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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-06-13-LBAC-minTown of Lexington Bicycle Advisory Committee-6/13/2024 Meeting Minutes June 13, 2024 / 7:45- 9:00 PM / Virtual Meeting on Zoom ATTENDEES Committee Attendees: Dave Armstrong, Sarah Hews, Betty Gau, Jim Cadenhead, Suzan Chen Also Attending: Tom Romano (Lexington Recreation Department), Peggy Enders, Mike Tabaczynski, Mark Sandeen (Select Board), Susan Barrett, Tom Fortman, Jonathan Schwartz 1. Town of Lexington Recreation Dept Program Where You Belong – Tom Romano Tom presented the idea of the Where You Belong program that’s part of the National Park and Recreation Month. Description of Purpose: To collect resident submissions for the National Recreation & Parks Month with the theme of “Where you belong” during June and July. We will use the resident submission of “Where they belong” to make social media posts for future use and to help promote outdoor recreation and the field/facilities that we have in town available to residents. We feel advertising on the Minuteman Commuter Bikeway would help us garner more submissions. We are looking to promote National Park and Rec Month and want to add flyers with QR codes on the bike path with the saying of “Where you belong” for people to submit answers that we would collect and then make a post about it in July. A Proclamation was sent to the Select Board about the National Rec parks month The bike path would be a good area to post signs with the QR code for people to provide their information. Tom shared this short video: https://www.instagram.com/p/C7aIavVOGR6/ The Recreation Department would like to post signs on the Bikeway during the month of July. Residents and bikeway users would submit anonymously through a google form that is accessed via the QR code. At the end of July share the results Tom suggested they would posts signs on posts that are already on the Bikeway and attach the signs with duct tape. Yard signs would also be posted around the bike path; no more than 1 dozen yard-type signs, probably only 10. Placing posts near the bridge areas, only on existing posts. The signs would only be up for the month of July and taken down Augst 1st. Jim C – we just put the courtesy signs and there was lots of discussion about reading the courtesy signs and having too many distractions on the bikeway. Jim said he would be okay with adding these National Park signs to existing wayfinding signs. The LBAC asked Tom to please refrain from posting signs anywhere near the new safety signs or on the posts with the safety signs. Dave A. stated that he exactly agrees with Jim. There are too many things on the safety sign posts already. The signs were put up for the benefit of safety guidelines. Yard signs are better and the way to go for this one month project. More agreement with having the yards signs. Put yard signs a few feet off the path so when people stop to take the QR code they move off the bikeway. We don’t want people stopping on the bikeway and causing a safety issue. People move fast on the bikeway and stopping to take a photo of the QR code could cause danger. The LBAC asked Tom to please post the signs at least 3-6 feet off the bikeway in areas that it’s possible to do so. Tom Romano explained that the QR code is static and is not collecting any data on anyone. The Google form only collects the information the user submits. Jim C reiterated to please put the signs 6 to 8 ft off the path and not post signs in any areas that are narrow on the bikeway. Peggy E – You will need a drill to put the wire frames in so to plant the lawn sign takes two people and a good drill. For the snow plowing signs we install 10 signs along the bikeway. Tom Romano stated that he will keep it to 10 signs at the most on the bikeway. The LBAC agreed to these signs based on this discussion and the guidelines we provided to Tom Romano. 2. Approve May 9, 2024 Meeting Minutes The Committee unanimously approved the May 9, 2024 meeting minutes. 3. Review Planning Board Upcoming Projects Lowell Street Parcel 68-44 RFP: https://lexingtonma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/12127/Lowel-Street-Parcel-44-68-Draft- RFP-for-Public-Comment?bidId= Betty and Tom Shiple reviewed the RFP together and made a list of suggestions for the RFP. Betty shared this list with the Committee and walked through each item as it pertains to the Town of Lexington’s Bike Parking regulations, Chapter 176. Betty drafted a letter for the Select Board and the Affordable Housing Trust (AHT) with all the suggestions and reviewed it in detail with the Committee. Committee members discussed each item and provided some changes and edits. Mark Sandeen suggested re-organizing the letter into two groups; one with suggestions specifically for the Affordable Housing Trust (AHT) regarding the RFP and the other group of items for the Town regarding infrastructure in that area. Some of our suggestions and comments are applicable to the RFP and some are applicable to the Town. Susan Barrett told us that a planner from Town of Burlington has a plan to add bike lanes in this area of Lowell Street. Tom F explained that he has used the path by Locke Village to access the Market Basket shopping center and it could be a possible bike path. Jim C stated that riding Lowell Street is terrible and very dangerous for cyclists. It is not a safe road for biking. He suggests we should suggest to the Town that a bike lane be added along North St for residents from the Lowell St Parcel. Betty had added that suggestion in the letter to the Select Board and AHT. Susan Barrett suggested a shared path. Walking would be better in that area and easier for residents to carry groceries. Jim C stated that this Committee’s focus is on bike infrastructure. He suggested we propose a bike path for the streets in that area. Dave A – there is not a sidewalk along North St. A multi-use path would need to be wider. In addition, bikes can carry a lot more than walkers since they can have baskets and are now more efficient and convenient than walking. Mark Sandeen explained that from the Lowell St parcel to the back entrance of the Market Basket shopping center is only 3/10 of a mile. He doesn’t know how we would involve Burlington for the rest of North St in this section. North Street crosses into Burlington very shortly after Lowell St. Susan - suggests that we mention that the contractor should work with the Town to create a bike lane on North St. Item #3 – there is a crosswalk at the intersection of Lowell and North Street Fiske School is where students may be walking and biking to school from the Lowell St parcel 68-44. Also Diamond School and LHS. Item #4 – Everyone agrees we should request a separate bike lane and NOT a sharrow. Susan – keep in mind that there will be other opportunities to provide recommendations on this parcel such as at the Design Review meetings. Jim – the idea of having signage when coming out of a traffic lane would be ideal. Mark wants to ensure there is good bike access for this new development. He is a huge believer of bike infrastructure. But this is a bridge too far to ask the developer to build a bike lane outside of their property. This would be an ask to the Town. Within the property is all good suggestions but outside the property is not the responsibility of the developer/contractor. The Committee agreed to send this letter to AHT and the Select Board after Betty incorporates the suggestions. Dave volunteered to work with Betty right after this meeting to make the changes. From Susan - If helpful, here is current FISKE Safe Routes to School map: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qQjUsjcDUXlH13e4SJW-RRekYggyeEsr The 231 Bedford Street Plans were tabled to a future meeting. https://www.lexingtonma.gov/2126/231-Bedford-Street-Village-Multi-Family- Tom Shiple sent the LBAC his comments on 231 Bedford Street. The Committee agreed to discuss this project at a future meeting and not at this meeting. 4. Liaison Reports 1. Select Board – Mark Sandeen There is a lot of effort on the LHS Design. We should ask Tom Shiple to put the LHS Design on the LBAC agenda every month to get updates and for us to discuss. There will be a lot of decisions on the transportation methods related to the new high school. 2. Transportation Manager – Susan Barrett Following up on Mark’s point about the new high school, they are pulling together a Work Group about circulations around the schools – Safety and Circulation sub group has not met in a long time. There’s a lot that has to be done about the new high school design. It also impacts other people who are going through the high school area to get to other schools. This high school design will set the course for the future. The Sustainable Lex Committee is looking at all 5 versions of the new high school design. They are looking at each of the 5 versions and analyzing each option to see how it meets their/our town goals. Some of the 5 options do not provide bike access. Susan and Mark suggest that the LBAC reviews each of the 5 options and make decisions about each one for recommendations to the design committee. Voting on the final version of the high school design is scheduled for December 2024 – There will be a vote of the school building committee in Nov/Dec to narrow down to 1 design. Susan would like Bike Committee to take an active part of the Bike Rodeo, especially the hand signals sections since we are familiar with them. SRTS – The Superintendent has agreed to do a Family travel survey to be done in late Oct 2024. It will be a very short survey to ask why people are choosing the transportation modes that they are. 5. Other Business 1. We have one Committee position open and the application deadline is June 21st. We usually get a few applications and I will send them to the group to ask for rankings as we have done in the past. 2. Police Crash Report – There were no comments. 3. Next LBAC Meeting: The Committee decided to meet on July 18th at 7:30 pm