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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBicycle Advisory Committee - Minutes - 10/12/2009MEETING MINUTES of the BICYCLE ADVISORY COMMITTEE October 12, 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: Kathleen Bracke Staff Support: Dave “DK” Kemp 970-416-2411 BOARD/CITY ORGANIZATION MEMBERS PRESENT Air Quality Board: Greg McMaster Transportation Board: Bill Jenkins Bike Fort Collins: Jeff Morrell Fort Collins Bicycle Co-Op: Doug Cutter Lands Conservation and Stewardship Board: Chris Gaughan University Connections: Rick Reider Economic Advisory Committee: Rick Price 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 Senior Advisory Board: Marcia Richards Downtown Development Authority: Kathy Cardona Natural Resources Advisory Board: Clint Skutchan At Large: Kim Sharpe OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE Dave “DK” Kemp Kathleen Bracke 1. CALL TO ORDER - Chair Gould called the meeting to order at 6:05 p.m. 2. AGENDA REVIEW Agenda was approved as presented. 3. PUBLIC COMMENT – None 4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Sept . 14, 2009 minutes approved as distributed in Draft form. 5. DISCUSSION/INFORMATIONAL ITEMS a) Staff liaison & support update: Kathleen Bracke, Director of Transportation Planning and Special Projects for the City announced that Jeff Scheick, Director of Planning, Development and Transportation has asked Kathleen to join Dave Kemp as staff liaison for the BAC. DK will continue as staff support person while Kathleen will join him to add additional support for BAC activities. DK pointed out that Kathleen is an experienced transportation planner, with fifteen years in the department. b) Budget follow-up Dave Kemp reported the answer to a question posed last meeting: will there be any major impact on bicyclists as a result of budget cuts or staff cuts? DK reported that except for street sweeping he found that none of the proposed budget or staff cuts will impact bicyclists in the community. This includes sweeping of multi-modal trails during the snow season. David Hansen (CSU) reported that he spoke with CSU Facilities about construction on campus relative to street sweeping issues (and storm water issues) in the vicinity of construction projects. Project managers for these projects were made aware of the concern for street sweeping relative to drag-out from construction. Hansen offered to be the conduit for concerns or complaints about sweeping issues created by CSU construction projects. Relative to the Budget there was some discussion as to whether BAC should weigh in with Council on the bicycle allocations in the budget. Discussion was deferred to later in the meeting. 6. ACTION ITEMS a) BAC Workplan/mission update (Presented by Dan Gould) Gould reminded the BAC that a workgroup (Sharpe, Skutchan, Price) prioritized the 31 goals form the Bike Plan and that he had volunteered to identify the top 6-7 goals and to combine them into a goal statement to create the following draft: DRAFT - BICYCLE ADVISORY COMMITTEE WORK PLAN 2010 The Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) is a subcommittee of the Transportation Board. It is composed of representatives of various city boards and commissions and community organizations that have a stake in bicycling. The BAC reviews and provides recommendations regarding bicycle capital improvements, bicycle policies, and Bicycle Plan priorities. The overall goal of the BAC is to promote safe, efficient bicycling in Fort Collins and the surrounding area. After examining the Bicycle Plan and considering needs of the various interest groups represented, the BAC has established the following goals: 1. Bicycle Safety – Work with City departments, bicycling advocacy groups, law enforcement agencies and other interest groups in the community to promote bicycle safety education programs on the rules of the road and sharing the road for motorists and bicyclists of all ages. 2. Bicycling Encouragement – Continue to develop and implement innovative programs, campaigns and events to encourage increased bicycle travel 3. Bicycle-related Economic Development – Use the existence of high quality bicycle facilities, a robust bicycling culture, bicycle sporting events and enjoyable recreational biking to attract employers, new residents, businesses and visitors. 4. Bicycling and Household Affordability – Provide a safe, efficient bicycle infrastructure to facilitate bicycling as an affordable transportation option for low income households and non-drivers. 5. Bicycle Facilities - Identify innovative interim solutions for improving design deficiencies and/or maintenance of important bicycle travel routes to assure a safer, more efficient bicycling environment. 6. Bicycling Performance – Establish performance measures for bicycle programs and facilities. Discussion: It was suggested that the work plan as presented doesn’t really reflect the importance of how bicycling fits into many goals and policies of the City. It was felt we should go farther and tie this to overall city policies relative to environmental and community benefits. After some discussion it was decided to add a paragraph from page 3 of the 2008 Bike Plan to put these above goals into context relative to their value to the community. Further discussion focused on the lack of law enforcement issues in our work plan, though it was pointed out that enforcement is present in item number 1. Kathleen Bracke & Dave Kemp suggested that they invite the Police Department to come and join us in a BAC meeting to respond to questions about law enforcement relative to bicycling. Further discussion focused on just what type of enforcement is necessary and the choice police have to make in enforcing bicycling violations versus more serious violations of the law that have higher levels of harm. Some suggested that education be the focus, as suggested in item one to include law enforcement. Chairman Gould suggested that the discussion was moving into the area of action items under the above major points. As we analyze the above goals we’ll eventually want to enumerate action items or activities that will come up as specific agenda items for the BAC later. Kim Sharpe volunteered to take the group through a process that will help identify the action items under each of the above goals. We could do this over several meetings as it can be a timely process and normally would be a day-long retreat. It was suggested that action items be identified, then resources and mechanisms to implement them be a part of that process. Several minor changes to the above draft were suggested and are appended to these minutes. It was agreed that consensus on the new draft would be submitted by e-mail after review but that final approval can await our November meeting. b) City Budget Discussion focused on what we should recommend to Council relative to the bicycle program in the budget currently under review. Items of concern included: Street maintenance for safe cycling; bicycle safety and educational outreach. Kathleen Bracke suggested that if we can send an e-mail recommendation to transportation board this week it can go to them by next week. Potential elements of letter (to be drafted by Chairman Gould): The Bicycle Advisory Committee has discussed BFOs relative to the City bicycle program strongly recommend continued support of the FCBikes program. However, the BAC expressed great concern that more emphasis be placed on bicycle safety and bicycle education and that funding be provided to those programs if possible, especially in light of recent car/bike crashes. The question came up regarding Building on Basics (BOB) funds and whether they can be used for educational programming. Kathleen Bracke reported that according to the City Attorney, BOB funds can be used only for capital improvements. So they cannot be used for programming, just sidewalks, missing trail or bike path links, signage, striping, and so on. Price requested a written interpretation from the City Attorney’s office on this issue. Bracke agreed to request that. Holcomb & McMaster suggested that we put up 200 more share the road signs. McMaster: “In light of the high number of bicyclist deaths in the last year, we feel that bicycle safety and education needs more attention. We’d like to ask for funds to place another 200 “Share-the-Road” signs” even if only 50 per year for a few years. Consensus was that this would have a greater reach than physical or engineering changes. Concern was expressed that perhaps we don’t want to specify such detail to Council, but rather, save this for our specific action items, although it could be referenced in parentheses (“for example, deploying additional ‘Share-the-Road’ signs”). Chairman Gould agreed to draft a letter capturing all these points. 7. Board Member Reports Price: Police Services – Let’s try to raise awareness to include bicyclists on their web site when they warn of back-to-school dangers for pedestrians and motorists. He further reported on the status of injured cyclist Allan Baclasky who was involved in a crash Sept. 14 at Trilby and Taft Hill Road. He is now at Craig Hospital in Denver undergoing rehabilitation. Apparently the motorist, coming east on Trilby did not see Allan. Allan, attentive to traffic coming from the east, not from the west, did not see the vehicle pulling across Taft Hill Rd. He hit the vehicle, the helmet broke of fell of on the second bounce. He broke his hip, sustained four fractures to the shoulder and was in a coma for eleven days. Tim Anderson, also at Craig, will be coming home Friday. Rick Reider: Reported that despite everything we hear about bicycle scofflaws, motorists are equally at fault on the road, if not more. Price: Reported that he will meet Thursday with the owner of Mountain States Driver’s Education to suggest a curriculum unit for driver training instructors to try and improve this situation, especially with younger drivers. McMaster brought up the question of the low level of compliance with stop signs and stop lights. Gould suggested we all view the video on the Idaho stop sign law. Price suggested we ask legal counsel if the City could adopt the Idaho stop law by City ordinance or if it would be prohibited by state statute. Bracke will ask legal counsel for an opinion. Kim Sharpe reported on the Bicycle Education Coalition which is forming as a result of the bicycle crashes recently. The group is formed of Healthy Communities Coalition, Safe Kids Larimer County, PSD, BFC, the Bike Co-op, Safe Routes to School, FCBikes, CSU Police, CSU Center for Injury Prevention, CANDO, and others. Hansen: CSU has requested CMAQ funds to improve the western bike/ped connections of the College Ave underpass with the area of the Mason Corridor. 8. Staff Reports Kemp: Potential future agenda items include inviting Joe Olson to talk about bike/car crashes he has mapped. He has also extracted witness reports along with Police Reports, age distribution, and the most common crashes (which are ride outs from sidewalks into traffic). He is finalizing his report and will present this at our November meeting. Bracke points out that this will be useful for educational outreach. Kempe: Matt Wempe will attend the November meeting to present the Safe Routes to School Program. Gould: Wempe will also be at the Transportation Board meeting next week. Kemp: Bike Lunch Talks – asked for input from the BAC on topics for these talks. Bracke: The City will be updating the Transportation Master Plan along with City Plan in 2010 with a goal to completing it in January 2011. Bicycling will be an important part of this so we’ll be coming to you for advice as this moves along. ADJOURN Meeting adjourned at 8:05 pm Respectfully submitted, ____________________________ Dan Gould Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair