Walk-Bike Council of Addison County

The May meeting of the Walk Bike Council of Addison County was held on May 31st 2018 at the ACRPC. See below for full notes.

To do (see notes for details on all of these to-do items):

1. Walk-bike summit phone call: Josh, Claire, Bethany, Bud, Laura
2. Tri-town bike trail team: Bud, Doug
3. Share bike safe video as recommended in notes: Bethany
4. Bike-ped grant deadline June 29: Dana, Laura, Josh, Bud
5. Follow-up on college student survey: Bethany
6. Recruiting: Mary, Claire
7. Find Bristol partners for Mary
8. Put meeting notes on council website: Adam
9. Put date/time of next meeting on council website: Adam
10. Bike parking inventory: Dana
11. Walk-bike summit follow-up: Carrie
12. New pump track in Bristol: Tim
13. This summer, let’s get organized about sources of funding and what we want funding for. Who was managing the spreadsheet? That person should send it out again.

Notes

1. Bike safe video (Tim Clark) https://youtu.be/6ahl7_nLqDs
   
   1. An after-school project at VUES
   2. Goal: Teach kids a safe way to ride bikes to school. Many kids will ride on sidewalks and use crosswalks. They need to know how best to do that.
   3. Tools: Cellphone and tripod. 2.5 hours of recording time. Video is about 5 minutes long.
   4. Waiting for permissions to share broadly, to other schools and via YouTube.
   5. Josh: Route 17 is about to be closed, so there will be more traffic through Vergennes. Tell kids.
   6. Laura:  Middlebury has rules about where riding on the sidewalk is not allowed.  Does Vergennes? Chief Merkel says no riding near Main Street shops.
   7. Claire:  We should share this video with Vergennes Partnership and Chambers to let them know this is how we would like cyclists to be educated.
   8. Claire has a new connection at the Addison Independent who is interested in writing about bike-ped issues. She’ll give the name to the marketing group.
   9. Laura: Share to middbikeped group because there has been discussion there.
   10. Adam: Would it be useful for every community to do this? Laura suggests different communities could take on a slightly different aspects of biking, eg navigating the rotary and don’t go the wrong way on College Street in Middlebury.
   11. After Tim gets permission to share the videos, he’ll send a link to the Council. Then, the video can go to the Council website and be sent around for publicity as recommended above.  
       
       
2.  Human Powered Parade in Bristol (Mary)
   1. Success!
   2. People loved the BMX riders
   3. Stronger police presence (crosswalks)
   4. Lots of kids
      
      
      
3.  Middlebury College Student projects: Survey and tri-town route (Doug, Bethany, Claire)
   1. Survey and focus groups
      1. Focus groups of cyclists and motorists
      2. Results mostly confirmed what we already know -- we now have data to back us up
      3. The survey ensured adequate attention was given to cyclists and motorists
      4. What signs are most effective?
         1. Bikers may use full lane
         2. Shared road
      5. Cyclists want:
         1. Wider shoulders
         2. Better connections in tri-town area
      6. Motorists want:
         1. Infrastructure
         2. Cyclists who do not ride single file when vehicle approaches
         3. Cyclists who break the rules of the road (wrong way on one-way street, rolling through stop signs)
         4. Motorists tolerate cyclists as commuters more willingly than recreational cyclists
      7. The survey is still open, Bethany has a generic login and can look at the results.
         1. Hunter promised to send advice on how to analyze the results
         2. We could send the survey around again to get more input. Decide this summer whether or not to do that?
         3. Can the survey be revised if we send it around again? One community member was very upset with some of the demographics questions. But the questions were optional, and if we ask different questions then the other users.
      8. Addison Independent published a good article, May 24. We should link to it from the Council site. It’s here: College students develop transportation initiatives.
      9. We can get their presentation and final paper (Bethany will ask Nadine and share with Council members). If we have permission, we should post to the Council site.
   2.  Tri-Town Loop
      1. Based on traffic and safety data (Bike-level traffic stress, “BLTS”), they recommended a tri-town loop
      2. This summer:  Council should evaluate their recommendation and what we might do with it. For example, if we could come up with a recommendation then we could continue to advocate for infrastructure improvements over the years; draw up a map; share with local selectboards; think of the Lake Champlain Byway as inspiration.
         
         
         
4.  Walk-Bike Summit Recap (Adam)
   1. Claire, Bethany, Mary, Adam went to the Walk-Bike Summit in early May.
   2. Fun day! Highly recommend attending in future.
   3. 1.5 hour time slot for presentation.
      1. How WB Council was established
      2. Paving project review
         
         
   4.  Made new contacts with others who are interested in wallk-bike issues
   5. Takeaways
      1. Keynote: Russ Roca from “The Path Less Pedaled” said that “Gravel grinding” is trendy! People in cities are excited to ride on dirt roads.
      2. Tales of trails and tourism: Connecting trails to downtowns. Trails draw tourist dollars.
         1. Enhancing Recreation: The Velomont Trail
         2. Trail Counting Builds Partnerships
      3. Website is still up, with some presentations, so we all should peruse later if we want. This summer, let’s look for ways to reuse our takeaways; offer presentations to local selectboards, editorials, etc.
         
         
   6.  Josh says Middlebury has a chance to host the next summit. He’ll invite Council to help with a proposal.  Wed June 20, 1-2 pm will be a call to discuss possibility of hosting. (Josh, Claire, Bethany, Bud, Laura)
      
      
      
5.  Safe Routes annual meeting (Laura and Mary)
   
   1. They evaluated strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for communities
   2. Way to go school challenge will last all year next year
   3. Jon Kaplan talked about funding opportunities
   4. Pop-up trailer
   5. RISE is coming to Porter Hospital and might become a source of funding (mini grants)
      
      
6.  Bike racks (Dana)
   1. Dana has been working on an inventory of bike parking in Middlebury. Aim to be done at the end of June. Not sure what the final product should look like. Map, photos, editorial content? Suggestions: Include recommendations regarding good bike parking; recommend ebike charging, pair ebike charging with e-car charging. If you have more suggestions, let Dana know.
      
      
7.  Funding
   1. Laura says money has been raised by bike swap and Kelly Boe ride (~$2,000). To do this summer.
   2. VTrans grant deadline end of June. Josh will send link to council. Can we ask for 3 simple u-loop bike racks and run a competition? For example. Dana, Laura and Bud and Josh will come up with a proposal.
   3. Adam mentioned another grant from AARP.
   4. This summer, let’s get organized about funding and what we want it for.
      
      
      
8.  Summer
   1. Annual Historic Preservation and Downtown Conference in June
   2. Meetings on July 16, September 17 at 5:15pm