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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-10-19-LBAC-minLBAC Meeting Minutes 1 Meeting Minutes Lexington Bicycle Advisory Committee and Friends of Lexington Bikeway/Bike Lexington Meetings Thursday October 19, 2023, 7:00 pm Conducted by Remote Participation only https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87361532396?pwd=Yko0cWVTUmhKWGxvMTZwVEtoTTJDUT09 Meeting ID: 873 6153 2396 Passcode: 479174 FoLB/Bike Lexington 7:00 – 7:30 pm Peggy, Omar, Ram, Jim, Sarah, Betty – Board Members present 1. Treasurer’s Report - $22K in the bank 2. Events update: Second Sunday rides 3. Bikeway map Public meeting for Bike/Ped Plan Nov 1st. December Holiday Party potluck, December 14th Betty took the action to ask Arlington and Bedford about the safety signs at the Tri-Town meeting October 25th. Get their comments/feedback about the signs. Suggestion to build a bike station near the new water fountains; Donating more bike pumps like one for the visitors center Lexington Bicycle Advisory Committee – 7:30 – 9:00 pm Committee Attendees: Ram Reddy, Mike O’Connor, Jim Cadenhead, Sarah Hews, Suzan Chen, Betty Gau, Matthius Beebe, Arnov Arora Attendees: Peggy Enders, Omar Khudari, Tom Shiple, Cynthia Pfeiffer, Paul Rullo MWRA, Sarah Socolosky, Dave Belnap from MWRA, Ross Morrow, Mitch Caspe (Lex Police), Mark Sandeen Open the Bicycle Advisory Committee Meeting George Gagliardi has left the Committee after many years of wonderful service. He will stay on as participant of the Friends of Lexington Bikeways. Now we have an opening and have received applications. The applications are open until LBAC Meeting Minutes 2 October 30th. Once we have all applications, I will send them out to the Committee and we will provide our suggestions to the Select Board 1. Approve September 7, 2023 Meeting Minutes The minutes have been approved. 2. Presentation by Mass Water Resources Authority (MWRA) on upcoming bikeway construction Paul Rullo from MWRA will provide an update. First construction project on Summer Street is almost complete. Lowell street and Maple St almost complete. LBAC Meeting Minutes 3 Second contract is shown in yellow – primarily in Arlington but also in Lexington. The first phase will be on Maple street in June or July 2024, installed up to the intersection of Lowell and Maple Then the winter of 2024 will be off- Maple street is MASSDOT road. Construction in 2025 on MMBikewy starting right after Patriots Day 2025 celebration, April 2025. The following year the yellow section in Arlington. LBAC Meeting Minutes 4 LBAC Meeting Minutes 5 The MWRA has a website for this project. QUESTION – How will detour be designed off the bikeway? Answer from Ross/DPW – we will use existing bike lanes and install temporary bike lanes from Bow Street to Maple Street. There will be permanent striping and when construction is done the stirping will be removed. Bikeway will be restored to existing or better condition and will be done in 2026. Question: Will there be bike lanes for the detour on Mass Ave? Answer: Ross/DPW - there will be bike lanes but not protected bike lanes; this is a temporary situation while the bikeway is closed. Sarah – with re paving of bikepath can we widen the bikeway? MWRA does not know and will only be restoring it to the existing condition. In general, can the bikeway be widened? Ross will not rule it out QUESTION – How long will the bikeway be closed? LBAC Meeting Minutes 6 Answer: April – Nov 2025 QUESTION – Does Bow St construction impact bikeway? Answer: Bikeway is MBTA Property with a lease to town of Lexington Bikeway will be closed for 1 year; construction will be done in phases Peggy – maybe cars can’t park on Mass Ave during this time the bikeway is closed Commuters and students riding will be displaced when the bikeway is closed. Regarding widening the bikeway: Peggy added – putting gravel for 2 ft on both sides of bikeway to widen the path – this would be a great opportunity to have gravel on the bikeway on both sides – Conservation committee allowed it. It would make a difference in terms of the width of the bikeway. MWRA would not be opposed to installing gravel if the town requested it. Mark Sandeen – the bikeway would be closed for over a year – At SB there would not be construction during the winter so it would be open during the winter – has that changed since SB heard about this last time? Paul from MWRA – they could be temporary pavement down on the bikeway during the winter but it’s not great. So the bikeway may be open during the winter with the temporary pavement. Bikeway will be closed after Patriots Day 2025 and back in service by Nov 2025. They will be able to get asphalt down in November. – That’s the schedule they are working with QUESTION from Ram – if the bike lane is on the other side there is a busy exit to Pleasant Street that needs to be taken into consideration. QUESTION from Jim – what will the public outreach be? Will there be plenty of advanced warning / education on using the bike lane, etc. for commuters especially? MWRA will email us their presentation pack 3. Committee Input for Select Board Goal Setting – Update from Sarah Hews Select Board had a goal setting review and asked for Committees to provide their highest priority goals. Sarah volunteered to attend the 9/11 7PM facilitator’s meeting. A consultant was hired by the town for the Goal Setting. LBAC Meeting Minutes 7 Implementing a bike plan is NOT a goal – the facilitator helped create the goals. So the goal was “All kids to be able to bike to school safely”. Transportation committee and disabilities committee also participated. The goals are different from our Committee Charge – The focus of the goal is on the outcomes we desire. The Committee Charge gives us the bounds of the Committee. Within the Charge we make recommendations and SB wants to hear the outcomes we desire. We want the bike ped plan to deliver the outcome we desire. The SB has put together their goals based on the session Sarah attended. As a committee we need to determine our goals. We need a good punchy goal then it helps build relationships with other committees too. 4. Discussion on a regular report to the Select Board In the Sept meeting we discussed the bikeway maintenance concerns and how we need to inform the SB and provide an official record of concern. Jim and I took the action to write a letter for review by the Committee. Letter we sent around about our maintenance concerns was discussed. Peggy provided input that was incorporated into the letter. There was a motion to approve the letter and the Committee voted to approve. Betty took the action to email the letter to the Select Board. 5. Discussion on Work with Police Department Bike Team to monitor bikeway Officer Chris Barry and Officer Mitch Caspe, LBAC Police Liaison, attending. We have received a significant number of emails, Facebook posts, comments in person at events about the dangerous behavior on the bikeway. There have been suggestions to ask the Police Dept to use their E-bikes and trained officers to patrol the bikeway 2 hours on Saturday or randomly during the weekends. There have been suggestions to recruit a group of people to become “Bikeway Ambassadors”. The LBAC Meeting Minutes 8 Committee opened this for discussion to exchange ideas. Chris Barry – they are willing to share speed equipment for the bikeway. Per the Police Department, they want to be there on the bikeway and be a part of the solution but it comes down to their staffing levels. They would be happy to put out an officer on the bikeway but the staffing levels don’t allow it. The town is broken into 4 sectors – the cruisers take precedence over the bikeway. It’s hard to stop a biker – to get them to slow down. If they don’t give them their name the police have to arrest them. The police don’t have much authority to ask riders to slow down. Peggy – we have so many different kinds of vehicles and a lot of fast moving vehicles on the bikeway What belongs on the bikepath is really tough. Signed posted state “No Motor vehicles”. Officer Mitch Caspe – over the summer they staffed bike officers to go out on the bikeway. The officers stopped electric scooters from traveling on the bikeway and asked them to leave the bikeway to go out on the streets. E-bikes – are allowed on the bike path. QUESTION – Betty asked to confirm that scooters are not allowed on the bikeway? Per Mitch Caspe, that is correct that scooters and other electric MMDs are not supposed to be on the bikeway. Note that this is not defined on the Mass State level. E- bike are considered bicycles, but Scooters are not allowed, per Mitch Caspe. Mitch – what is reasonable to monitor the bikeway? Arlington has it as a public way but Lex does not own the bikeway and Arlington did adopted the bikeway to make it a public way. Education is the first step to improving behavior on the bikeway. Ram – people slow down when they see a camera recording their speeds Captain Chris Barry – we could use the speed trailers on the bikeway. He agrees to use the speed trailers on a weekend/ Mitch – if the Committee comes up with money to purchase a speed trailer that could be stationed on the bikeway. But keep in mind it is open towards vandalism. Jim – Education is important especially in the schools. LBAC Meeting Minutes 9 Let’s bring up the Ambassador Program with the Friends of the Lexington Bikeways organization. Also, bring it to TSG as an idea. The group talked about the monthly Crash Reports – it’s documented as a bike incident – not documented like a car crash form. For a car there is a full police crash report but for a bike incident there is the crash report. For a car and bike crash then a full crash report. Bike versus Bike then we don’t have the information – it’s more of a medical call. Officer Barry can give us the number of bike incidents just the number and maybe a little more information. That’s all they can provide. They can provide generic information about how many per year or per month. The recent Meriam Street crash was a public record and involved a car. The bicyclist went to the hospital and received a ticket from the Lexington police. The majority of crashes are single bike crashes. To improve the data from bike crashes, could the Police boil it down to the 5 or 6 types of crashes that happen? Some type of data identification. They don’t have those specific codes – such as a dooring, car cut off or etc. They don’t have specific codes do make these distinctions. Mark – my question about the crash report: We would like to use the crash reports to help prevent future crashes. Officer Barry – we can search on the location and most crashes are at the bikeway intersections. Are they happening at nighttime.– Mark – what are the reasons for these crashes? This is what we want to track and discover from the crash reports. 6. Liaison Reports Ross/DPW: DPW got approval to use Green paint across Maquire Road crossing. The Battle Green construction is still ongoing. LBAC Meeting Minutes 10 Ross now has $250K allocated for flashing lights at all bikeway intersections! That’s an increase from the original $70k allocated through the resident voting of ARPA funds. Ross gave a brief overview on the bus stop in front of Conte bike shop on Mass Ave across from Grant Street. With the current design the bus can’t get over to the curb so they may move it to another location in front of Clay Oven, where it was originally identified to be located. In front of 1666 Mass Ave. Mark – there are efforts by Commission on Disability to promote the bus stop to be located at 1666 Mass Ave. The Battle Green Roundabout – will be completed in mid June or July 2024. The BIke/Ped Plan is moving along -there was an issue with how the consultants ranked proximity to schools they are working through. The next public meeting, and the last one, will be held Nov 1st in Cary Hall. TSG Through Sheila, the TSG is putting in a town warrant for fall for a speed hump pilot plan on Walnut street. Arnav- High School Liaison – Topic of concern include talking with the new LHS School Committee about school building. There has been one community meeting so far. Many people are concerned with transportation of getting to schools – a big concern about how to get to the new high school. He’s been talking with Kathleen Lenihan, chair of the school building committee. They plan to get students together to discuss this topic There are more community forums in the coming weeks. Mark suggests there is a member of Sustainability on the building committee and he happens to be a great biker, Dan Voss – maybe a good conduit to the Building committee. Betty took the action to invite Dan Voss to our meeting to discuss transportation to LHS. 7. Other Business • Tri-Town Bicycle Committee meeting October 25th 7 pm – Remote • We get to provide an update • Next LBAC / FoLB Meeting November 9th 7 pm