MyWHaT

Quick takes for the week:

• If you’re an email subscriber to MyWHaT and it’s  not showing up, please check your SPAM box. Occasionally, filters reset and start treating it as SPAM. If you aren’t an email or RSS subscriber, what are you waiting for?
  

  Bayfront planning kicks off this week. Although it's about year-round use, remember summer?

• Since I’m on the steering committee, I might as well plug it. The preliminary engineering of the city’s Bayfront plan kicks off this week. This is where the designs and engineering for the elements and values of the Your Bay Your Say will materialize. Public participation is Wednesday from 12-7PM and Thursday 11-2, and there is a public presentation of the 3-day culmination Thursday night, 5:30-8PM. All public planning will be held downtown at 108 E Front St, next to the Opera House. More information at the City Web site.

• The city is also going for the Google Gig and the city is asking for residents to let Google know we are interested in high-speed fiber. Why not?

• After last week’s introduction of a concept for improving Division Street with 5 roundabouts, I’ve buried myself in roundabout material; yes, I’m a nerd. They are not a panacea for every street, but it is increasingly apparent that the modern roundabout seems to have been born for the compromise on Division St. It’s the balance of calmer traffic and increased traffic flow. The only problem is that everywhere they are suggested, the naysayers tend to be the most vocal. The predictable negativity is already taking pace. Any change agents out there? Let’s have a real, informed discussion…I’ll do my part, more soon.

• Sticker Update: Thanks to graphic help from Mike Erway, the 8th Street stickers are sent out for printing. They are being printed on removable weather resistant 2.5 x 4 stock (a bumper-sticker) and will be available March 31.   If you donate $10.00 before next week, you’ll receive 8 stickers. After that, they will be available individually for $2.50 or 5 for $10. This drive is to support the work of MyWHaT, and also to promote our intended use of 8th Street–a walkable, bike-able, mixed-use corridor.  You can pre-order donate via Paypal (include note) or send me an email with the subject “MyWHaT Sticker Donation” with your name and address. garylhowe@gmail.com

Enjoy the day.

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Monday’s Quote: A Policy Statement

“The DOT policy is to incorporate safe and convenient walking and bicycling facilities into transportation projects. Every transportation agency, including DOT, has the responsibility to improve conditions and opportunities for walking and bicycling and to integrate walking and bicycling into their transportation systems. Because of the numerous individual and community benefits that walking and bicycling provide — including health, safety, environmental, transportation, and quality of life — transportation agencies are encouraged to go beyond minimum standards to provide safe and convenient facilities for these modes. (Emphasis added)

- United States Department of Transportation Policy
Statement on Bicycle and Pedestrian Accommodation
Signed 03/11/2010

Impact?

8th Street connection anyone? Yes, the contract was signed before this policy statement was issued, but do we have the desire to ask to be a model for the new policy? There is a workable alternative on the table waiting to be engineered that fits handsomely within this new policy. If not now, when?

Division Street? Grandview Avenue? Both slated for improvements…

Projects that meet this new policy will naturally receive higher priority for federal funding than those that don’t. For a state and a region in desperate need of all the funds it can muster, and an economy that is in dire need of revitalization, it seems to be a natural fit to comply with policies that satisfy both.

Will our MDOT accept the challenge and incorporate these principles into its own mission statement? More importantly, will they implement it into projects already on the drawing board?

Or, will they take the position that interprets the goal of moving people and goods as a narrow task of simply moving motorized vehicles at high speeds, while ignoring the economic benefits of active transportation investment?

We need to ask urge MDOT & road commissions to follow suit

Contact MDOT and urge that they implement the new federal Regulations and Recommendations. Also, ask for a comment on Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood’s comment that, “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized. We think livability means giving folks the flexibility to choose their own mobility.“?

And then, please share your responses here…

The specific recommendations in the new DOT policy:

• Considering walking and bicycling as equals with other transportation modes
• Ensuring that there are transportation choices for people of all ages and abilities, especially children
• Going beyond minimum design standards
• Integrating bicycle and pedestrian accommodation on new, rehabilitated, and limited-access bridges
• Collecting data on walking and biking trip
• Setting mode share targets for walking and bicycling and tracking them over time
• Removing snow from sidewalks and shared-use paths
• Improve non-motorized facilities during maintenance projects

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