2008-04-10-LBAC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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MEETING MINUTES Committee Name: Bicycle Advisory Committee Date, Time and Location of Meeting: April 10, 2008; 7:00 pm; Rm 111 Members Present: Harvey Bingham, Peg Enders, Marita Hartshorn, Stew Kennedy (BAC chair), Abe Shenker (FoLB Chair), Mike Tabaczynski,Jerry VanHook Others Present: Carolyn Siccama, Rich Spencer, Carl Valente (Town Manager), Deborah Osber, Erna Greene, Paolo Marinelli Members Absent: Richard Canale (Planning), John Frey, George Gagliardi, Hank Manz (Selectmen), Sandra Shaw (Recreation) Record of Votes taken and issues discussed. Minutes from the March meeting were reviewed and approved as corrected. Snow plowing the Bikeway in Lexington: Paolo Marinelli, an Arlington resident who advocated for and helped initiate the plowing trial program there this past winter, spoke to us about that trial and the lessons learned. His particular interest is in access for the disabled to the path. The Arlington pilot program was initially funded with a $2,500 budget. It ended up being plowed 10 or 11 times and once was sanded, the latter by hand and at great expense ($400). The town used a private contractor, Brian Warren, who charges $75/hour. They found the 3 ½ miles of path could be plowed within two hours. (It helped that the bollards were removed for the winter.) One reported problem that need to be resolved is at intersections, where the street plow would leave snow. Some coordination is needed to solve these kinds of issues. Arlington’s user counts were high. On successive weekends in 20 minutes of observing Paolo counted: 65 pedestrians and 5 cyclists (on Christmas day); 59 peds and 1 cyclist; 50 peds and 5 cyclists; 69 peds and 10 cyclists; and on a 66 degree day in January, in an hour, he counted 159 pedestrians. The plowing contractor was surprised at how many people used the plowed path. He saw consistently more use west of Arlington center. Paolo said the Arlington Transportation Advisory Committee, Disability Committee Walking Advocacy Group and Bicycle Advisory Committee all supported the experiment and agreed it was successful. The ratio of compliments to complaints ran about 100 to 1. We revisited our previous position of wanting only half the path’s width plowed, and decided a full snow-plow’s width works better. Arlington’s experience showed that still leaves plenty of snow for skiing. The BAC thus should change our plowing width recommendation to the Selectmen. Carl Valente expressed the opinion that in Lexington a pilot program would be a smart way to go. He has concerns about gates vis-à-vis safety, and said DPW and the police and fire departments should be consulted. We also need to