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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBicycle Advisory Committee - Minutes - 09/14/2009MEETING MINUTES of the BICYCLE ADVISORY COMMITTEE September 14, 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 BOARD/CITY ORGANIZATION MEMBERS PRESENT Downtown Development Authority: Kathy Cardona Transportation Board: Bill Jenkins Bike Fort Collins: Jeff Morrell 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 Parks and Recreation Board: Greg Miller AT LARGE MEMBERS PRESENT Dan Gould Cathy Mathis ABSENT Fort Collins Bicycle Co-Op: Doug Cutter Air Quality Board: Greg McMaster Lands Conservation and Stewardship Board: Chris Gaughan Senior Advisory Board: Marcia Richards At Large: Kim Sharpe OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE Dave “DK” Kemp Kathleen Bracke Cheryl Distaso Mike Devereaux 1. CALL TO ORDER - Chair Gould called the meeting to order at 6:03 p.m. 2. AGENDA REVIEW Agenda was approved as presented. 3. PUBLIC COMMENT Cheryl Distaso and Mike Devereaux were present to speak on the proposed ordinance allowing wheelchairs to use bike lanes rather than the sidewalk. Ms. Distaso explained that her group has been working on this issue for over a decade. Current City ordinance requires wheelchairs to use a sidewalk when one was provided. Individual police officers interpret this differently and some have been “hassling” individuals in wheelchairs. The proposed changes to the ordinance clarify under what conditions wheelchair users may use the street or bike lanes. As she explained, “sometimes sidewalks just aren’t safe for wheelchairs.” Hence, the proposed change to the ordinance. Mike Devereaux: as a wheelchair user I feel “more comfortable” in the bike lane than on the sidewalk. It is more efficient while the sidewalk requires me to dodge parked cars, driveways, etc. The proposed ordinance is a good compromise. 4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Aug. 10, 2009 minutes approved as amended. (It was agreed that in future minutes need not be transcribed verbatim except when critical issues are being discussed.) 5. ACTION ITEMS a) Wheelchairs in bike lanes Presented by Dave Kemp Kemp presented the history of this issue and suggested it is an “equal rights” issue for wheelchair users. The Commission on Disability has been working with City staff on this. Consensus is that as long as wheelchair users are traveling with traffic that this is not an unsafe use of the bike lane. Ordinance 805-1 a,b,c will be modified to allow “pedestrians” in wheelchairs to travel on the road and/or the bike lane when the sidewalk is not appropriate for such use. This would be in the event that a sidewalk is impassable due to poor repair, snow, or other impediment.. It was moved and seconded to recommend approval of the ordinance change as presented. The motion passed unanimously. Chairman Gould will write a draft recommendation to be sent to the BAC for forwarding to the Transportation Board. b) City Budget Update Presented by Jeff Scheick, Director of Planning, Development and Transportation (PDT) Mr. Scheick presented the currently proposed City budget and changes to the PDT department. Two had purposes with this presentation: 1) The Budget Process and the challenges for 2010-2011. 2) Organizational changes to PDT Scheick presented an overview of the City financial situation in 2009 and the forecast for 2010- 2011. (SEE ATTACHED Power Point Presentation). The presentation focused on the overall budget and not the bike program. Mr. Scheick then presented organizational changes in the PDT department that will streamline and improve the department. (SEE ATTACHED CHART). Of note is the move of Transportation Planning, including FCBikes to the Advance Planning program. This will be efficient for the revision of City Plan and the City Master Transportation Plan. Discussion: Questions from the BAC included: a) What about snow plow operations? These are funded at past levels. b) Street sweeping? Cut to twice a year on collector streets. Eliminated in residential areas. c) Are contractors required to sweep drag-out from construction sites? Could we enforce that? Scheick: Good point, we can and should do that, yes. d) Parks has had significant cuts. What cuts there will impact bicycles? Scheick: $2M cut from Parks and Rec. Since this is not my area I can’t say how that will impact bikes. e) What use might be made of Natural Resource dollars in our natural areas? Scheick: Open space dollars are dedicated. Skutchan: Yes, but they are being used creatively. f) Can you speak to the two BFO offers from FCBIkes and the Bike Co-op that we heard about last meeting? DK: I can’t speak to the Bike Co-op offer (I don’t know if it was funded). FCBikes offer was above the line. Price: the Co-op offer was not even acknowledged by the City. It was not funded. g) Can you comment on the BFO offer from the Bike Co-op? Scheick: I cannot. I read the offer and understood it but do not know how decisions were made to not fund it. h) We were hoping to hear more from you about the Bike Program and funding for FCBikes. At Council on Sept. 1 Lisa Poppaw pulled the Safe Routes to School program from the consent agenda. Questions were raised about the $38,500 for educational expenditures versus funds of $100K for the Bike Library and $192K for FC Bikes. At what point does the City or does staff begin to reprioritize these allocations given the need for educational outreach to school children in particular? Scheick & Bracke: The CDOT grant for Safe Routes is comprised of specific funds as requested in the grant proposal. i) The bike program is funded primarily by these three grants (exclusive of engineering funds). Council expressed concern about these priorities. Do we rely on Council to review priorities or should this group be making recommendations to Council in this respect? Scheick: Joe Olson, our traffic engineer is reviewing the 40 school zones in the City. We will bring this study to Council in Feb. 2010 to discuss transportation safety, including this topic. We are also working with Poudre School District on how to partner with them on educational outreach. j) Has the FC Moves program been funded? Bracke: this addresses metrics for all modes of transportation. We will do this as a part of our regular planning budget. Skutchan: Metrics for bicycling is appearing as one of our priorities. Will the department be able to address this? Bracke: We will work with your group on this. We won’t do this by ourselves but welcome your input. The depth at which we measure bicycling will depend on resources. k) There are lots of City departments that impact us as bicyclists (streets, cleaning, traffic engineering, park, etc.). How does this new organizational structure of PTD impact the ability of departments to communicate and work together or with the BAC? Scheick: Tell us what you’d like and DK can have any of these programs or departments come and talk with you. Skutchan: Will the reduction in staff impact your ability to respond to our needs? Scheick: You won’t see any change based on our reorganization. On the contrary, they should be more efficient now (pavement management is a good example.) l) Do you expect snow removal to be maintained at the same level as in the past? And will that be prioritized as in recent years, including our trails through the Parks program? Scheick: I’ll have DK follow up on this. I don’t believe there is a change in street plowing. DK: Streets is very receptive to our priority bicycle routes. Scheick: Can you follow up on this. m) The BAC is formulating a work plan. You don’t have a large budget to work with. Among the three current CDOT grants (Bike Library, FCBikes, and Safe Routes) what flexibility do you have to shift funds around? Scheick: We have no capability to reallocate funds. Council would have to support those changes and then CDOT would have to approve them. Price: So if this group were to recommend to Council that we shift our priorities, that’s a possibility? Scheick: Yes. Bracke: As you work on your plan and create your priorities that would be very interesting for us; what are the areas that you’d like to focus on? For example, CDOT is doing the next call for projects for Safe Routes to School in December. So your timing is ideal. If you have new ideas for us this is perfect timing. Also the NFRMPO is doing a new call for CMAQ funded projects soon. So I encourage you to shape your vision and work plan and we can help seek out funding for those programs. We have been very successful in seeking funding. Your ideas and support as a board would be very meaningful in moving forward those applications. Please don’t feel that we are “stuck” by the current funds. We’re lucky to have them but there are a lot of other opportunities as well. Scheick: Very well said, Kathleen. The transportation pie is only so big. If you can help us make that pie bigger and help figure out how to slice it differently we could do greater things across multiple modes. n) Are the $125,000 in B.O.B. funds “ours” to spend? Bracke: That is capital funding from Building on Basics. Ballot language specifies how those funds can be spent. It is for bike plan implementation. So if you have some ideas, let us know. Cardona: The language does say it can be used for “programmatic activities, special events, clinics, and services to promote cycling and safety” at the rate of $125,000 per year through 2015. Bracke: That’s another potential funding source for your ideas. Often those funds are used for matching funds. But yes, these funds are there for you to help prioritize. BOB funds have not yet been targeted for 2010 and 2011. So your timing is good for that. This year those funds were used as matching funds for grade- separated crossings. But they get used for a variety of different things. Morrell: So for ’10 and ’11 there are no earmarks yet? Bracke: Not yet. Price: Have the B.O.B. funds ever been used as programmatic funds or just capital improvements? Bracke: Only capital improvements. Cardona: But the ballot language allows it to be used for programmatic purposes. Bracke: That’s correct. The City attorney’s office must verify that the projects qualify under the ballot language. Gould: It’s time for us to wrap up. Our next meeting is Oct. 12 and the first reading of the budget before Council is Oct. 20th. So we might be able to make a recommendation after our next meeting if there is something we felt strongly about. Sheick: Mark Jackson, head of Transportation, could come in and give you a more complete picture of the transportation budget. Gould: It’s a little late for that. Our group should focus on specific elements we care most about; spun off of this process of getting our work plan together. Also, identifying the possible flexibility with certain funding sources if that can be justified. We won’t have much time for new information. Maybe we can identify what we care about. Price: With the current budget we’re talking about $40,000 for programmatic funding for FCBikes. So the only thing Council needs to hear from us on is the use of those funds, I presume (unless we want to argue for additional funds). But these are matching funds against CMAQ grants. The other element here is the question of prioritizing what staff goes after in the next funding rounds, whether CMAQ, Safe Routes to School, BOB funding and how that might be allocated. That’s separate from the present budget process, isn’t it? Bracke: There were a lot of prioritized lists from the bike plan and that’s what guides us in our priorities and projects. Certainly we could use recommendations from this group. The City will also be updating the master transportation plan. Price: To summarize, we’re probably too late to impact the budget and there’s not a lot we can impact unless there are unused funds that might be allocated to the bike program. Gould: Unless there are potential cuts to programs we care about. Price: The other question is, though – and I know that Council doesn’t like to micro-manage – but they can send priorities down to staff to look for monies for specific programs, or they can dictate where BOB monies are used. Scheick: Council can provide guidance to us and sometimes actual direction for what to pursue. It depends on the situation. Bracke: I agree with that. It is also determined by the type of funds that are available(which we don’t control). Funds are directed to certain activities. We try to make sure we have a wide variety of options so we can go after as much funding as possible to fund our programs. Skutchan: DK, can you reach out to some of those other departments to see what funding those departments are seeking (Parks and Rec, Natural Resources) as it is important for us to know what other funds are there that need support. Or, are there cuts that impact the bike program, we may want to support those. It would be nice to have those in advance of the meeting. DK: To be sure I understand, you’d like me to bring back information from other departments of activities that those departments are currently doing and that have been funded or are currently funded? Or, any reductions that have been made that affect bicycling as well. Skutchan: Correct. Gould: That could be an agenda item to look for further potential input on the budget for our Oct. 12 meeting. Price: If Mark Jackson comes to talk with us about the budget I’d ask that it be focused on bicycling. Gould: If there were a presentation it would be good to be focused on bicycling. Scheick: We can do that. Kathleen and DK can arrange that. Gould: Including other departments. c) Can we postpone the Bike Fort Collins presentation to the future? Agreed. d) Bicycle Advisory Work Plan Presented by Skutchan and Price Everybody voted and we have results of those votes, presented in column D of the attached spreadsheet. Our working group suggests that the entire group boil this list down to our priorities. Gould: I think our mission statement should be included in the work plan. I’ve included a draft of one here: “The Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) is a subcommittee of the Transportation Board. The BAC reviews and provides recommendations regarding bicycle capital improvements, bicycle policies, and bike plan priorities. The overall goal of the BAC is to promote safe, efficient bicycling in Fort Collins and the surrounding area.” Please send me (Gould) any suggested changes. For now this is our DRAFT mission statement. Where do cut this list off? It seems like the top five or six should be those that we focus on. Price: May I read one response that does seems to do what we need to be doing? Dan Gould’s response combined some bike plan goals as follows: Priority item #1 (Combine 7,8,9 into one more comprehensive priority item) Ed/Encourage 7. Maintain existing education & encouragement programs & solicit more participation. 8. Continue to develop and implement innovative education & encouragement programs, campaigns, and events. 9. Continue to foster relationships between non-profits, advocacy, & community groups & build public-private partnerships. Priority item #2 12 Work closely with local enforcement agencies to create innovative, proactive, educational campaigns. Priority item #3 Economic 18 Continue to support & encourage infrastructure development, bicycle sporting events, recreational biking, & bicycle facilities. Priority item #4 19 Use the local bicycle culture to attract employers, new residents, businesses, & visitors. Priority item #5 Community 25 Establish performance measures for bicycle programs and facilities. Price: The terms “innovative” come up often. Many of us have pushed for “innovative” solutions. The metric question also comes up here. I’d suggest we focus on “innovative solutions” on “education” as separated from “encouragement.” The top 8 goals are listed here with the number of votes in the second column. 25. Establish performance measures for bicycle programs and facilities. 7 5. Continue and Improve maintenance of priority Commuter Routes. 6 8. Continue to develop and implement innovative education & encouragement programs, campaigns, and events. 6 12. Work closely with local enforcement agencies to create innovative, proactive, educational campaigns. 6 19. Use the local bicycle culture to attract employers, new residents, businesses, & visitors. 5.5 18. Continue to support & encourage infrastructure development, bicycle sporting events, recreational biking, & bicycle facilities. 4.5 28. Expand opportunities for bicycle- transit/bicycle-pedestrian/bicycle-car auto (sic) linkage. 4 7. Examine innovative bicycle traffic solutions such as bike boxes and bike boulevards. 3 Gould: I think we begin with the top six goals. There’s a lot of material here about what we care about.. Other comments? Jenkins: Some could be combined – education, enforcement and education, etc. Price: The more we can combine the better. If it’s logical to combine them let’s do so. Gould: I’ll volunteer to write a draft of the work plan and send it out. It will be based on the top six, though it won’t be verbatim. Are there outliers or special concerns? Price: I think there are outliers that are important. Number six – improved signal detection devices. Kemp: I think this is like the engineering priority hot lists. Signal detection is already being done. Price: Anything on a hot list gets full attention from transportation planners. I think we should create some hot lists for these programmatic items. Kemp: That’s a high dollar thing. Maybe it should be included in the other hot lists. Gould: Other special need items? I’ll get this out before the next meeting. The mission statement will stand until amended. Price: Another outlier: “Identify and implement innovative interim solutions.” We did that with share the road signs on Horsetooth and College. Skutchan: I agree with that. We are out on the roads and can have some great suggestions for staff. Price: That includes many intersections that already have video cameras. It is likely just a software engineering. Kemp: That’s true. And it would help traffic operations if we could help them prioritize those intersections. Gould: “Interim innovative actions.” I’d like the subcommittee stay active to help with the draft work plan. e) DK Staff Report 1) Police services has expressed interest in training in “vehicular cycling;” we’re talking about getting education classes scheduled. They are open to this and there is the possibility that we can offer training on bike laws, policies, vehicular cycling, and so on using local resources. 2) There is a call for CMAQ projects coming up. f) Bike Fort Collins Marketing Campaign Presented by Jeff Morrell After the Bike Summit last winter there was a question of how to promote cycling in a positive light. I came up with this concept: “You know me, I ride a bike.” We all know cyclists in the community. See Power Point Presentation. The goal is to strip the mask from the faceless cyclist. Series of portraits of community cyclists by a local photographer, Sarah Boyd of Photo de Novo. 6. Board Member Reports Skutchan: Asked DK to address concerns from the neighborhood about Tour de Fat. Kemp: We are having a follow-up meeting soon. There were few incident reports and no major incidents except for alcohol. Morrell: Barb Allan and I are having an ice cream social this week. We are inviting all the kids from the neighborhood and will award two passes to Atzlan Community Center and a bicycle. We’ve worked with someone from the neighborhood (from Buckingham) on this but not Betty Aragon. Kemp: There were 12,000 cyclists there and 15,000 at the party. ADJOURN Meeting adjourned at 8:00 pm Respectfully submitted, ____________________________ Dan Gould Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair