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Home My WebLink About2024-10-10-LBAC-min1 Town of Lexington Bicycle Advisory Committee -10 /10 /2024 Oct ober 10, 2024 / 7: 00 PM / In Person Meet i ng / Parker Meet i ng Room ATTENDEES Committee Members: Betty Gau, Jim Cadenhead, Suzan Chen, Sarah Hews, Dave Armstrong, Tom Shiple, Jonathan Schwarz, Ben Alperovich (Student Liaison) Committee Members Absent: Ram Reddy Also Attending: Jonathan Bernays, Peggy Enders, Andy Friedlich, Susan Barrett, Mark Sandeen, Jon Weyland Betty opened the meeting and welcomed new Committee member Jonathan Schwartz. Mike O’Connell has left the Committee so we have an opening. Deadline for applications is Oct 25th. Select Board will appoint in November. Betty will send out information with applications as they arrive. Sheila Page from the Planning Department has given her notice and is leaving. We worked with her on the Bike/Ped Plan. Abby from the Planning Dept will coordinate the Bike/Ped plan with us until new employees are hired. 1. Approved the July 18 and August 1, 2024 Meeting Minutes The Committee voted to approve the Sept. 12th meeting minutes. 2. Bikeway Block Party Report Jim gave a brief summary of the event: ● Block party was on Sunday September 15th; ● Over 1000 people at each of the parks with a count ● 80 volunteers ● Over 40 different performers and facilitators Lexington Bicycle Advisory Committee 1 ● Friends of Lexington Bikeways and Monroe Center for the Arts organized ● Arlington was late to the game and Bedford setup somewhere unexpected (behind, away) so they didn’t have many people (potential conflict with railroad day) ● May be annual but need to wait and see if there are people to drive it - proposed date of Sunday September 14th; Bedford has already committed money for next year ● Jim wanted more people but overall, it met expectations ● Had ambassadors directing traffic and bikes ● Betty impressed that the police office was on a bike - Captain Barry said we couldn’t ask the police to work but we could invite them to come (but on duty) ● LexMedia is putting together something about it; Jim has drone footage ● Jonathan asked about whether local business owners noticed an impact… Jim said that the visitors center recorded an increase of 300% visitors ● Betty mentioned the town center restaurants were packed ● The town paid for the police officer ● Having the town bike committees’ sponsors was very helpful with insurance ● People ambassadors at the intersections very helpful – directing traffic ● Ambassador program – getting enough volunteers 20 weekends a year 3. Bike Parking Guidelines Recap Tom provided a summary and plan for next steps: ● Goal is having something that can be voted on at the town meeting in March 2025 ● Tom has been in touch with Abby McCabe and she will be meeting with the working group next week ● Planning department is swamped with new proposals but Abby is interested in meeting with working group to discuss the parking guidelines 4. Review Planning Board Upcoming Projects Tom led a discussion of the 3 Militia Drive Proposal: ● Public hearing is on Nov 6th so we need to provide our feedback after tonight’s meeting ● 2 buildings - east and west ● Commercial space on the first floor ● Bike parking is in 9 rooms in the parking garage and one room in the east building (that doesn’t have internal access or a door into the interior of the building) ● There are concerns about bike access throughout the facility but also to the bike parking - are bikes expected to use the same entrance. ● Concerns about getting to the bike storage safely without biking throughout parking garage. ● They need 32 short term spots and they’ve proposed 34 with 17 bike racks; discussion about if the bike racks the contractor proposes can really handle two bikes ● We will request the addition of bike parking near the playground Lexington Bicycle Advisory Committee 2 ● Concerns that they haven’t provided additional parking for the customer to the commercial establishments ● 3 current connecting paths to the property boundary (one to grace chapel and walking trails, one into Greely village, and Constance place - that might go away) ● Want cargo bike spaces; variety of bike parking (wider trays) ● 10% of spaces accommodate cargo bikes - put all cargo bikes on the ground floor ● Discussion about specific bikes/batteries ● Ebike parking – lithium batteries issues – we’re not sure if the Lex Fire Dept has anything in their regs about it ● Concerns about the shape of the short-term bike racks - concerns that the circles won’t hold the locks in place or you can’t actually lock two bikes on it. ● Tom is going to add safety of getting to the bike parking, safety of getting through the facility per the regulations ● Inverted U racks – concern that it is hard to get 2 bikes on and the bike lock slides down ● Two rings on post is best design but there is no company that makes them anymore. The town of Lex DPW had a bunch made specifically for Town Center. ● Suggest more bike parking for commercial spaces ● Jim – we need to develop a series of bike rack suggestions; the Bike Parking Working Group has done that for multi-family housing developments The Committee voted to send the letter Tom drafted to the Planning Board with adding the two new comments. 5. New LHS Design Discussion ● Currently the School Building Committee (SBC) is looking at 6 designs; school building committee is making final decision on Nov 12th. Submission to Select Board is on Dec 12th. MSBA will tell town if it will be approved by Jan 26th ● Apparently, the latest information is that the SBC is deciding between C.5b Bloom and D.2 Weave (but the cost of the later is $50 million higher). ● Peggy brought up Worthen Road bike lane that we have been discussing for over a year ● Jim brought up the Bike Ped plan and the importance of making sure that gets implemented; Betty noted that the Worthen Road bike lane is the first priority in the Bike/Ped Plan. ● Mark said the Select Board was asked to consider staff parking for the high school on Worthen Road. The Select Board will decide on how to configure parking on the streets by the new high school. ● Committee members volunteers to review the schematic design when it is published: Tom, Jim, Sarah and Ben 6. Other Business Walk your Wheels signs presented by Peggy Enders and Andy Friedlich Lexington Bicycle Advisory Committee 3 ● Andy and Peggy gave extensive history of the walk your wheels signs in Lex Center ● Described the 3 sandwich boards ● In pilot mode ● Plan is pasting temporary stickers on the big belly garbage cans ● Jim asked about why this isn’t being taught in schools ● Peggy suggested an officer be positioned in Lex Center during high traffic times. Andy said that the police said that they could put someone out there when schools have a half day ● Betty brought up that people can bike on sidewalks outside of the town center; this is a Massachusetts law to allow bikers on all sidewalks except in business districts. ● Susan Barrett suggested passing out some fliers letting them know (in a friendly way) ● Jonathan S. suggested some clarity on where the no biking on sidewalk area is ● Andy and Peggy have identified 16 locations for the signs on the Big Belly garbage cans ● Susan has been doing the bike rodeo and she educates them on it; bike maintenance and bike safety during the student WIN block; Ben mentioned homeroom could be a good place to show a video about bike safety and information on not riding on sidewalks in the Center ● Recommendation to support the signs as part of a larger strategy/plan 7. Liaison Reports Susan Barrett, Transportation Manager ● Safe Routes to School Survey ○ Partnership between the town, schools, and MASSDOT ○ She’s going to try to reach students at the high school ○ Bike train at Hastings is going every other Friday and another bike train coming from Woods Street ○ Mark asked about whether kids are biking more often just with having the bike train every other week. Jonathan said in the days after the bike train, more bikes on the bike rack, going across town to soccer ○ Two new walking school buses ■ Maple Street - get some lawn signs ■ Woburn Street ○ Ben brought up the challenge to biking to Clark and there not being enough bike parking - Susan responded suggesting that he look at the bike plan to see if the issues he has raised have been addressed ○ Bike rack grant in November (through safe routes to school) - coordinating with facilities ○ Peggy brought up that the town should be paying for bike racks and Susan said that facilities said they had no budget for bike racks or installing them. ○ Jim said we should make sure we are building in funding for these things such as bikeway root maintenance and bike racks; we will add this to next monthly agenda to advise the Select Board on these budget items ○ Mark brought up that the planning for the high school is only 150 parking spots Lexington Bicycle Advisory Committee 4 ○ Tom did a recent survey of LHS bike parking and counted 142 bikes on the racks and locked to sign posts, trees, along side of building, etc. That is 6% of the total student population. Teachers bike to school also. ○ The Friends purchased a bike rack for Lex Farm and it cost $1,200 for a 5-bike rack. Next meeting Nov 21st 7-9PM in person in the Police Station Community Room