criterium Race
in Longmont.
5. COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT
None
6. ACTION ITEMS
a) The Bike Co-op & FC Bikes BFO follow-up
ATTACH POWERPOINT PRESENTATION
– Doug Cutter, from the Bike Co-op, presented their BFO offer highlighting the need for
increased efficiency through direct connections to City departments. Mr. Cutter’s Power
Point presentation is attached to these minutes.
Cutter reported on the activities of the Co-op and its specific contract arrangements with the
City.
Co-op activities contracted with the City include the a) Found and Recovered Bike Program;
b) Bike Library Fleet Maintenance; c) provision of refurbished bicycles for the Bike Library.
Other programs include: Donated Bicycles, a Bicycle Safety Program with the League of
American Bicyclists, and community outreach including volunteer mechanics.
Bicycles come into the Co-op through the Found and Recovered bike program or through
donations from the community. Those bicycles are redistributed depending on their
condition: bikes considered not to be roadworthy are recycled, others are sent to Ghana,
others are given out through the Earn-a-Bike Program to those who donate 20 hours of work
to any non-profit in the county, and, finally the Co-op gives bikes to non-profit groups for
raffles or auctions at fundraisers. The Co-op distributed about 20 children’s bikes at the
annual picnic of Salud Family Clinic last week as a part of this program. Other good quality
bikes are refurbished and put into the Fort Collins Bike Library.
There are two reasons why the Co-op submitted an independent BFO offer: 1) There is a
widespread perception that the Co-op receives “free” city space while in actuality, the Co-op
runs the Found and Recovered Bike Program, providing a valuable service for Police
Services in exchange for City space; and 2) the second reason for the offer is to increase
efficiencies of Co-op programs for everyone’s benefit. See the attached Power Point
presentation for a diagram of communications processes between the Co-op and the City.
Cutter explained that the Co-op seeks an efficient communications model that will allow
different units of the Co-op to be in direct contact with their counterparts in the City rather
than having to go through FCBikes which is often a bottleneck.
Cutter presented statistics on the programs of the Bike Co-op. See the Power Point
presentation for details. Briefly, the Co-op handled 298 bikes in the Found and Recovered
bike program at an approximate volunteer cost of $18,000. Eighty-nine bicycles, calculated
at a value of about $22,000 were returned to the community through the Earn-a-Bike
program.
The BFO includes staffing requests for 1.5 FTE to staff the Bike Library, a .5 FTE to head up
the Bike Safety (Safe Routes to School) program, and .5 FTE as a liaison with the City.
The total staffing request is about $96,000 for the 2.5 FTE which would likely involve 3-4
people.
In Summary: The main emphasis here is to assist the Co-op in developing an efficient
relationship with the City; trying to share the workload related to cycling programs. Right
now, everything – or 99% - goes through FCBikes. As FCBikes grows its programs they
have less and less time to assist the Bike Co-op with its programs and the bottleneck
problems get even worse.
Questions from the BAC with answers from Cutter unless indicated otherwise:
(Cardona) Is staffing projected without benefits? Yes, this is calculated at $17.20/hour
without benefits.
(Morrell) Are the 3-4 people included in the 2.5 FTE? Yes, we wouldn’t expect these
positions to amount to full time jobs because of the low salary and the numbers of meetings,
and skills required.
(McMaster) Would the requested $96,000 be “new money?”
(Cutter) Yes. This isn’t monopoly money, although City space which is currently empty
would not require new money. The salaries would and might require fund raising.
(Price) It may involve funds already allocated for FC Bikes. So it may not be new money.
(McMaster) I just want to be clear that this money is not currently allocated.
(Cutter) The bike library has funding allocated that could be used; I’m not familiar about Safe
Routes to School funding. We would likely have 1 FTE allocated.
(Price) The City has a current allocation for Safe Routes to School next year.
(McMaster) So those are funds that could be rerouted.
(Price) The City also has a CMAQ allocation for FCBikes that could be rerouted.
- Dave Kemp was unable to present his complete BFO offer as the City would not allow it.
Instead he began his presentation of the FCBikes offer by explaining that he had attempted to talk
with the Bike Co-op in order to provide more resources for these projects but he had the
impression that the Bike Co-op had no interest in working with the City on a joint BFO offer.
Lacking input from the Bike Co-op, FCBikes created its own BFO offer.
Kemp gave an update of FCBikes activities and pointed out the importance of partnerships and
assisting partners including Bike Fort Collins, the Bike Co-op, and the Fort Collins Velodrome
Association. We want to help grow our partners, we need them to achieve Platinum status to
reach these common goals.
Financially the Bike Program for the City will cost $40,000 per year for the next two years. This
would be the local match for the CMAQ grant of $300,000 for the two year period which the City
did receive. These funds will return to the community through various means, including through
service agreements with groups like Bike Fort Collins and the Bike Co-op. Past CMAQ grants
support the Bike Library, the Found and Abandoned Bike Project, Bike Valet, and potential bike
safety programs involving Safe Routes to School.
By providing $40,000 of local match we’re bringing in $300,000 in federal monies.
Kemp provided a list of his daily activities:
- Assist Transportation Services with implementation of the 2008 Bike Plan;
- Develop and maintain the City’s bicycle programs web page;
- Pursue funding sources for future programs;
- Work with other businesses for funding;
- Ombudsman for all bicycle related issues within the City and with external partners
including the MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization);
- Reply to citizen questions, complaints and concerns, and be the point of contact for issues
related to bicycle improvements and hazards with a staff of three (some interns and a
couple of part time staff)
- Maintain and contract the Found and Abandoned bike process – “that was FCBikes doing
a couple of years ago when we worked internally to create this process with City
attorneys, with facilities, with Police Services;” to bring an organization in house to
provide this community service; it seems to be working pretty well, except for some
spatial considerations;
- Project Manager for FCBikes;
- Project Manager for the Bike Library and fiscal agent for the funding;
- Staff liaison to the BAC;
We do a number of things that come back to what the Bike Plan is about: education and
encouragement events:
- Roll into Spring;
- Bike Week;
- Benefit Rides in the Fall;
- Bike Winter Fort Collins.
We work with twelve bike groups in town (including FCBikes) to promote bicycling. We
coordinate with all these groups to promote collaboration and bicycle programs and activities.
We undertake initiatives like the on-street bike racks and similar transportation planning projects.
We hope to broaden the innovative infrastructure over the next few years, including more on-
street bike racks, more trails, and several different things.
Partnerships are important to FCBikes, including the Convention and Business Bureau, the
Downtown Development Authority, the Chamber of Commerce, and CSU. We’re trying to
“instill bicycling into all these partners.” We’re getting a lot of momentum.
We’ll be redoing the Bike Map this fall. At one point we wrote an offer to get additional space
for the Bike Library but we were asked to retract that due to budget constraints.
Discussion, Q&A with answers from Kemp unless indicated otherwise:
(Gould) Do CMAQ funds and other federal transportation dollars have to go through a
governmental entity like the City? Yes, they do. Larimer Co. or CSU could apply for these.
(Price) The DDA could also be a conduit for these funds.
(Kemp) No, the City would have to be a fiscal agent for the DDA.
(Cardona) No, as a component unit the City would just have to bless how we spend it.
(Kemp) There is another $800,000 available from CMAQ now. I think Greeley will apply to
develop their own Bike Program. I didn’t mention the regional coordination that is coming for
FCBikes in the next couple of years along with performance methods and traffic counts.
(McMaster) Is there news on the regional outreach?
(Kemp) Yes, we are in discussions with them and the MPO.
(McMaster) Has it been determined that the other parties will come to the table?
(Kemp) Yes, others seem prepared to do so. Loveland, for example, is committed.
(Price) Complemented DK on the job he’s done over the last four years and noted that there is a
large list of projects on your plate here. How can you possibly do all this and add a regional
component when we need a serious educational outreach effort for bicycling in the community at
a time when budgets are shrinking? You say you have staff – do you envision returning to the
staffing level of six years ago when SmartTrips had a staff of four full-time people working on
the Bike Program? Is that reasonable? I would further observe that you have a corps of
volunteers with the Bike Co-op raising their hands to say, “we could do a lot more” if you would
just give us space and a clear road ahead. Mr. Cutter didn’t mention that our BFO offer is a list of
activities that we could or would do. But the City hasn’t even engaged us in conversation about
this. Nobody has asked if we could modify or cut back on our proposal. I think you have an
opportunity here to offload a number of activities off your plate. Would you comment?
(Kemp) You’re right, but I don’t manage every event, program, or activity. But I want to help
support and promote whatever any organization is doing bike-wise in town. I want to “create a
cohesiveness between all these organizations. Sometimes organizations are divergent and it’s
tough to real them in and to get on board.” We can all work together here. “I don’t have to
manage everything but I can help support and promote what is happening. I can’t take on all
these responsibilities but I do rely on my constituencies to come to the table.” Kemp went on to
list a number of bicycle groups and his goal to provide City support to all these groups.
(Price) How can you possibly expand to a regional level.
(Kemp) That was the reason for the services agreements that we’ve done with the Bike Coop.
We offered opportunities for educational outreach through the schools, the valet bike parking.
This is not ours. We’re open to suggestions. We’ve offered opportunities to do some of this but
“frankly I don’t think we’ve demonstrated the success as yet.”
“Your organization is “fledgling” where it is, in the Creamery space, and I think we need some
more time to judge the success of what you say you’re bringing. And I’ve seen, if you want to
get into it right now in terms of what I’ve seen compared to what you’ve said you’d bring I’m not
seeing all that.”
(Cutter) Can you talk about the efficiency problem of being the sole liaison and ombudsman for
cycling in Fort Collins?
(Kemp) “I think this is a “perceived” issue here rather than an issue. It’s not hard for me to
communicate to Police Services that you want the property manifest up in a better spot on the
web site. Or to set up a meeting with Police Services; these things don’t really take a lot of time.”
(Cutter) How long did it take to do, to setup a meeting with Police Services this past year?
(Kemp) Sometimes, on the other side of things, it takes a little bit of persistence to get the other
side to meet.
(Cutter) It took 9 months, approximately.
(Kemp) I’m not sure that’s true, but I’m not going to argue with you.
(Skutchan) I’d like to comment, but there seems to be a lot going on here. Be careful introducing
this outside request into the BFO process. These are difficult times. “You’re opening yourself up
to outside political criticism.” I’d caution you all to not get too greedy and to worry about your
piece and this part. There are a lot of folks outside this room that would like to see all this money
go away. SmartTrips found itself failing when there were too many staff member for what the
community was willing to support. If this goes through and goes to Council you should think
about the bigger implications of those folks on the outside looking for a “crack.”
(Price) To whom are you talking? DK or the Bike Co-op?
(Skutchan) To everybody around this table. We should be excited and happy about all the
programs but if you get too aggressive and you start infighting or if it seems as if there is
infighting then there is a large contingency outside this group who doesn’t support all of this. I’d
be cognizant of all of this.
(Morrell) An outside observation about the success in this area: In Breckenridge last week I had
a conversation with the waiter who complemented us for doing such a great job in Fort Collins in
the bicycling area. I told him all the groups actively working on this and he was “floored” that
there were so many groups working together to make this a bicycle friendly community. “I think
we can all pat ourselves on the back for that.”
(Gaughan) I would say that Clint has a really good point. We need to keep all this friendly. We
need to think about getting along within these 12 groups. I think the regional part is really
important, too. A lot of people come from Loveland to Fort Collins to work (or from Greeley).
They drive around town, aren’t so familiar with driving around bikes. It is almost protecting
ourselves by extending the bike education and driver education out there.
(McMaster) How often is an offer made by a non-City organization.
(Cutter) We’re the second one after RMI2.
(Kemp) Another group worked with utilities to make one BFO offer.
(Gould) We now have a time-line for input under the proposed budget. Offers come in, staff
massages it and presents it as a budget to Council. That’s when we give our advice to Council
through the Transportation Board. So now we should pay close attention to this schedule: the
budget will be released Sept. 4. Our next meeting is Sept. 14. We need to be familiar with the
budget and be prepared for input.
(McMaster) Written recommendations from boards are due Sept. 29th. But they did say that if we
need it or want, they will provide a lead team member to assist during our meeting. I think we
should have a person like that to be here for that discussion. We’ll have one meeting and we need
to develop a recommendation.
(Gould) We’re going to have to be ready to act at that one meeting. Everybody will have to be
prepared and have reviewed the budget ahead of time.
(McMaster) To me it is amazing to me for this whole process . . . to suddenly say, they’re not
going to let us see it until just before our one meeting, to have everything decided for our
recommendation. That’s pretty poor input from boards, I think.
(Gaughan) Can I ask, personnel-wise, how far are we from combining these two offers into one
solid, good one.
(Price) The City has not spoken “officially” to the Bike Co-op about its BFO offer while DK has
been negotiating up and down the management structure on his for the past month I presume. So
we haven’t a clue on what’s going on.
(Kemp) And I don’t know either. I really don’t know what the status.
(Cutter) Some of the attempts to do that – the revision that DK made for extra space is something
that we proposed in our BFO offer but it sounds like this isn’t going forward at all.
(Kemp) Unfortunately we’re in tough financial times. We crafted an enhancement offer to
accommodate your needs but an e-mail came down asking us to retract that request due to budget
constraints.
(Price) But to answer your question (Gaughan’s), “we’re in a race or in a negotiation but we can’t
see or hear anything.”
(Kemp) This should be known that we are always open for negotiation or compromise. And really
it was the best intention to offer these organizations opportunities to make some money for the
organization, provide a community service, employ a couple folks and expand services. I think
that’s something we could continue to do on some programs. There are some programs that have
yet to be determined on how were going to work in 2010-2011 but for others we’re open to
possibilities and I think that’s important to know.
(Gould) It really seems to me that there are some real “bread and butter” services with physical
bicycles that need to be done. It seems like the challenge is going to be with all the needs for Fort
Collins Bikes that have to be done by some cadre of very committed volunteers, the challenge is
going to be to optimize that really – everything we have to do with education and all those
aspects. I would see this coming up a number of times I would hope in the perspective of “how
does the City work with all the different advocacy cycling groups and figure out how to optimize
things.”
(McMaster) To follow up on that . . . I really like what you said there. Because of the structured
process it might not be possible, at this point, for the two offers to come together at this point.
However, as a board, if we can think creatively, once the budget comes out on Sept. 4th, we could
say, well “ maybe one offer doesn’t get funded,” . . . say DK’s BFO goes through and the other
doesn’t. Could we not then say, as a board, exactly what you said, Dan, “we really think that a
maybe a subset of this one offer could be supported. We have to be advocates. We know it is a
horrible budget situation. But if we’re not advocates for things we know it’s not going to happen
so I think it is reasonable to try to commit with something like that. Maybe that would be a
possible resolution.”
(Gould) OK. On that note – I think a lot of these questions will resurface as we review the budget.
b) Bicycle Traffic Measurement Efforts
DK – Years ago the City did a mobility index report. The MPO then took it over to find the ratio
of those who drive, pedal, walk, or take the bus. However, nothing has been done in Fort Collins,
though the MPO is working on a survey for the Front Range. Another survey was done a number
of years ago so we can compare.
The Transportation Planning Dept. of the City of Fort Collins has submitted a BFO offer to bring
back a City Mobility Index Report under the title “FCMoves.” To inventory the ratio of different
modes of transportation.
Gould: What would the frequency of that be?
Kemp: That’s yet to be developed. It would be a performance matrix yet to be determined if it is
funded.
FCBikes has a couple of other things going on to be able to count bicyclists and to find out if this
program is working. Working with CDOT and the MPO we will produce a survey this fall and
next spring after the Roll into Spring and again in the Fall after Bike Week to determine if people
are still biking.
Traffic operations currently does traffic counts – right turns, left turns, straight throughs, etc. –
They’ll sit at the intersection and count these. For a long time the count has not included
bicycles. But Joe Olson, from traffic operations, is willing to count bicycles separately when he
does these traffic counts.
Gould: So what program is that?
Kemp: It’s independent through Traffic Operations when they systematically do traffic counts.
Gould: They are already doing that?
Kemp: Yes they are.
Gould: But it just needs to be refined.
Kemp: Finally the last one, staff and hopefully through the help of our constituencies – volunteers
at organizations - will help us do traffic counts. It sounds simple but it works. And to pick
different intersections in town at different times to go out there and spend several hours counting
bikes.
Morrell: So does FCMoves include CSU students?
Kemp: I don’t know right now. Good question.
McMaster: Doesn’t make a lot of sense if it didn’t.
Morrell: It might skew the data and show a higher population on bikes than we have in the
population.
McMaster: Well, it’s a town. It’s a Fort Collins index.
Kemp: I think Boulder included theirs.
McMaster: I don’t know how you would leave a major section of the community out of it.
Gaughan: I think you could include CSU in two ways, too. That would make an excellen
master’s in engineering to do the traffic count and do the statistics on it.
Gould: So DK, when this budget comes out we’ll know the outcome of it?
Kemp: Of the FCMoves – whether we’ll be developing a performance matrix or not. But we’ll
still be performing our traffic counts with Traffic Operations. Hopefully the household survey
will provide us more data.
Skutchan: What’s the most important component of FCMoves in relation to your departmental
needs?
Kemp: That is my department.
Skutchan: I understand that but it involves other departments. I heard you say the survey and
those other things. So say that didn’t go through what key element will you miss out on or if it
does go through what key element will you be gaining to enhance what you are already planning
to do.
Kemp: I think it would provide us more baseline data.
Skutchan: I know this hasn’t been formulated but is there a general idea of what the mechanisms
are that you would be using?
Kemp: I don’t know at this time. But it would be around bicycling. For FCMoves the survey
would based solely around bicycling and the success of the bike program.
Skutchan: So why should we, as this group, be advocating for this if it comes to us? What is the
component that we should be advocating for as the BAC.
Price: Anticipating our next conversation about the Bike Plan and Platinum Level award, we
don’t have base line data. We get the decennial census and we get the community surveys that
come out. To estimate the portion of trips done by bicycle. If we could establish a base line and
continue that over the next five years we may be able to demonstrate the effectiveness of
programs.
Skutchan: And I get that. But what is the mechanism in this program that pushes it over the top
compared to what you are able to do outside of that program?
Gould: What’s the method relative to what’s being done by traffic or household surveys.
Kemp: It’s probably a more complete compilation of all these different methods put together to
come up with that matrix.
Gaughan: I think everyone talks or thinks census but it really doesn’t have to be. If you have a
pretty good stratified deal where you’re at a number of different intersections you can work with
a pretty small sample size to get those base line data. It might not be as hard as everyone thinks it
is.
Kemp: To obtain the Gold Level Bicycle Friendly Status the LAB used the American
Community Survey data as baseline data in terms of identifying more than 5% of journey’s to
work trips compared to .4% nationally. But for my program it’s more important for CDOT.
They want to see that this program is getting more people on bikes. So these surveys and traffic
counts will provide baseline this fall for future metrics.
Gould: OK – we should probably move to our next item.
c) BAC Workplan/Mission Update
Presented by Sub-committee members Clint Skutchan, Kim Share and Rick Price
Price referred to a matrix and spreadsheet (attached) which he and Sharpe developed (Skutchan
was absent) listing the 31bike plan recommendations. Sub-Committee Chair Sharpe asked Price
to review the status of our recommendations in the Bike Plan and to do three things:
1) identify the current status of the recommendations and ask DK to help with this;
2) to begin to prioritize which of these should be in the purview of BAC to advise Council on
where;
3) to identify the level of importance of implementing these recommendations relative to
achieving the Platinum Level Bicycle Friendly Community award.
After considerable discussion and after combing through the document the group agreed that
every BAC member would be invited to suggest their top five recommendations or groups of
grouped together.) The goal with this is to prioritize a short list of Bike Plan recommendations to
distill that list to one page and develop the first draft of a potential BAC work plan that we can
review at our next meeting Sept. 14.
The following statement is proposed to solicit input from both BAC members and/or boards that
they may represent:
“Please review the attached spreadsheet (Bike Plan Recs) and suggest your top five priority
recommendations that the BAC would like to incorporate into their work plan. The goal with this
is to identify those recommendations that the BAC would like to focus on and to advise Council
on. In some cases there may be natural groupings of Plan recommendations that could be
considered one priority item as in the case of education or enforcement, for example. Please
submit your priorities to Rick Price no later than August 20th. The subcommittee of Sharpe,
Skutchan and Price will prepare a draft work plan based on your input.”
7. Board Member Reports
a) John Holcomb – I’m concerned with all the recent crashes involving cyclists and one
motorcyclist hit and killed or badly hurt in the shoulder on the road (including those hit and killed
last year). These crashes are of great concern. What can we do? More signage reminding drivers
of motor vehicles that there are lots of cyclists on the road here. I just want to bring this up to the
group and think about what we might do with signage and things like that.
Gould, Kemp, and Holcomb: this causes fear among cyclists and it is difficult to recover from
this. Parents fear allowing kids to ride their bikes.
Kemp: What happens after an accident. Should we adopt a plan to help as a committee or as a
community? Crashes will happen regardless. But how can we help? What about insurance?
Should we be providing insurance? Is that a conversation we might want to add to a later
agenda?
Gaughan: That is a plug for the regional outreach.
Kemp: This has to be more than a City initiative.
Price: I’d be all for this in Old Town – handing out a pamphlet, card or pocket card.
Kemp: We have those already.
Price: I’d like to see them.
Morrell: There’s an educational issue here also. I have a friend who suffered an accident and the
police officer did not know the cyclists rights.
Kemp: Right on. Same with commercial drivers.
b) Dan Gould – An announcement from the Alliance for Biking and Walking. The
announcement is linked here for surface transportation funds called TIGER for large scale
projects on the order of $20M. Note, however, that for bike and ped projects they can waive the
$20M costs.
Transportation staff has been bouncing this around. I’d like to invite the group to think about
network level projects that we might propose. Give me or DK your feedback on this. Think about
projects like a package of grade-separated crossings on our major trails (Mason, Power Trail, etc.)
or finishing the Poudre Trail from Fort Collins to Timnath and Windsor.
McMaster: Air Quality board has spent a lot of time on this but the Transportation Planners don’t
have these on their radar much at all.
Price & Gould: These are on our hot list.
McMaster: Let’s encourage the planners to prioritize these.
Gould: Please send in other ideas – multifaceted or big single projects;
Details follow:
From: people-bounces@lists.peoplepoweredmovement.org [mailto:people-
bounces@lists.peoplepoweredmovement.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy Grandstaff
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 2:07 PM
To: people@PeoplePoweredmovement.org
Subject: [People] TIGER Funds Available for Large Bike/Ped Projects
Importance: High
Dear Alliance Leaders,
Thought I’d brighten your Friday with some funding opportunities
America Bikes has recently been informed by the Department of Transportation
that large bicycle and pedestrian projects are eligible and that organizations are
encouraged to submit such projects for the TIGER discretionary grants in the
stimulus package.
The TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) is a
discretionary grant program in the stimulus that makes $1.5 billion dollars available to
local governments and MPOs “to make grants for capital investments in surface
transportation infrastructure projects that will have a significant impact on the Nation, a
metropolitan area, or a region.”
The Department of Transportation (DOT) has assured America Bikes that large and/or
network-based bicycle projects, such as 2010 communities, are strong applicants and are
encouraged to apply.
At a quick glance, the grant may not seem a good fit, but three of the five primary criteria
for selection are livability, sustainability and safety –categories that bike/ped projects
excel at – and the DOT has restated their ability to waive the $20 million minimum for a
project that meets those criteria.
Applications are due September 15th.
We encourage Alliance groups to talk with their state or local governments about
appropriate bike/ped projects for the TIGER Grant as soon as possible and to send any
questions to TIGERGrants@dot.gov
Some additional resources that may help you:
FAQs: http://www.dot.gov/recovery/ost/faqs.htm
Notice of Funding Availability: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-14262.pdf
Thanks so much,
Jeremy Grandstaff
Member Services Director
Alliance for Biking and Walking
Formerly known as the Thunderhead Alliance
PO Box 65150, Washington, DC 20035 | Visit us in person at 1612 K. St., Suite 802
Office: 202-449-9692 | Cell: 614-519-3026 | Fax: 202-223-3181
jeremy@PeoplePoweredMovement.org
Visit www.PeoplePoweredMovement.org for information about the Advocacy
Advance Grants
c) Dan Gould – Announcement for a Town Hall Meeting next week (see attached)
d) Rick Price – The Bike Co-op sponsored a League Cycling Instructor (LCI) seminar this
weekend and we now have 6 new LCIs in Fort Collins as of this weekend: 4 from the Fort
Collins Cycling Club and two from the Bike Co-op.
We’ll be doing more courses in Sept. and Oct. as follows in an attempt to certify additional
instructors.
Kemp: Have you put a plan together?
Price: Yes, to REI.
Kemp: So you have specific dates?
Price: No, we’re not that far.
1) Sept. 19 – 20 (Sat. and Sun. Morning)
2) Sept. 26 – 27 (Sat. evening and Sun. morning)
For information on both of these visit:
http://www.bikeleague.org/cogs/resources/findit/?courses=1&instructors=1&state=CO&s
ubmit.x=22&submit.y=10
LCI Seminar: Oct. 16 – 18 in Fort Collins.
Details on this are forthcoming on the LAB Web Site but for now the details are pasted
below. NOTE: To assure your spot in this seminar you need to:
1) make sure you are an LAB member;
2) Send an LCI Seminar Application form in to the League immediately;
3) Complete the TS 101 Prerequisite.
If you have yet to do the TS101 but want to get enrolled in the LCI Seminar, send your
registration form and check to me (make check payable to the LAB). I’ll block the space
for you for the LCI.
LCI Certification
Becoming a League Cycling Instructor (LCI) certified to teach BikeEd is a great way to
help cyclists in your community. Certified instructors can teach BikeEd classes to
children as well as adults. Help bring the joy of safe cycling to others. If you are an
experienced cyclist and would like to teach others please consider taking the next step
towards certification. Road I is a prerequisite for a certification seminar. Instructors are
trained at seminars held periodically throughout the year.
To register, first choose a seminar from the Instructor Seminar Schedule page. If you
have questions call the League at 202-822-1333 or email education@bikeleague.org
Frequently Asked Questions Regarding LCI Certification
REGISTRATION DETAILS
To register for a seminar, please take the following two steps:
1. Email the Site Coordinator (that’s me) regarding your interest, AND
2. Register here, or fill in the application form below and fax or mail it to
the League with a Seminar fee of $200 payable to the League of American Bicyclists.
To download a PDF file of the materials, please see the links below. For local
information, please contact me.
o LCI Seminar Study Guide and Registration Procedure (also available in PDF)
o LCI Seminar Application Form (PDF)
e) Agenda for next month
Subcommittee report on workplan;
Comment and recommend to Council re: budget;
(Kemp to point us to that budget on the web when it is released)
Skutchan: Can you give us some guidance on what we should look at in the budget?
Kemp: Yes, I can.
ADJOURN
Meeting adjourned at 8:06 pm
Respectfully submitted,
____________________________
Dan Gould
Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair