[Denis MacDougall]: On July 16, 2022, Governor Baker signed into law an act relative to extending certain state of emergency accommodations. which, among other things, extends the expiration of the provisions pertaining to the Open Meeting Law, March 31, 2023. Specifically, this extension allows public bodies to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the public body physically present at the meeting location, and to provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. The Act does not make any new changes to the Open Meeting Law other than extending the expiration date of the temporary provisions regarding remote meetings from July 15, 2022 to March 31, 2023.
[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you, Dennis. Then in that case, the January 25th meeting of the Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission will come to order. Secretary, would you care to call the roll?
[Unidentified]: Yes, Jared Powell. Present, I'm here. Okay, perfect. Bruce Kulik. Present. Emily O'Brien. Here. Bevan Fairchild? I don't see.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I thought I... Am I not coming through?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I'm sorry, there you are, yes. I missed you.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Can you hear me is the question?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yes, I can hear you.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Okay, good.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay, Ernest Munier?
[Unidentified]: Indeed. All right, Doug Packer? Unless I'm confused, I do not think I see. I didn't see, Doug. Okay. Peter Cowles? I am here. All right. Gaston Fiore?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I do not see. Danielle Nasimuller? Present. And Rebecca Wright, who? I'm here. I do see. And just, I guess, a quick welcome to our guests. Would you like to introduce yourself? I guess we'll start with Amy's, the familiar face.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Hi there, Amy Ingalls with the City of Medford Transportation Engineer.
[Unidentified]: And Caitlin, would you like to introduce yourself?
[Kaitlin Robinson]: Hi, I'm Caitlin Robinson. I'm a Medford resident.
[Unidentified]: Welcome. I think you've been here before, I believe.
[Kaitlin Robinson]: Yes.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right. And that is the roll. We have a quorum.
[Emily O'Brien]: Excellent. Our first item is to approve the minutes from December of 2022.
[Unidentified]: Do we have comments about the minutes? Do we have a motion to approve the minutes? All in favor? Aye. Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: Okay, minutes approved. Announcements. We don't have too many things right now. The first main thing is there was, I got a quick kind of last minute request to write a letter in support of MRWA, not MWRA, the Mystic River Watershed Association, their grant. application for a study for getting money for to study uh creating some new bike connections and i wrote a quick letter in support of that grant application that's something that's a project that i think has come up here before um there's not really much else to say about that but i did write a letter on our behalf in support of studying that problem so that's that um Does anybody else have announcements? I think that's what I had on my list, Ernie.
[Ernie Meunier]: No, not an announcement. It's just a query about the MWRA in that are most of the possible bikeways on the properties that they're concerned with state regulated so that we can't have much involvement anyway?
[Emily O'Brien]: I think this was actually, a lot of this is even in Arlington, but if I recall, it's to connect some of the areas along the Mystic Lakes and where the beach is with the Minuteman. So I'm not, I don't remember the details of that. I know it has come up, but at this point, it's, we're talking about money for a feasibility study for something that we're basically interested in. I don't think we need to go. I didn't bother to dig up the details because there's really not very much for us to talk about right now.
[Unidentified]: Okay, thanks. Anything else? announcement wise.
[Bruce Kulik]: Would you submit the letter that you wrote just as a matter of, uh, yes.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yes, and I will share that to the I will share that to the Google. Group Google Drive. Um. That came up. Um it came up just like at the last minute the end of last week, so I didn't have a chance to submit it there, but I will do that. Next, the act to reduce traffic fatalities and what does this enable the city to do? Daniel, did you put that on the agenda or whoever added that? Did you want to? Yeah.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, I was the one who originally put this on the agenda. I should pull up the exact verbiage, but I believe that it does provide the ability for municipalities to set speed limits, I believe, on specific state roads within their jurisdiction. I'm not sure. Amy, can you double check me on that? I'll go and find the exact verbiage.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I believe we still would have to get the approval of whatever relevant state organization, there's some sort of process for that. I don't know what that process is yet, or if there might not even be a process yet since the law was just passed, but yeah, we definitely wanna take advantage of whatever we can. That's changed, so we'll look into that some more.
[Emily O'Brien]: If we were to reduce the speed limit on a state road, who would have to enforce that in that case?
[Unidentified]: I'm guessing the state police, right?
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I mean that all that seems like a kind of a sticking point because they don't.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Necessarily seem, I guess it depends on the the road, right? Like yeah, we don't see them around a lot of places, but yeah, I just I always I always think that's not there.
[Emily O'Brien]: That's not really.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: But but I think also a lot of people don't know that necessarily, right?
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, so one would hope.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: It's one tool in the toolbox, right? Lowering speed limit. It's not everything, but it's something.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Dan, I saw your hand first.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. I mean, in general, speed limits are things that people don't tend to pay a lot of attention to except, you know, as in as much as the road design, you know, affects how fast they feel comfortable going. So, you know, I don't like there, there might be places where the speed limit is set to an a value that is unsafely high. And then that would be good to just reduce maybe. But you know, if there are places where we could make modifications like i don't know if it's good if it gives us any power to you know suggest modifications to road design on state roads that would then go with a speed limit reduction but like i feel like that would be a lot more effective than just dropping the number well it could be that if that it means that if the if the hope is eventually
[Emily O'Brien]: When that something on that road will get redesigned, you have a better chance of having that design speed be lower if the speed limit has already been lower for a while. That, you know, then it's like, well, the speed limit has been 25. So designing the road for 25 is not a change, whereas if the speed limit's been 35, then. Right.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: And I don't know if that's the way that that works, but it seems like it might.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: It could be either way, I guess. And the question is, like, what do we aim for first, kind of? Or do we aim for both at the same time?
[Emily O'Brien]: Or we aim for whatever we can get.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Well, yes.
[Emily O'Brien]: Bruce?
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I just wanted to comment both on what B. Dan said. Regarding how effective it is, you're right, the best would be enforcement. Hopefully, if it's a state road, the state police would enforce the lower speed limit. The second is in any sort of crash investigation, a lower speed limit will sway slightly towards not automatically blaming the cyclist because if somebody is traveling 30 miles an hour, for example, you know, somebody might say, well, you know, the cyclist shouldn't have pulled out or something of that nature. At 25 miles an hour, there's a little bit more headroom there, for example. Not that we should expect someone to be honoring the speed limit when you're pulling out in front of them, but nonetheless, there's that liability issue. And in a civil suit, that could also have impact where, you know, you can show that somebody was violating the law in an incident in which someone needed to collect damages. So that's what I had about that. Regarding the original motion here on talking about what we can do with the law, the one thing that I thought was important is the crash reporting. And that would involve us, I guess, working with the mayor or the police chief or whatever to make sure that the reporting is done in conjunction and provide a little bit more information about what to look for and what to remember about cyclist operation so that there's not an automatic prejudice by anyone to report that a cyclist was at fault when, in fact, You know, there were any number of things that the motorists may have done that contributed or with a plain plainly at fault, like passing too close is one example, right? De facto evidence. If someone sideswiped you, they were clearly not passing you sufficiently. And that was previously not law. Let's see what else I think that's the main thing that I saw red light requirement. I don't know, it's sort of the common sense thing, where if you're going to be out at night, you ought to be lit, as opposed to just relying on your reflectors. It does have one thing of interest, which is that you have to have both a front reflector and a rear light. Oh, right, I'm sorry, I misread that. An earlier revision required a red reflector and a red light, but I see it's now been changed to only the red light. All right, so that's it.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: It might have an interesting parallel, or I guess that might be an interesting connection to the Medford Bike Lights program that Ernie has been, I mean, maybe there's more opportunity there to get external funding, you know, with this law now being on the books.
[Emily O'Brien]: or more ways to get attention and get the lights in front of more people who need them too. Ernie?
[Ernie Meunier]: Not to talk about bike lights yet, I guess that's the agenda, but just a little bit more data about how speed limits and state cops work. I remember that speed limits are often set by the 85% mean traffic rule. to be reasonable and state cops don't want to be pulling people over until it's monetarily meaningful, which by state law is 15 miles an hour over the posted speed. Then it becomes an unarguable, more expensive speeding fine. You're not apt to get a state trooper pulling you over for being eight miles an hour over. whereas you are apt to get an irate Medford or Arlington cop to do that if they aren't busy watching.
[SPEAKER_10]: I have a speed sign outside my house and I beg to differ on that.
[Ernie Meunier]: In what regard?
[Emily O'Brien]: Everybody goes past at 35 or more.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I know.
[Emily O'Brien]: They're clearly not worried about being pulled over in Medford. But I think that is a good point where if the speed limit goes from, say, 35 to 25 and the state cops are only interested in people going 15 over, now they're pulling people over for going 40 instead of only if they're going 50.
[Ernie Meunier]: The point is we can't rely on them to do anything except keep egregious speeders from being problematic. That's all. Thanks.
[Unidentified]: Peter? I'm just kind of going back to what we were talking about. I can't hear you very well. Sorry. Not yet.
[Peter Calves]: Going back to something Bruce was saying about the passing, there is a part of that law as well that actually defines safe passing distance, which is something that Massachusetts hasn't had before, so that might be something to look into. Because when you talk about passing too close, That is going to be something because now it's I think three and a half or four feet that you that legally you have to be. Around a cyclist, four feet down. Yeah, perfect. Great.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, that may be also something that we should make, try to make a lot of noise about. Yeah. I think a lot of people have misconceptions about that. I've heard from a lot of people who were not aware that there wasn't a three-foot rule all along. I've heard from who are like, I know I'm supposed to give three feet, but they won't let me have three feet. And, and I sort of start to wonder well where did you even hear that three feet from. But I think this is, this could be an opportunity for something that would be meaningful for us to put some effort into spreading the word about.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I think there's opportunity for, you know, outreach of various types. You know, maybe social media, maybe signage. I don't know if there are any standard, you know, bike passing distance signs that we could put up, Amy.
[Peter Calves]: Not any mass standard ones, but I do know that New Hampshire has standard signs for that. But I had to look up once.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I've seen Florida has a three-foot rule, and I've seen some there that are a little busy, but it's a lot to communicate in one sign.
[Bruce Kulik]: I always thought an interesting place for that would be an advertisement on the back of a bus. That might be something that MassSpyke is interested in doing. We could perhaps inquire or write a letter to them suggesting that they fund some advertising in that regard. It seems like that would be a very effective way of advertising a three-foot rule.
[Emily O'Brien]: I've always wondered why bike organizations like MassBike didn't put PSAs on the backs of buses all the time.
[Bruce Kulik]: It's probably expensive.
[Emily O'Brien]: I'm sure it's expensive.
[Bruce Kulik]: It's probably not so expensive that it's not feasible once in a while.
[Ernie Meunier]: In Canada, I picked up a nice metallic rear bumper sticker, very well made, showing a bicyclist in a car going by with double arrow and a one meter, one M. So it's clear that they've gone metric on that. Does anyone know if there's that kind of standard in the EU or at least outside of North America? where metric has taken over. Because four feet is what, 1.2 meters? It's weird.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I don't think we have to worry about people wanting to use metric in the US. I think we can use four feet and people will understand what four feet is here.
[Ernie Meunier]: That's the unfortunate part about it. I was just curious as to what's standardized now in the EU. I suspect it might still be one meter, but I don't know.
[Emily O'Brien]: It might be. I know that when I was in Germany, close passing was just not a thing that I thought about. It was like people just didn't do it. I don't know if they were thinking, oh, it has to be at least a meter, but I think more often it was you make a lane change, you cross the center line. So you go, if you have to cross the center line, you cross it all the way. Um, and if you don't have room to do that, then you don't pass until you do. So, so in, in that, that's, and that was more of like what people actually did. I don't know if that's because that's what they're taught to do in driver's ed or if that's what they're required to do. Um, but that was, that was definitely most of my experience there. Um, and. They were kind of used to doing that a lot because they had all of these all of these like country roads that would be two lane roads and people would drive at a really high difference between the fastest drivers and the slowest drivers and it was totally normal to just. pass going completely on the other side of the road. And they did it a lot. And the first few times I saw it, I thought I was like, this is a little, this looks a little crazy because it looked, it was a little nerve wracking compared to even how I would expect people to pass here. But they would pass a bicyclist the same way. And if it's a bicyclist hugging the right-hand edge of the lane, they would still cross to the other side of the road to pass. And if there was somebody coming, they would just wait until there wasn't. So I don't know if I don't know if they were just taught to do that and they have a much more strict education for driving drivers license in the first place. But that was what they did and close passing was just not. It was just not a worry.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I think part of it is like a general culture of actually respecting people and, you know, trying to be safe, which we don't have here.
[Emily O'Brien]: But there was some of that there was also from talking to people, people would definitely say, you know, you have to do you better you better mind your p's and q's and don't go a fraction over the speed limit because you will get a high ticket and you will get points off your license and they will come down on you like a ton of bricks and um i even like i even got a couple of 60 euro tickets for doing things that like i wouldn't have as a cyclist that I would have not thought were an issue. One of them was that I made a left turn on a left turn signal for the street, but coming from the bike lane at a time when there was no traffic anywhere, but because I came from the bike lane, I should have used the bike signal and I used the other left turn signal. And that was a 60 euro ticket. So I think there is a certain amount of like, they follow the rules because you get a big ass ticket if you don't.
[Jared Powell]: Point of information on that, I can confirm that in Germany specifically they have very strict and much more comprehensive driver's instruction programs than they do here. They're just, it's more like getting like a pilot's license or a CDL or something in comparison to the way we give out driver's licenses here.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Jared Powell]: I'm from Texas and there they just throw a license at you.
[Ernie Meunier]: Well, in France, even for 50 years, I'm sure, because I've been going there a long time, there was an economic disincentive. or bridge to cross to getting a license and that you had to have, oh, it's something like 20 hours of hired personal onboard training, which costs hundreds of dollars. So lots of people simply couldn't get licenses unless they went through a very rigorous tutorial or apprenticeship even.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I don't think we're going to be able to implement that here.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think we should probably move on from this because it's getting a little bit above our pay grade.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I want us to say something that's actually perhaps relevant, which is that we could, you know, perhaps craft some messaging about don't pass unless you have four feet. Like, you know, as in four feet passing distance is one thing to say, but it's also possible to say, you know, if you don't have four feet, that means you can't pass. And I'm not sure exactly, you know, we'd have to work on the language perhaps, or... Has anyone seen a bumper sticker to that effect? I don't think bumper stickers are relevant here because those are bumper stickers. We need large signs that are on the side of the road.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think that is a really good point, though, because another thing that I'll hear from people is, oh, I always try to leave three feet, but sometimes you can't and you just have to squeeze by. It's like, okay, you got the first part, but you didn't quite get the second part, which is, Out of curiosity, does somebody know, is there anything in there about passing distance on the part of a bicyclist? In other words, is a bicyclist also expected to pass whatever four feet, like whether it's another vehicle, whether it's another cyclist, whether it's parked cars?
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, what about flared handlebars?
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, I don't, I mean, whatever part of the bicyclist, but are you, is there a rule about how much, how much space a bicyclist should pass by? I don't think so.
[Bruce Kulik]: No, and it's also really any rule that applies to motor vehicles, unless explicitly modified for bicyclists. Are the same therefore, if you are passing another vulnerable road user. According to this law, this is an exception for cyclists, which I haven't seen, but maybe it's there. You would be required as well to pass at four feet.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Right, but that's vulnerable road users. That's the important thing there. So if you're passing another cyclist, you need to give four feet, presumably. But if not, if you're passing a car, that is a car passing a cyclist or a pedestrian or any other vulnerable road user has to give four feet. But a pedestrian passing a car
[Emily O'Brien]: And I'm particularly, I'm particularly interested in if we're talking about crafting messaging. Do we need to include anything about, you know, you should. This law expects you to give the bicyclist four feet and the bicyclist also needs to be able to give four feet to somebody else. And that could include, you know, for that could include like somebody getting out of a parked car, even if it doesn't explicitly say the car door. Um, but that, you know, that could be an opportunity to work in something about the dangers of the door zone at the same time. And not only from the standpoint of why it's dangerous for the cyclist, but, you know, if you're the person getting out of your car, you also don't want that cyclist, you know, blowing past your nose. Um, and so I think sometimes you know, people passing a cyclist want that person to get over towards the parked cars. People getting out of a car want that cyclist to get over into the middle of the lane, but they never connect that, you know, you can't want that person to be in one spot because you're over here and in another spot because you're over there.
[Bruce Kulik]: The safest thing to do in that case is to pass the door By a fair distance, because there's no place for a car to squeeze by you. Yeah, when someone else's car door is open, right? And unfortunately, boring is 1 of the major causes of fatality that we've seen in the past 15 to 20 years. So my advice is, regardless of what the law says, make sure that you are away from the door zone so that you don't need to rely on reactions in any case. I know that's uncomfortable for some, but that's the best advice.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, that's why I'm wondering if there's a way that we can work that aspect into some messaging. Probably that all can't fit on the same street sign. But since I've heard this from so many people, it's like, I would give that person four feet if they would move over and give me four feet to give them. There is that kind of missing point there. Sorry, go ahead.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, just to throw something out there. I mean, Caitlin, I saw posted this in the chat. So no, thank you, Caitlin. But I did find the exact verbiage of the law. So in passing a vulnerable user, the operator of a motor vehicle shall pass at a safe distance of not less than four feet and at a reasonable and proper speed. verbatim. So it is specifically defined as the operator of a motor vehicle passing a vulnerable road user. So I just thought I should throw that out there that it is at least that specific.
[Emily O'Brien]: That's good. Thank you. That's helpful. Ernie?
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I still like the idea of a cute bumper sticker that reminds other drivers to drive the way you're telling them to, which is to respect the four foot distance. It can be graphically represented to show all vehicles. It could show bicycles or a generic vehicle, but usually it's a car passing a bicyclist, et cetera. But we could have the message be not so patronizing of drivers and sort of generally instructive, you know, remember the four-foot rule or whatever, with a little picture or something or other that's useful. Works very well in Canada.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, if we're talking about what vehicles for outreach we should go with getting stickers printed is a pretty easy thing. And if we come up with a sticker design, then they can be stuck on bumpers and they can be stuck on lots of things. I think something that's, you know, cute and funny goes over better than something that's preachy.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, like, like, save the bike commission, don't run us over.
[Emily O'Brien]: But, and I would guess that Becca would be talked into designing a cute sticker. She's laughing because we were talking about this.
[Ernie Meunier]: I'll second that motion. Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: So sticker designs are a great thing. Social media is another thing. I wonder if that could be a series of posts saying, what's in this new law? And just a different meme type image that says, here's this point. And then a week later, here's another one. Here's this other point. And those could be shared in lots of different places. Anyone who's interested in doing something like that for the social media stuff. I think we can get together and I would suggest those in images.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: This is not something that would be most effective on our social media accounts, since those are mostly only followed by cyclists who probably already know.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, the aim would be to put it on the bike commission account, but hopefully that people would share it to other places and the various other Medford-related Facebook pages.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. The official city page would be a lot more useful, I think.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, and if we have a series of good images, they can always be used in lots of places, but we have to have them first.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, and this this is a new law, so I mean not plenty of people who bike are not familiar with the requirements of it. I mean, look at us. We're reading through it right now trying to figure out what's in there, right?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I mean, like of the people who specifically follow the Bicycle Advisory Commission on Facebook, I think, you know, they're going to be closer to our level, at least of, you know, maybe so.
[Emily O'Brien]: But if we feed them a bunch of. But if we feed them a bunch of nice images, then they'll share them with their friends. There will definitely be people like, I knew this. Did you know this? Or, hey, look, I didn't even know this. This is interesting or whatever. I mean, that's what it's for to the extent that it's for anything. At least as far as we're concerned, that's what it's for. My I would suggest that, um, if we that we. Talk about, um, then we see if Becca wants to make some sticker designs. Sure. And, uh, and we should be able to order order stickers. I guess by next meeting, well, you know, we can look at the design and decide to order the stickers. Um, we'll have to go through the procurement process to do that, but I don't think it's a complicated thing.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Um, this seems like something that'll fit in our budget.
[Emily O'Brien]: We can aim for bike month something. Yeah. Um, and actually, and also it would be nice to have stickers like that when we do the bike to school day, um, that is a little further down on the agenda. Um, and there would possibly be ways to work in some outreach involving the schools. Um, Ellery Klein is particularly interested in getting some of these things going with the schools. Um, and she organized the bike to school day that they had at the McGlynn and Andrews schools in the fall. So that would be another good opportunity to distribute stuff like this. Do we have anything else we want to add on this topic at the moment?
[Jared Powell]: Just one thing. I sent a link to the text itself of the law, but my computer is doing it slowly because it's doing multiple things, but I'm running an optical character recognition scan on it. In the background, which will make it a searchable PDF. So I'll circulate that so we don't have to go through this clunky image file.
[Emily O'Brien]: I clicked that and tried to search in it, and I couldn't, so.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I'll circulate one that's searchable.
[Emily O'Brien]: Great, thank you. That's excellent.
[Bruce Kulik]: I think all that is available on the MassGL website, is it?
[Jared Powell]: It probably is.
[Bruce Kulik]: You can go find it and search directly on the site. I'll dig up a link where we're going to the next meeting.
[Jared Powell]: Thanks, Bruce.
[Emily O'Brien]: Great, thank you. Next up is ramping up demand for infrastructure projects.
[Jared Powell]: I can speak to this a little bit. I'm open to other people, obviously, as well here, and this is kind of a discussion topic. This is something I've been thinking about a little bit. I see what happens on Medford's various social media pages, political, city, and parental and otherwise. And I get the sense that there are certain voices that can be really loud that aren't necessarily representative of the broader population and tend to be focused on their particular issues and their perspectives and can drown out other voices. But it seems to me based on whenever we have public events and we actually get to talk to people, there's an awful lot of very interested people who want to see the kinds of outcomes that I think we want to see, but they don't necessarily know who to ask for them or how to express that. So this is really meant to be just something I'd like for us to be thinking about, which is how do we build support and vocal support for the kinds of things that we want to see in the city, such that it doesn't feel like, you know, the 11 of us or however many there are kind of operating in the face of this perceived vast opposition, which I don't think is particularly real, frankly. But I'd just like to change the conversation a little bit here and use our social media and whatever other ideas you all have to maybe bring more voices in and help make it clear that the people of Medford want what I think we want generally as a group.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think one one thing that I talked to a lot of people who kind of, they have this vague idea of things that they want, and they have not. don't really know how to go about expressing that to the city. And some of them have never heard of C-Click Fix even, or a lot of them have heard of C-Click Fix and are convinced that nobody ever reads it, nobody ever looks at it, and it doesn't do any good to put anything there in some cases. But then the idea of calling the city DPW, and this is maybe partly also a generational thing, you know, getting on the phone to the DPW to tell them what you think is maybe something that people of some generations are likely to do and people of other generations or other backgrounds just don't do. And so that can be that can be one aspect or the idea that you can you know you can look up the city website and find out who's in charge of this thing that you care about. But, and so I think that's that's some of it is, and maybe we need to even help publicize. Hey, see click fixes is a thing that you can that you can go look up. There are people who, who are responsive and who care what you have to say on and it's worth getting in touch with them.
[Jenny Graham]: I have one thing because I follow some of the Medford Facebook groups. Usually it's not necessarily productive conversation, but there was a whole thread about with residents complaining about about Medford Square and there's so much parking on both sides that emergency vehicles couldn't get through and can we just get rid of parking so emergency vehicles can get through and I was thinking like everyone's piling on and agreeing in a totally unexpected way how like you know is there a way to channel this and you know maybe I don't know I was just thinking like
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, yeah, we do that. Although the same I saw that thread too and then I realized how many of them were using that for the reason why you need to turn every vacant lot into a parking garage. Well, but yeah yeah yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, but it is like the strategy of, you know, bike infrastructure in on street bike infrastructure can also be used by emergency vehicles. Like that's, you know, I've seen that used in the past and I think it's been effective. So, you know, if there's places that we think we can, you know, suggest that, let's do it.
[Emily O'Brien]: Take parking away on one side and then there's room for a bike lane, but there's also enough width for. Yeah, two fire trucks to pass in opposite directions, right?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Or, you know, even just, you know, like there's room for a bike lane and, you know, cyclists can quickly get out of the way if a fire truck needs to use that bike lane.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, that's that's useful in places where you have a need for bike infrastructure, but you also have a lot of traffic congestion where people maybe don't want to give up the travel and moving vehicle space.
[Emily O'Brien]: I mean, of course, in Medford Square, it's you know, we have we have so many places like this where this the available space is just so. It's just so tight, even just for two-way vehicle traffic if you have parking on both sides. Short of making it one way, there's no vehicle space to give up.
[Jenny Graham]: Sorry, go ahead, Becca. I said, especially when cars are now the size of a tank. Yeah, too.
[Ernie Meunier]: It's interesting to see what Somerville has just done connecting 16 and Davis Square. And what's that Holland Street, where there's always been parking on both sides and now it's completely taken away on one side. and establish bike lanes on both sides so that even the parking side is now limited. And in some places, the bike lane goes against the sidewalk and the parking is out into the street. And with bump outs that change directions and two very hard speed bumps. They've completely changed the character of that entire street. Some of it's actually difficult to drive because of the lack of warning paint, we have the bump-outs, but they've changed it overnight. I'm bringing this up to show what other people are able to do, but also to note that, yeah, restricting parking to one side. I've been hammering on that for years now for West Medford, and that's just low-hanging fruit that we could do simply. just have to get it on the agenda. It's interesting to see Somerville make such a dramatic change in one season on a major artery.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: They only did that because someone died.
[Ernie Meunier]: Really? Yes. Yeah, I think they- I don't think they only did that because someone died. Come on, BD.
[Unidentified]: And also because the utility had to dig up the street anyway.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I think they did have a plan to redo that street. And when someone died on, was it Broadway, I want to say, near Teal Square, they went back and they redesigned it. Yeah, exactly. And made it more progressive.
[Bruce Kulik]: I don't know how a boulevard pedestrian was killed. at the intersection of Curtis and Powderhouse Boulevard. Yeah. Great. Thank you, Bruce.
[Ernie Meunier]: Well, that's not even really near that.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Well, Powderhouse is pretty close to Holland. But I mean, the point is, like, they had a plan to redo it, but it wasn't nearly as aggressive. And so the particular design that is there now was only put in place because of a death and was a direct response to that. And like, you know, I would, I would like to, you know, if we could get some aggressive designs in place without anyone dying. Um, but like, you know, they use that politically to, to do it.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah. I mean, I, like, I can confirm it's a, it's a big change. I mean, I w I work around there and I, I bike around there. Like Holland looks very different now. Driving and biking, it feels very different. College Ave between Davis Square and Powder House as well feels remarkably different. That was definitely a stretch that I used to like to avoid. Now, they have the Super Sheroes southbound on college that really just make it impossible to pass if you're riding anywhere near where you clearly have the authority to be, so says the green paint, but it really changes things a lot.
[Emily O'Brien]: I mean, I think I think high street would would really would require. Taking away parking on one side of the street. That's a. I think that would be a that would be a big change. I think it would be great. It would probably be uphill climb, but.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I mean, I do think.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Go ahead. Here's a quick question. I mean, how far could we get with speed tables? I know that the speed tables installed over in Winthrop have definitely slowed down traffic. I've gone past there several times. And I mean, I definitely witnessed people are slowing down when and especially funniest thing was when the, you know, posts were missing on one side. I watched a pickup truck do the whole put one wheel right into the bike lane and, you know, go to avoid the as much of the speed bump as possible. So I mean, I'm curious. how far we could get with just those speed tables strategically placed. It doesn't take away as much parking. I know that residents in our area would, or at least I know residents around me in the West Medford area, we dislike the speeding for many obvious reasons. I think many people would welcome that kind of infrastructure and I think it would help cyclists as well.
[Jared Powell]: So Daniel that that's the, that's the kind of thing that I really wanted to kind of bring this back to which is, I think there are things that that Amy and Todd and and Tim at the city. You know they're professionals and they know how to change these road designs. And what I'm thinking about is how do we give them the cover to do so, and to make it very clear that this is something that people want. I don't want them to feel like they're doing something against the wishes of the citizenry, because I don't believe that they are. And just changing that narrative, I think. could be helpful for Medford so that Medford doesn't have the reputation of being a place that's against change and against safety improvements in the same way we think of Somerville and Cambridge as being somewhat more aggressive on that sort of thing for whatever reason. But we do think of those as being places where people speak up about this, they come to public meetings and they talk about it, they lobby their their city councilors, their mayor and whatnot, to push for these sorts of things. And I'd like for us to be a tool to help make that happen in Medford more.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think that's a really good thought. I also wonder, if a lot of people think the streets are too dangerous, people speed in my neighborhood, or I don't feel comfortable riding my bike, but they're not necessarily thinking enough about the specifics to call and say, remove parking on one side of the street so that you can fit in X, Y, and Z, and this is how I think you should re-engineer this street. It's more, this road is dangerous and it's scary, please fix it. And that is, and for most people, that's where they're at. But that's also a really important voice to hear because, again, you have the, you know, the people that are like, never take away a single parking space, never change a single thing. That's an easy thing to be really specific about. Don't do anything that's different from what it is here. But just getting those voices to say, this is dangerous, and it's scary, and I want you to fix it, even if they're not coming out in favor of, yes, I want seven speed tables, and I want two pedestrian bump outs, and I want this many feet of this and this many feet of that. just to have the voices saying, this is important, this is a priority. I don't know how we mobilize people to do that, but I think that is a really important thing. And maybe that's something that we need to do individually in some of those Medford Facebook groups or next door, things like that, just to encourage people to say, if you're concerned that this is dangerous, call your city officials and tell them you think it's dangerous, send them an email, post on see, click, fix some, you know, pick whatever category you think and say, this is dangerous and it's scary. Find a way to make noise about that.
[Jenny Graham]: I'm wondering if it's hard to kind of have it so this focus and people are worried about each student, if it's better to have certain upcoming infrastructure projects that are possible or streets that's going to get redone and then finding a way to kind of channel people onto a focused topic versus just all the streets because you know it's not going to be realistic to change every street or at least not very soon very quickly but I think it's more about when there is a meeting that public input is needed and when when there's something that comes up that's an opportunity to kind of put some kind of treatments, whether it's like speed cushions or something else, finding a way to kind of make sure the word is out so that people who are concerned will come and speak up in those venues or how to speak up or how they can do that.
[Emily O'Brien]: Along those lines, we have at various times discussed having a newsletter or an email list that would get regular updates. The reason we haven't had that is because nobody wanted to commit to taking the time to do that. But so if you're, keep that, just to keep that in the back of your mind, I see hands up from Caitlin and then Amy. Caitlin, go ahead.
[Kaitlin Robinson]: Yeah, I just wanted to mention like how Cambridge has that I forget what the exact title is, but like that safety group, and then they send out email blasts. So like, I've spoken at Cambridge City Council meetings, because like, I find out like, oh, at this meeting, they're going to be talking about this. And they'll even help you like, sometimes if it's like anticipated to be a long meeting, like they'll have people who are like, okay, if you're the 114th speaker, like someone will text you 20 minutes early. And I feel like having something like that makes it more likely that I will go to a meeting and speak and probably that other people might find out about what's going on. So I wonder if we might figure out how to do something like that to get the word out about things.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think that's a great thought. We need to find somebody with the bandwidths to do it. But we should definitely keep that in mind. If anyone is here and wants to start trying to take that on, please, please, please do. But if nobody here wants to just do it single-handedly, then I think that could be something we could find a way to coordinate with other groups to do it.
[Peter Calves]: make it a group of staff was starting it back in the fall and then I kind of have my p exam that is now consuming all my free time studying so yeah.
[Unidentified]: Amy.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, so I think that the upcoming public meetings, which we haven't fully mapped out yet, but that means that we're going to have for the citywide bike plan coming up will be a good opportunity for you guys to, you know, kind of spread the message, but also to maybe recruit some more folks so you can do some of the things that you were just mentioning. And also just to kind of educate some of those people who have an interest in, you know, safer streets, but maybe don't really have the vocabulary or the knowledge to like know what to even ask for, or maybe even know what the problems necessarily are. So putting that out there, hopefully we're gonna have for the next meeting, we'll have a little bit more specific update for you guys on the city bike plan.
[Peter Calves]: Just to note on people who don't quite have the words, I was tabling at the farmer's market over the summer and someone literally came up to me and described in detail a thing we should do that was the Clippership Connector and they had never heard of Clippership Connector. They're like, oh, we should do this. And I thought she was making a joke. And it's like, no, she just hadn't heard of the Clippership Connector and almost perfectly described the Clippership Connector.
[Emily O'Brien]: For time's sake, I think we should keep going. Ernie, can I hang on to your bike light updates and approvals so that we can get our infrastructure updates?
[Unidentified]: Yeah, sure. Are you asking me to report?
[Emily O'Brien]: No, I'm saying that I would like to move on to infrastructure updates and we'll come back to those because I think we can do that. But Amy is here and sure.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. Not a ton. Just a quick kind of update. I know some of y'all know this already, but. on Winthrop. Definitely been getting a lot of calls and seeing some things on Facebook about Winthrop. There's a lot going on with that. Unfortunately, the timeline that Eversource had given us and finishing their work and actually doing the stuff that we were asking them to do push us too late into the cold and wet season where. Just the materials, like the epoxy materials for the pave markings that we want to do just don't go down and won't stay down as well when it's cold and wet. So we were kind of forced into this situation where we needed to do something temporary, which is basically what's out there now. It's a pretty bare bones version of the pavement markings, just kind of the long lines showing where the lanes are going. A couple of, you know, some bike lane symbols and stuff like that. But just really, it was the minimum that we could do to try to communicate the traffic pattern. So I think its simplicity is confusing some people, but another layer of that confusion is that it's new and different. And I think I've been trying to talk with Todd about this and some others. I think this street and this project presents a really good opportunity for us at the city and you guys as part of the commission to kind of start being more explicit about this kind of messaging and what we're actually trying to do when we redesign streets. A little bit ago when we were talking about the new bill that passed and the speed limits reduction and how that might, if we reduce the actual speed posted speed limit, it might make it easier for us to convince the state that they can do other, that they can basically like design the road to be slower. That's a real argument, you know, and that's exactly what we had done on Winthrop Street. We didn't actually physically lower the speed limit, but we didn't have to. It's already 25, but nobody was doing 25 because the road was designed to do at least 35, if not more. But the way that it's redesigned now is with the design speed of 25. And so I think just that message alone of like this is how we make a lot of our streets safer and keep people from speeding, which is something that I think most people want to happen. We do this by redesigning a street. by changing the way it feels and the way it looks. So, I think that message is an opportunity for us to make that message more loud and clear so people understand. There'll always be some haters out there, obviously, and that don't understand what we're trying to do and don't care if we give them explanation, but I think there'll be also some people who will get it and start to realize what the plan is. So, yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: I've heard from other people too that the paint as it is, is just really, really hard to see it all in the dark. And I know that gets harder in the winter because the salt is whitish and it obscures everything. So I really hope that some of these complications will go away when the new paint goes down. Do you know how soon they might be likely to For that to happen because I know that there was something similar happened on South Street, and it still hasn't gotten its permanent paint. And it was.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, it's, I mean, I think I've said to before, like, ever since it's just been difficult to work with. And that's just another. Another result of them being kind of difficult to work with, but they do owe us. That they owe us mistake at the US. We haven't got final markings on any of those. So. Yeah, in theory, they're coming just as soon as possible. At least for me, I think the priority is Winthrop just because it's in a kind of in-between state right now and it's probably got the highest volume of traffic. So yeah, we're going to get those permanent payment markings in just as soon as the contractor will actually do it. A lot of them lay off their staff this time of year because they end up doing other work like snow plowing or whatever else. So the staff literally isn't around right now. But yeah, we're going to get the permanent stuff in there just as soon as we can. We are also working with Eversource to maybe put some kind of reflectors or reflective tape or something, at least on the double yellow on Winthrop, just to make it a little bit more easy to see. We know that's a problem. Unfortunately, it's just another piece of the position that we've been put in due to this schedule.
[Ernie Meunier]: Ernie? Yeah, small question for Amy. I noticed that where there are pedestrian bump outs here and there, they don't have a sluice through them to allow a bike lane to continue, so that the bike lane disappears, or not the lane, but the tendency would A bicyclist to be on the right is automatically pinched, maybe without a shadow into a narrow pinch point with cars, and that is kind of scary. Do we have a rule or do you have complete flexibility? when you design a road calming pinch point for pedestrians to whether you decide whether or not bicyclists have to get pinched too, or do they go in between the two spots where pedestrians perhaps walk? I mean, I've seen both where pedestrians have to be careful when they're going to the inner part of their pinch point to watch for crossing bicyclists before they have to watch for crossing cars. And I understand that confusion and possible danger, but we have the danger of bicyclists having to quickly not hit a curb and bounce into traffic in order to continue through a pinch point as well. Do you have a An automatic version of that that you go to, or do you consider both types, depending upon the road.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I mean, first of all, we would. consider whether or not we're going to put in a bike lane on a street before we would put in a bump out. So some of it is just having a comprehensive plan like the citywide bike plan. So we have some idea of where we know we want to put in a bike lane or where we can before we actually install bump outs. So some of that is just having a cohesive plan. Some of it would be to do with drainage. Some of it would be You know what other maybe there's some other kind of. Treatments that we could do for the pedestrian instead of a bump out, maybe a raised crossing or something like that. Um, it's yeah, there's not like a set rule about it. But, you know, we would just have to use our judgment to kind of go through the various possibilities and decide what works best. I know that's not that's kind of a squishy answer, but.
[Ernie Meunier]: No, but will you ever allow for pedestrians to have a bike lane cross through it, or is that just too scary for pedestrians.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Oh, like. I think I know what you're saying.
[Ernie Meunier]: Well, even on Winthrop Street, where they put up the bollards, as you're going down Winthrop Street from 16, they put the bollards up through the supposed bike lane. So I have to stop, grab one of the bollards, put it on the sidewalk so that the remaining bollards in line are still there, but there's still a three-foot bike lane toward the right that bicyclists can go through.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: The cones were supposed to be in the buffer, not in the bike lane. If they were in the bike lane, that's because they either got hit or someone moved them into the bike lane. They're supposed to just be in the buffer, so that way the cars couldn't put their tires into the bike lane and go around the speed table.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, okay. Thank you. I didn't want to take too much time with this, but I'm just curious as to what we prefer to do in that situation. And Bruce probably knows.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I'd like to recommend that maybe even make a motion that we recommend that we not ever put a bump out that's going to affect bicycle traffic. In most cases where we've seen the bump outs, they've been in the parking lane primarily, and therefore there's sufficient space for all traffic to cross. But to recognize that cyclists frequently do stay to the right of the main travel lane, and therefore a bump out can come up on them very unexpectedly when there's no bicycle infrastructure on the street. So to take that into consideration is actually making it considerably unsafe for cycle traffic. And basically, what should be taken into account is whether there's sufficient space for, I would say, maybe 14 feet or whatever the appropriate shared lane spaces. So, as to avoid that situation, unless the bump out only goes as far as the parking lane itself. I know many cyclists use the parking lane. That's not really valid travel on a street without a bicycle infrastructure. But I would certainly say that if cyclists are on the right of the main travel lane, that a bump out could cause a pretty serious hazard.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think I can think of a number of places to where you can like Main Street near Tufts Park, there's kind of two bump outs with a long stretch of parking lane in between. And there's, and most people will be riding in the parking lane in between those bump outs if there's not cars parked and they're often depending on the time of day often there aren't. Another spot is If I'm remembering this correctly, High Street where we had the Safe Routes to School project that put in the pedestrian bump out and you get like a little bit of bike lane and then it ends. And if the traffic is going by your shoulder when the bike lane ends, it's very hard to actually merge, especially since there's kind of buffer and parking spaces right after that. So most people will stay straight and they're still to basically to the right of the travel lane and then the bump out happens and you have to and you still have to merge but nobody see nobody in that travel lane sees any of that as a merge zone it doesn't look like another stream of traffic is merging into yours if you're driving in that travel lane and I think that's what makes it challenging to navigate those bump outs.
[Bruce Kulik]: I think it does say bike lane ends at that point and then there is additional hash marking. Yeah, that's the spot where I'm thinking. Part of that particular issue is also some amount of cyclist education so that they can become comfortable controlling the situation they're in. That's a case, for example, where If you're about to overtake another vehicle, both bicycles and motor vehicles, the overtaking vehicle has to be sure to either yield or pass appropriately safely. And that's where if a cyclist is unwilling to assert themselves, you can get into that situation where the motor traffic won't won't notice you and won't stop for you. If you assert yourself, I can almost guarantee that the motor vehicle will yield the space appropriately.
[Emily O'Brien]: And I know that that's a scary thing when you're, you know, you're not, you may not be going that fast at that point, or you have traffic going kind of one car after another past your shoulder. It's hard to get, you know, one person's attention so that they let you in. But for drivers in that travel lane, they just see kind of, they just see a line to their right, and they don't notice the bike lane end sign, and they don't see, they don't care about the cross hatching. It's not relevant to them. Their lane just keeps going.
[Bruce Kulik]: Right, so physically, I don't think there's a lot that's going to happen there. What do you suggest we do to modify motor vehicle operator traffic? I mean, that's the question you're asking.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I live right at the top of that, right where the bike lane ends, and I have to take a left turn onto Woburn Street. And that's a daily occurrence for me, that I'm like, all right, I better find a gap in the traffic and shove myself in the middle of the lane. The biggest issue I really find there is just like speed, whether I'm walking across high street or trying to merge into high street. The problem is people are going well over 25 up that road. I mean, and it gets a lot easier to merge when the speed difference is lower. I would just say that. you know, that entire stretch of high street really does need physical traffic calming. I mean, you know, either as a pedestrian or as a cyclist, it's not always, it's a pretty hair-raising experience to be on that street, whether you're crossing it on a crosswalk or you're trying to merge in bike lane.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: A couple of things I want to point out. One is that in a lot of cases, the parking lane is unmarked. So what you basically have is, you know, an often 18 foot wide lane, you know, quote lane. If there's no cars parked, there's no way to take that lane. such that you can prevent people passing. If you ride right in the middle, cars will pass you on the left probably. If you ride in what is nominally the travel section of that, cars will pass you on the right in the parking lane. It's illegal, but they'll still do it. know, in we also have, you know, where there are lane markings, there are some sort of intermediate bump out issues, like on the Fellsway, what we have is a bike lane with, I think it's a two foot divider painted divider between the that in the travel lane, but then when the bump outs come, the bike lane shifts over so that there is no longer the divider, there's just a line. And I think that's not quite as dangerous as the bike lane disappearing entirely, but it certainly still reduces the distance between the cyclists and the cars. It also brings up, I don't think we've gotten clarification on whether the four-foot passing distance applies when there is a painted bike lane.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I've simply seen a lot of chatter about that online, and I don't think it's intended to be because it's the two separate lanes.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: So if you're in a bike lane, cars can pass you with one foot distance.
[Bruce Kulik]: I don't believe that's true. I think the law makes no notice of lanes with respect to whether being in a separate lane means you don't have to provide the four-foot passing.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I mean, yeah, it doesn't, I don't think it says it either way, so. I wonder what that. The definition of passing would be like passing someone in your own lane, right? You're not passing someone if you're traveling in a lane adjacent to them, you're passing them.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I think it refers to overtaking, so that's a good question. I see what you're saying, whether overtaking means that somebody is basically in your lane or not. That's something for us to ask one of the bike lawyers that we know.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think that could be also a really important question because if you have a five-foot bike lane and you're expecting people to stay four feet away from you, if you're anywhere other than at the very right-hand edge of that lane, then they can't be at the very edge of their lane. If you figure that if it's a five-foot bike lane next to a seven-foot parking lane, You probably need to be in like the left hand one foot of that bike lane or the left six inches of it. If you really want to stay away from car doors, let alone, you know, a seven foot parking lane is not very much if people, you know, if people park really large vehicles in it. And that, so I think that could, that is something we need to figure out because otherwise the math doesn't add up for a lot of our lane widths. Bidan?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, that was it, I think.
[Emily O'Brien]: Can I just move us along a little bit? I'm looking at this list cones along Winthrop. We talked about traffic signals at Boston and College and blue bikes, I think are the last two things on this infrastructure list.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Traffic signals at Boston and College.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think this is something Becca had some questions about.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Okay.
[Jenny Graham]: Well, yeah. I know there's a couple of questions. So I bike up College Ave up the hill towards Tufts every morning and then take a left on Boston. And I know the bike lane's gone away, but I think I have a lot of difficulty making that left. And so I'm just wondering, I know there's changes coming to that intersection as part of the Tufts project, so I wasn't sure if there's going to, you know, what changes about that, but those are my questions.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Oh, sure, yeah. Another thing we're going to have done as quickly as we can when the weather warms up again. But yeah, essentially, we are doing away with the parking on the right there, or I guess both sides really. It's not so much used on the left, but maintaining the bus stop that's there. Trying to remember exactly. I believe the bike lane is on its own there, or.
[Emily O'Brien]: She's talking about on College Ave approaching. Going north, right? Or no.
[Bruce Kulik]: Back with the intersection in general, right, Becca?
[Emily O'Brien]: On College Ave heading south. Heading south. Heading south. Oh, OK. My bad.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: OK. I thought you were going the wrong way.
[Bruce Kulik]: So College Ave heading south, and then what's the left turn you're making? Onto Boston Avenue?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Onto Boston.
[Bruce Kulik]: Where there's a left turn lane?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. We don't have any. Nothing about the improvements that are coming are really facilitating that left.
[Bruce Kulik]: Right, I thought I'd be mistaken if that passed through there in several months, but I thought the bike lane was between the left and the through lane. I'm sorry, there's no bike lane. Yeah.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: There isn't what we're what we convinced the GLX folks to do is to I don't know if there's really a name for it, but to have the kind of like right turn slash bike lane combination. Have you guys seen that? So there's like a kind of dashed bike lane on like the left half of the right turn lane. Essentially, it's kind of like a shared situation, but really to try to get the bicyclists to be in a position in the right turn lane so that they're not going to get right hooked.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I think maybe it's a I think this is an example Highland Avenue at College Avenue might have one.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, exactly. Yep, yep.
[Bruce Kulik]: So I forget what exactly exists here as you're approaching from Somerville. I know Somerville has a bike lane and I could have sworn that there was a transition there, but maybe I just imagined it. Does anyone remember? Wait, when you're heading when you're heading northbound on College Avenue towards Medford.
[Emily O'Brien]: I kind of think that they don't quite meet up right now.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: They don't quite meet up. What happens northbound, and I haven't done this that much recently, but I used to do it daily, is that there's a bike lane going up the hill, and then there is a brief stretch where the bike lane ends and turns into a parking lane. on the right for like, you know, 50 feet or so. There's only a few spots there. And then that turns into a right-turn lane. Well, it's a... It's a straight and right that is, you know, straight on to continue on to College Avenue or right on to Boston Ave and a left-turn lane to go left onto Boston Ave. I actually got run off the road there.
[Bruce Kulik]: No, it's okay. I probably thought there was a bike lane there because I just automatically took the left turn lane in preparation to make the left turn. Yeah. I just assumed that there was actually a bike lane there.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think I kind of remember that like if there's if there are cars parked there, then the bike lane ends at somebody's bumper.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Basically exactly exactly what it does later. It would be great to get to have that bike lane just continue all the way through there, although it wouldn't have. It wouldn't have helped that situation by got run off the road because someone was in the left turn lane and decided to take the straight onto College Ave attempting to go into me and I, you know,
[Bruce Kulik]: Well, they weren't expecting you, were they? To the right of them.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yes, that's correct. They were in the left turn lane. I was in the right turn lane.
[Bruce Kulik]: You were in the straight through lane.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yes.
[Bruce Kulik]: They made an illegal maneuver, but they also weren't expecting you to be there.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, well, I mean, they were behind me until they accelerated, so they could have seen me, but they didn't care.
[Bruce Kulik]: It looks like the bike lane actually does not end at somebody's bumper, but just does not continue beyond the Medford border at that point, based on whenever this was taken.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: We have the design that was passed last fall, I guess, to continue that. That will be implemented as soon as our DPW staff can do it. That's great.
[Jenny Graham]: I have one other quick question if possible. Is the bike box coming back? I know there used to be a bike box at the top.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: For the southbound? Yeah. I don't remember. Let me get back to you on that.
[Jenny Graham]: I can't remember. I'm just asking because B&M, I also got nearly taken out last week, but it was right after we decided I was in the left. signaling left, turning left, staying in the left lane, and they decided to pass on the wrong side of the road. It would fuck me off because, you know, must pass cyclists on the right. But it wouldn't, it's not fixing that, it's just trying to find where to be to be safe to get through that intersection.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I don't envy you trying to make a left there. That doesn't sound easy.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I will say the alternative to that that we've talked about signing better. I don't know if this actually helps your particular route is, you know, go through the Tufts parking lot past the athletic fields on the little I don't know if there's there's also at the moment that that Tufts parking lot is a really muddy mess.
[Emily O'Brien]: um and the um and one of the like one of the private ways that you have to go down is like a ridiculous pothole nightmare yeah harvard terrace is a problem and it would be better if we could just remove parking from that that would help a lot and repave it also but um but in i mean in any case um I think we should, unless there's other questions about that specific intersection, I think we should go on. I guess one more comment about that intersection is, before we moved, I used to go home straight on Boston Ave a lot. And I would often be coming at kind of off-peak times. And I had a constant frustration that if you get there on a bike wanting to go straight on Boston Ave, The loop sensor doesn't detect a bike, and you would get like three seconds to try to get through this, you know, 180 feet of intersection or whatever. And so, every single time get stranded in the middle. And then when you, the light turns green before the cycle goes all the way around again, because of other maneuvers where that middle section has the green, but then you have to cross the paths of people trying to turn left from Boston onto college. And it was always kind of a mess. And so I would always be coming from basically the lowest traffic approach to that intersection. And I recently had a, some back and forth with Todd about this and basically try to calculate if you're take five seconds to accelerate to 10 miles an hour, and you basically max out at 10 miles an hour, how much time do you need to get through an intersection this long? And that's the very back of the envelope, but I figure it probably takes into account a lot of people on a lot of kinds of bikes, even if it's not everybody. And he retimed that condition of that light. So basically, it only affects the times when that loop detector isn't triggered. And that's the only time it was ever a problem. It was just that if you get there with nobody to trigger it for you, you would have not enough time. And those are also the times when traffic is by definition really light, because if traffic's not really light, then there will be other cars there. And if there's somebody triggering it, then you have enough time. Um, so I believe I believe that's not true.
[Bruce Kulik]: I've had situations where I've been behind 1 or 2 cars. And, um, obviously, I'm the 3rd vehicle through and the light will have turned yellow. In the same circumstance, in that case, I always just continue. Yeah, because it still takes another. 2 or 3 seconds before the other traffic's been given the entry.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: If you're the last vehicle through, basically, it's the problem because it shuts off.
[Emily O'Brien]: And to some extent, you can never solve it completely if somebody is always going to be the last.
[Bruce Kulik]: Right. But at the very least... I think the sensor actually does detect a bicycle, if I recall correctly, but the timing is such that it only allows a minimal amount for the last vehicle through.
[Emily O'Brien]: Right. Um, I haven't had it. I haven't gotten there when there were no other cars yet. Um, I seems like I've been in a big hurry and if I'm in a big hurry on the way home, that's not the most direct way home. Um, but I will, I will make a point of checking that out. Um, do we have, uh, any new updates on blue bikes while we're on this subject?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, so we have seven more that are publicly funded that are coming, you know, sometime this season. They'll probably kind of happen in little dribs and drabs just because of kind of the locations becoming finalized on an individual basis in some cases. But we are gonna place the order pretty soon. And so we're hoping at least like two or three of them will happen You know, we don't have to wait for warm weather for these. Um, so we're hoping that, you know, those two or three will happen, you know, uh, as soon as we get the equipment basically. So in the next couple of months, maybe. Um, yeah, we, I don't know if there's any actually actual locations that I can, um, divulge to you guys right now that are finalized, but I can give you general areas. We're looking to move, uh, to kind of close the gap between, excuse me. between Wellington station, the one that's at Wellington station and the Medford Square station. So kind of moving along like Riverside Ave and a little bit into the neighborhoods north of that. So yeah, so essentially closing that gap and moving northward. And then we're also looking at shifting a little bit west from the two stations in South Medford, eventually making it to West Medford, if not, if not quite that square, then pretty close to it. So trying to, you know, find the strike the right balance between good spacing between the stations, but also spreading the blue bikes joy to other neighborhoods that we're not hitting right now. So.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Are you looking for input on location?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: We sort of it's like we've kind of held back on getting like just like open input on where to put stations in part because it's there's just a lot of factors to consider about where to put them. So more like feedback on what we're actually doing, I guess. If there's something, if there's really a place that you want to station, feel free to obviously reach out to me and let me know. But we've had discussions about this and I think the open, like, where would you like a station? We just get into really difficult conversations because there are just so many factors. We're trying to, as much as possible, continue to put them on city property. But we pretty quickly run out of city property to do that in locations that we want it. So we're also trying to not take away parking, at least in the beginning of it. But also we all run out of opportunities to do that as well. So.
[Jared Powell]: Jared, did someone raise my hand digital or did it just see me do that now?
[Unidentified]: I didn't do it.
[Jared Powell]: I raised my hand and then a little yellow thing.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, see if it follows.
[Jared Powell]: And the little yellow thing popped up and it raised my hand automatically. Wow, that's incredible. The wonders of technology. Let's see. Well, now that I'm distracted from that, Amy, sorry, you mentioned a couple that the city was putting in. I believe in the past you said that there was a couple that Tufts was planning to put in as well. Are those gonna be presumably somewhere In between the stations, you're kind of looking at right like.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, last I heard they wanted to do 2, like, relatively close to the station 1 on. Boston have and went on college have I think there's still kind of like. negotiating the contract stuff. I think they're hung up on some of the language that the city was hung up on and I think their lawyers just need to be like, okay, everything's fine. This system has been running for 10 years and like everyone else has been okay with this. So just move on, which is what the city did. So I think it's just a, this is new and scary kind of situation, but eventually. It'll get worked out and they will have their stations, but actually that reminds me that there are a few other privately funded stations that will hopefully be coming online around the same time so this coming season.
[Unidentified]: Great Thank you.
[Emily O'Brien]: Daniel did you have your hand up.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay. Wait, did it actually raise my hand? No, no, I just saw your hand. No, sorry. I was attempting to see if I could replicate what Jaron was saying.
[Jared Powell]: It's just me. Didn't do it this time.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, I did.
[Unidentified]: Wow. Fascinating.
[Jared Powell]: You have to hold it for a few seconds.
[Ernie Meunier]: I don't know. Mine didn't do it yet. You have a difficult kind of process.
[Jared Powell]: Thanks, Mack.
[Emily O'Brien]: Moving on to other exciting topics. One quick thing, hopefully quick, is back in the fall, Ellery Klein planned a bike to school day at the McGlynn and Andrews Schools. We've been talking about doing something like that at the high school coming up this spring in celebration of new bike lanes on Winthrop Street. Most likely this will have to happen late enough that it's warmer and light at going to school times. But that's so we do have some time. I've reached out to a couple of people at the high school. I'm hoping to get a number of students involved with this and also see what other ideas the students have themselves for how to make it a fun thing to get lots of kids on their bikes. I don't know if that's something that they will feel the need to have an info session beforehand, distribute lights beforehand, you know, show off how to carry your backpack on your bike or something like that, so that we'll find out. This is in early planning stages, but if you're interested in helping out with that or if you have any contacts at the school, let me know. I think that could be a great event and I hope that we can be well involved with that. As the time comes, we'll also need volunteers to lead rides in both directions. The way that it worked at the earlier one is we We had routes planned for basically caravans planned from four different parts of Medford, and they all three of them converged in one spot, and then met up and went the rest of the way together and one of them just went the rest of the way, and there were a couple of meetup points along the way so the group met at the beginning and then, and I started the West Medford group at Joe Pizza. And then we had one or two other spots where we were expecting other families to meet up with us. So we kind of accumulated more people as we went along. And we'd probably do something like that. And it requires somebody to lead rides in the morning, but then also somebody to do the same in the afternoon to get the kids back home. Theoretically, high school kids are old enough to do this by themselves, but their parents may or may not feel that way about it. So we should expect to be providing bribe leaders, volunteers in both directions. So that's just something to keep in mind and get in touch with me if you're interested in helping to plan that. And the other item I have here, the backstory to this is There were a couple of really, really bad potholes in really, really bad places. I mentioned the one on Riverside and that people had been reporting on sea click fix for months and nothing happened. The one on Riverside, I knew of a couple of people who had crashed in it and then somebody else that I didn't even know about until I saw it. posted on see click fix that they fell into it and crashed and, you know, ended up with some stitches. And again, these are things that had been reported multiple times over a long period of time. And we know that the city doesn't have the resources to fix every pothole and do every possible repair as soon as it happens or as soon as it's reported. But there are a few places where a pothole is more likely to just cause somebody harm imminently than others. And so, I asked Amy if she thought this would be a useful thing. And I came up with a list of locations and a list of criteria for places where if there are potholes, those really should be particularly high priority because those are the most likely to cause somebody serious harm. So I'm going to share the list that I came up with. And this is my intention here was to keep it to a short list. This is basically for triage purposes. Oh wait, that's not it. Can you see the map?
[Unidentified]: Yes. Okay, good.
[Emily O'Brien]: So, I'm trying to keep it to a short list that can be as useful as possible while also hitting the spots that I think are just the worst for this. So my thinking is if it's a steep downhill, that means you're going faster, you're less likely to see it in time. you're hit it harder if you hit it. If it's someplace where it's narrow and passing is really difficult, you just have less room to avoid it or passing traffic might be less likely to want to give you the space to avoid it. If it's someplace where traffic situations are just complicated and your attention is really divided or other people's attention is really divided. So this is what I've got here. and I'm interested in anybody's input. So this is Main Street, northbound especially, because that's the way you're going downhill. Fast speeds due to grade, narrow roadway that makes passing difficult.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Emily, you might have the wrong screen. We just see Medford High School and Lawrence Woods on your screen.
[Emily O'Brien]: Oh, that's... Interesting.
[Ernie Meunier]: We're seeing the whole city without lines. No, no.
[Unidentified]: Oh, just Google.
[Emily O'Brien]: Let me try this again.
[Unidentified]: Here we go. Does that look Oh, yes, yes, much better.
[Emily O'Brien]: Okay. Okay, good. So, This is so these are the spots that I that I made my list. Both of these two rotaries. Some of these are just one direct. I specify just one direction. Some of them I specify both directions. Main Street northbound down here. This is Harvard Street, both directions, heavy traffic, minimal safe passing. There was a pothole at the railroad overpass right before that, that was like a gigantic hole and it had been reported by lots and lots of people for months and months. It has been filled now.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Oh, good. I didn't realize it had. It has.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I went and I stopped and checked. So thank you very much for making that happen. Yeah, no problem. But this is the kind of thing that was a gigantic hole that could easily be filled with water and invisible in a place where you have a lot going on, your attention is divided. If you do crash into it, there's a lot of traffic around you that could crash into you afterwards. And something that you know, that one had been reported by many people for months and months. And so if we can provide a list of kind of the places where a hole like that is the most likely to really hurt somebody, hopefully, you know, even if some potholes get reported for months and months before they get fixed, hopefully maybe at least the ones on these particularly troublesome spots are not the ones that go months and months without getting fixed. So, and I also made a list of criteria that make a roadway particularly bad to find a pothole in. So when the road is narrow and there's no shoulder and no bike lane, people are more likely to pass you closer. You have less room to steer around a pothole. And if you hit one and you crash, then you're more likely to hit by other traffic afterwards. If there's heavy traffic in both directions, it makes passing more difficult, which again, it just makes it that much harder for people to maneuver around a pothole. Steep grades, obviously, if you're going faster, you'll hit it harder. You'll need more advanced notice, so you'll need to see it from farther away. roads that don't have quieter alternatives. So a lot of these are places where if you want to go that general direction, you really have to be on that road because it's the only one that goes that way. And then I have a list of factors that make specific holes more dangerous. So if it's large enough for a bicycle wheel to fall into and not easily roll out of, that's kind of obvious. If it's in the most likely path of a cyclist, so like if it's on the left-hand side of the travel lane, it's probably less concerning. It doesn't mean it's not still bad and a cyclist could still fall into it, but it's a little bit less likely. Something that extends across a wide portion of the roadway, such as a crack that's perpendicular to the direction of travel, just because it's a much wider thing to get around. Deep cracks that are parallel to the road direction because that can catch your tire. potholes that are difficult to see in time to avoid them. The one on Riverside Avenue had rounded over edges. It meant that from a distance, it just looked like a very thin hairline crack until you're right on top of it and you realize that it's not, but it's too late at that point to get around it. Then things that are in low-lying areas that fill with water when it rains because if it's filled with water, then you have no idea. that there's a pothole there. So I'm suggesting that we adopt this list as a recommendation to the city as a kind of as a priority, a list of priorities for triage purposes. Of course, we want them to fix all the potholes. But if that can't happen, at least the ones that are the most likely to hurt somebody imminently would be nice. I saw your hand first.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: A couple of thoughts. I agree with all of those, but might add a couple of things. One is that. In cases where it's hard to see, which is honestly a lot of them, even the relatively easy to see ones are still hard to see in a lot of circumstances. If we could just get some bright reflective paint around them as soon as possible, that would help reduce some of the danger.
[SPEAKER_10]: Bernie needs to get back on his bike with his spray paint can.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Where have you been for four years? Um, the other, the other thing is that like, I think all of these criteria are good as like, uh, analytically, but also the more people that report something. Like that probably means that more people are hitting it, you know, and like, they're more likely to report it if it's bad. When they hit it rather than just like a minor thing. So that's like just number of reports is also its own, um, like level of severity.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. And it is, and it is, you know, unfortunate to see these things that get reported for months and months and months. Um, And, you know, and but if we can't, I don't, I would like to think that they know that if lots and lots of people have reported it, then it's a big deal. But if that's not enough, maybe this is helpful, Bruce.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I agree with your list very much. I'd like to make the motion that we approve this list to be sent, I guess, to the DPW as guidance, or at least our requested guidance. The one thing I would reorder on that list is a wheel diversion can be an incredibly bad situation without any traffic around or whatever. If your wheel gets snagged by a rail or a pothole like that, it will throw you mercilessly. I had a crash on the Minuteman bike trail of all places. When I ran off by accident, tried to come on too quick, the pavement grabbed my wheel and I just slammed into the pavement. Yeah, fortunately, not getting hurt too badly, but I'd like to see that moved up in priority because that that can be a very surprising.
[Emily O'Brien]: Crash for somebody, that's a good point, and that's also something that it's it affects cyclists a lot, but it may be, you know, next to unnoticeable.
[Bruce Kulik]: Indeed, yeah, larger, larger wheeled vehicle, that's for sure. So I'd like to put that motion as an official motion of the committee.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Daniel. Just as a point of clarification for me, did we have a map where we pointed out specific potholes that were of high priority? I'm trying to remember previous. I don't think so. Okay, is it worthwhile having some sort of commission reported
[Emily O'Brien]: I'm guessing that to me that seems like no, because first. I'm. The reason that I want this to be more general is I want it to apply to the things that just that don't have bike commission members happen to ride by them every day. Potholes just come and go faster than we have meetings. We could spend every meeting updating a map of potholes. But I think it's more useful to give a digestible guidance that's a little bit more universally applicable. Amy?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I think this is awesome. This is some really helpful information. I do want to try to figure out or just ask DPW staff, highway staff, what their process is for determining which potholes they're going to fill and which ones they're going to prioritize, which ones I guess they're going to ignore. I can't speak to what happened with the Harvard one. That one seems like maybe that was accidentally missed or something. I can't imagine why they would leave that and not having so many requests for so long and not having filled it. Unfortunately, last week we didn't have our little operations meeting that we normally have. They're bi-weekly, so I haven't had the opportunity to talk to them since this came up. I think I would, but I guess I'm asking you guys to have the opportunity to talk to them and figure out what their prioritization process is now. I assume there's got to be something. I'm not sure how complex it is, but there's definitely got to be something. I know that we're trying to move towards that as a department. If I can just yeah if you guys wouldn't mind if I talk to them and about their existing process first before it's on them is that okay? Yeah yeah yeah absolutely. Conversation would go better that way.
[Bruce Kulik]: I will withdraw my motion on that.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Thank you I appreciate it. But I think this is awesome.
[Emily O'Brien]: That's great we want we want the we want the process to work as best it can. Along those lines I actually have another question. Is there Is it likely that they prioritize requests that have photos over requests that don't? I'm sure there's some psychology in there. I know that people are used to ignoring posts on social media that don't have photos versus ones that do. But in this case, I think it maybe is important to point out that A lot of the potholes that are in the worst places are also the hardest to take a photo of because you're already doing everything you possibly can to, you know, maneuver through traffic and get around that pothole and, you know, getting off of the road and looping back to get a picture and then getting back into the road again. is, is really, is really complicated. So if there's a, if there's requests that don't have photos, it's not because the person didn't. Think it was important enough to take a picture. It just might be because if it's in a, if it's in a really bad spot, that also is by definition, harder to take a picture of.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: That's a good point. Yeah. I, I doubt that it's explicitly in there, but it might be subconsciously somehow.
[Emily O'Brien]: I see Ernie and then Bidan.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah. Amy, before your time, the modus operandi as described and requested by Tanagli, the head of the DPW, was to meet him at seven o'clock at the DPW and tell him where the potholes are, or as I marked them with circles, to call him afterwards and tell him where they are. By last year, when I was simply, I wasn't going to do that, of course, I don't get up that early. But last year, I noticed that within two weeks of these circling potholes, they were attended to, which also was partly because people who saw circled potholes in front of their houses then called and said, oh, you discovered the pothole. Thanks for coming to fix it. It would get done. That can't happen in the winter. I also haven't been on my bike yet because of the accident that I had. And Chairman, I would really like two minutes about the bike lights. Maybe we've forgotten the order of the agenda.
[Emily O'Brien]: No, I didn't forget and I'm watching the clock.
[Ernie Meunier]: All right, good.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: So be Dan quick and then very quickly, I just add to the like questions about the process. what is the process for keeping track of CClickFix requests, basically?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Like, you know, what happens to- I mean, not everything, just the ones that pertain to me and Todd and these potholes that have kind of elevated to being dangerous, like potholes. It's a work in progress, but I am the process.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: You are the process, okay. So DPW doesn't monitor CClickFix at all then,
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: They do, they do, whether or not they're tracking, like when they take care of the stuff. I don't think so.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: That's kind of the, like, you know, if, if some, if people would keep reporting the same thing, like, you know, does that go, does that get tracked in any way or does it just sort of go into a giant, um, you know, box that they don't look at in aggregate?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I think the latter is true. And so, um, can we.
[Ernie Meunier]: I just want to ask one tiny thing about that. Is a distinction made between private ways and city streets with regards to potholes? Because I was trapped in the private pothole in the former.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I don't think that we will fill potholes on private ways. Okay, even downhill? I don't think so.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: That's kind of the definition of a private way is that it's not maintained by the city. Yeah.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, it's a weird gray area though, because we do plow some of them and there's kind of vague language about like a safety hazard, but then like what is a safety hazard exactly? Yeah, it's a little weird.
[Bruce Kulik]: Are you aware is there anyone that enforces safety issues on private ways?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I'm sorry.
[Bruce Kulik]: For example, if someone were to crash a bicycle on a private way, then there could be a civil action there against the particular owner, I presume, of the street at that point, which would be the adjacent property owner. But is there, you know, if there's something egregious on a private way that the city can enforce?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I do not know. I think we would have to ask the lawyers about that.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, okay.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[Emily O'Brien]: Um, so I will, um, Amy, if you want, I can send you my draft of what I worked on. Um, but we are not, we'll put it on the agenda for next meeting and we'll get an update on what the DPWs process is for that. And in the meantime, Awesome.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Thank you. Appreciate that.
[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you. We appreciate your efforts on that. Uh, Ernie, can we get the, uh, bike lights updates?
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, let me segue backwards, because I did want to mention that we're talking about the public information around crashes and now liabilities and all that. I happened to get a call from Tufts Medical Insurance Company yesterday, because the bill for me at MGH following the bike crash was 33 grand. And I had to pay none of it, just a small copay. And they're, of course, chasing the insurance company of the person I was in a crash with, whose insurance company denies coverage or any liability because the Medford police erroneously said that I caused the accident and went through a stop sign that doesn't exist. So for six months, five months, that hasn't been an issue because nobody's really suing anybody. But I think that all of a sudden, Tufts healthcare plan may be coming after an insurance company and looking for all data around the accident as part of capturing back some of their funds, medical funds that were spent that might be readjusted with the insurance company. That might happen. It's weird because I haven't done anything else about it and didn't plan to, but it looks like now there may have to be some legal action somewhere. I'm not sure whether it will involve the Medford police or Todd or whatever. Going to the bike lights, nothing's really new from last time. I happen to have 80 left over from the November distribution, which went really well before Thanksgiving, all the schools, principals, principals in the schools, vice principals, etc. were very happy with that. We ran into at an event I guess, in December, with an officer who was supposed to work with us a little more closely around bike safety and kids. The principal seemed to know him. I'm missing his name. He has come up with 90 or 100 helmets, I believe. He wants us to help distribute. And I'm not sure when that's going to happen. In regards to getting more bike lights for the spring campaign, I need a good six weeks lead time there because of the five-week delay in shipping. So just want a quick formal approval on buying the next batch of 240 light kits to, if I place the order next week, I'll get them mid-March, and that's good timing to run around to the schools and feed them for the spring. partly because I will be away most of April and early May at conferences and finally a bucket list trip to Croatia. So I'm going to get as much done as I can before the beginning of May and probably get all of them distributed and hope that somehow any other activities can be shared with members here. I haven't thought or done anything else around a parallel distribution to those who are wheelchair bound, a population who expressed extreme interest in having safety lights on their vehicles, if you want to call them that. I know that's not within our bailiwick, unless we want to call them vehicles.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Point of order. The term wheelchair bound is generally considered offensive. Wheelchair users, please.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. Yeah, thanks a lot.
[Ernie Meunier]: So I think I'm just going to sort of call it there.
[Emily O'Brien]: I'm not sure what else to say, but I like, well, then I guess we need a motion to approve you to motion to approve you to buy those next round. All in favor.
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: Motion approved and Ernie will order the next round of bike lights. If you think they'll be in by probably mid-March, that might be a good reason to schedule the bike to school day for some time in late March, early April.
[Ernie Meunier]: Possibly even early March, but mid-March is safer.
[Emily O'Brien]: Right. Well, to be on the safe side.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yes. Well, good, thanks. And I'll be able to report more about this on our next meeting. If anyone wants to talk about or get on a campaign for distribution of bike helmets, you know, we're, I think, seriously in need of looking at that. and I'm not sure I want to head that up just yet, especially with, I'm just not sort of back there yet. And again, B. Dan, sorry for the misstatement. I'm still recovering from a severe post-concussive situation, okay? Had an MRI yesterday, not 100% back there. So excuse my faux pas.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: It's the fourth time you slap back to me at this meeting, okay?
[Ernie Meunier]: I'm now counting, and I'll let it go. I'm sorry for that outburst, but thank you. That's it. Thank you, Emily.
[Emily O'Brien]: Um, along those lines about helmet distribution, that was, um, officer Canova to in December. And, um, he has some bike helmets at the police station. So if we do, I did reach out to him at one point and I don't know if he ever got my email. He never answered it. Um, But that would be one thing. I think it would be great to be able to publicize that anybody who wants a free helmet can go to the police station and ask for one and get one. If that's possible, that would be great with bike lights too. That's a place where it's always there. It's not dependent on which volunteer has time to show up at some event somewhere and has a space for a lot of helmets in their basement. So if we could, make arrangements so that you can walk into either the police department or city hall and pick up free helmets and lights anytime you want them. I think that would also be great. Even the library, something like that.
[Bruce Kulik]: Years ago, there used to be a person who actually had Medford bike safety and was providing, I think helmets, I don't think lights were in vogue at that point, but maybe we could find someplace as such. I don't know. I don't want to nominate any particular office, but the energy committee might come to mind because it's very close or maybe some other first floor office who would be willing to just have them available. Shot in the dark there. I know.
[Emily O'Brien]: I know helmets especially take up a lot of space.
[Ernie Meunier]: That's part of the problem because he can't carry more than a dozen or two in his SUV. He also would like to double up with me or us in distributing and fitting helmets, as well as passing out bike lights. But now this becomes, you know, a workshop or tutorial at recess time or after school. It's not just dropping off lights, but becomes a program that really needs formal organization and logistics. So I'm not ready for that yet. But let's maybe talk about dovetailing that stuff in March.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, well, that would also be a good thing to put on our agenda for the next meeting to break. Daniel.
[Unidentified]: Thank you, sorry.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Very quick. I'd be curious if the advertising the bike helmets at the police department or another official city of Medford building could be done through the city announcement system. I know that sometimes we get announcements about just, you know, even like events, simple events occurring.
[Unidentified]: Could it be a city event that could be pushed through that system?
[Emily O'Brien]: That's a good thought. I don't know what the procedure is for getting on that list, but it would be worth looking into, especially if we have a place set up where people can just walk in and pick up helmets and lights.
[Unidentified]: Do we have anything else? We're running a couple minutes over. Move to adjourn. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. All right.
|
total time: 10.56 minutes total words: 946 |
total time: 2.71 minutes total words: 293 |
||