[Emily O'Brien]: All right, the October 26th meeting of the Bike Commission will come to order. Dennis, do you have some verbiage for us?
[Denis MacDougall]: I do. On July 16th, 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 to March 31st, 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 15th, 2022 to March 31st, 2023. Great, thank you. Daniel, would you like to call the roll?
[Unidentified]: You'll have to unmute yourself. There we go, sorry.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Sure thing, sorry. Let's see. Just jumping over. Let's see, Jared Powell.
[Jared Powell]: Present.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay. Patrick Bivins. Here. Great. Bruce Gulick.
[Unidentified]: Present. Emily O'Brien. Here. Beat Ann Fairchild. Here. Ernie Munyam.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I do not see Ernie. Doug Packer.
[Unidentified]: Here.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Peter Cowles, who I believe said would not be here. I think that's right. Gaston Fiore. Here. Daniel Nuzemuller. Here. And Rebecca Wright, who I believe said would not be able to join us today. So let's see, that gives us eight, which I believe is a one.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think we're good. Great. And we also have some visitors it looks like. If you're a visitor, would you introduce yourself, either unmute yourself and introduce yourself, or you can do so in the chat if you prefer, whichever way.
[Jared Powell]: It looks like Jared just joined us, too. It looks like I'm in a cave, but I'll fix that momentarily.
[Unidentified]: Okay, noted that Jared is in attendance. Hi, I'm a visitor.
[Kaitlin Robinson]: I'm Caitlin Robinson. I had come to some meetings probably like six years ago, and then we moved out of Medford and we just moved back into Medford a couple weeks ago. So I'm interested in learning more about the work that's going on in this committee. Great.
[Emily O'Brien]: And we have Jamie Crennulin and JP Pachowski.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very close.
[Emily O'Brien]: Introduce themselves on a chat. Jackie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, my name is Jackie Campbell. I moved to Medford last September, and I just found out this committee existed, so I'm very pleased to join and be here today.
[Emily O'Brien]: Great, well, welcome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[Emily O'Brien]: So our Our first order of business is we have quite a few minutes to approve. We had several meetings in a row where we did not manage to get quorum. So those and those have been circulated along with the agenda. Are there any questions about that? Do we have a motion to approve all of them on mass or one at a time?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Seconded.
[Bruce Kulik]: We should probably do one at a time because I think I was not present for some of the meetings, so can't really confirm whether the minutes are correct.
[Emily O'Brien]: Okay, so in that case, do we have a movement to approve the June minutes?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: In which case, wait a sec, should those of us who were not present for the ones that were approved abstain?
[Emily O'Brien]: No, don't abstain because you weren't at the meeting. Because the whole reason we didn't approve minutes was because we didn't have quorum. So I think we can approve minutes for meetings that you weren't at. You're just giving your approval that you assume that that's what actually happened at the meeting.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Right, that was the question, yes. Sounds good to me. which means we could do them all en masse.
[Emily O'Brien]: Does anybody have questions or concerns about any of them? In that case, I would move that we approve them en masse for June, July, August, and September.
[Unidentified]: Seconded.
[Emily O'Brien]: All in favor?
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: All opposed? All those following minutes are approved, June, July, August, and September. For announcements. I think Pat has an announcement.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_06]: Yes, I do. I do have an announcement. So I let Emily and Daniel and Jared know a few weeks ago that I'm going to be stepping down from the commission. It's been eight years and really it's been just a wonderful experience all around. learned a lot about bikes, and infrastructure, and city works, and I made a lot of friends. But I feel like there's some really solid leadership in place right now. And I feel like it's a good time to step away and give other people an opportunity to get involved. you know, provide leadership for the city. And I do, about a year ago, I joined the board of Bike to the Sea, which is the organization that is kind of the stewards of the Northern Strand Trail. And actually just this morning, I rode out to Saugus in the rain and attended the official ribbon cutting that opens the trail. It's actually been complete for about a year. But the Secretary of Environmental Affairs was there, mayors from all the five towns that it goes through. So that was kind of a big moment. And so I'm doing, I'm doing lots of things over there. One of the things we were really trying to do is kind of reach out to like other communities that are close by them, certainly. So, look forward to collaborating in working with all of you in that capacity. So I thank you for the opportunity, and I think our work together will continue, but just in a different way. So thanks.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, thank you so much for everything you've done for the last eight years, and we will definitely miss you. I think we are all very appreciative of everything you've done.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, thank you. Do continue to call on me if I can help out in any way. Oh, we will.
[Bruce Kulik]: I'd like to just say I'm pleased to hear that you're on the board of the northern strand. That's a really key trail connecting up in that direction. And once we get some over our connecting infrastructure set up, you'll be able to go all the way from Concord to Lynn almost entirely off road. So. Great, great thing to have you on board that committee.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, that's great.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Can we officially vote to commend Pat for his service?
[Emily O'Brien]: I think that's a great idea.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Absolutely.
[Emily O'Brien]: Seconded. All in favor?
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: Aye. Aye. We officially commend Pat for his long service to the Bike Commission.
[Ernie Meunier]: Pat, I think I'll miss you and I instantly feel older. Yes.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, thank you so much for joining and starting the commission, really. I mean, you were here when it started, right?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_06]: I mean, yeah. Bruce and Doug and I think we're all charter members here.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, thank you for everything that you've done for the city for so many years. I mean, I think you know, maybe we underestimated exactly how many hours you were putting into preparing for all of the events and things. It seemed like every time there was any type of public event that required a commission presence, it seemed like you always popped up with what could only have been dozens and dozens of hours worth of work and projects that were always very engaging to the community. And I think you are just such a strong, public face for the commission and just such a good demonstration of earnest leadership. Thank you so much for everything that you've done for the years. I'm sorry to see you go, but I'm glad at least that you'll still be providing your services to the greater community. Thank you.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Yeah, I've always appreciated how you're able to present everything in such a positive and upbeat way, even when we're asking for something that's a really serious need and you're able to make it seem like, oh, look, you have this wonderful opportunity to do the fabulous thing that we really, really need you to do. So on that note, We have also discussed that this may be the time to start looking for some new members as well. Our numbers have gone down a little bit. I think we will have to discuss putting out a general call. But certainly if you know of anyone, if you can think of anyone, let's help get the word out. My thinking is that in particular, it would be nice to have someone with kids of an age to be riding bikes to school. There's nothing wrong with toddlers and babies or It would be nice to have. Kids who are out of high school or almost out of high school, but it would be nice to have someone. And if in between those ages, it would also be great to get people with experience. Or interested in getting some experience in writing grants. Looking for grants. there's, you know, if you have other skills in mind, that would be great to look for. That's the thing to think about. Also, you know, it's always great to have some diversity of experience levels and diversity of backgrounds. So it would be nice to also You know that the we need. We also need members who are less confident cyclists. It doesn't have to only be people who have been biking for transportation for years and years and years. It would be great to get people who are. Really interested, but less. Less confident because those are important perspectives too, so. I guess that's for right now. We just need to be thinking about that. I think. Our next move is to approve opening a call for new members. And then I think I have to look into how to do that. Or Jared and I can talk about how to do that.
[Jared Powell]: Sure. The city has a process for where they can make the official call. Yeah, we'll have how many people do we have now? We've got 11 about to be 10. So I think around 13 has been kind of a target number. So we at least have space for a few.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. I think we've gone up to 15. And of course, the more people we have, the more people there are to do more interesting things. But then the higher our quorum number is also. So that can be a double-edged sword too.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Basically, however many people we have, we need to make sure that enough of them will show up on any given month.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, yeah. So do we have a motion to start the process of opening it up to new membership applications?
[Jared Powell]: So moved. Seconded.
[Emily O'Brien]: All in favor?
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: All opposed? OK, we'll open that up to new membership applications. And I hope everyone will help put out the word and do some recruiting and bring your friends, et cetera. If you know people who might have applicable skills, that would be great.
[Jared Powell]: And time. And time. Yeah, people willing to put in some time is always useful. I think sometimes we have a lot of eagerness, but not always the hours in the day. So anyone's got a lot of hours to burn, it's always welcome.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, that's absolutely true. Yeah, for sure. On a announcement wise, on a less happy note, there was a fatal crash with a pedestrian on Middlesex Ave. Just for, I pulled up a map of where this happened. I don't have a lot, I don't have any more information than what was just on like the public press release, which was really very little. But out of interest, I looked at the street view And I'll share the screen. This is what the road looks like. So you can see there's kind of a long stretch here where there's not a lot of crosswalks. And out of curiosity, can you still see this?
[Bruce Kulik]: Yes.
[Emily O'Brien]: Okay, good. I wasn't sure if it would go away when I changed the tab. I tried getting walking directions from one side of the street basically to the other because Google walking directions won't tell you to cross in the middle of the block where there's no crosswalk. It sends you to a crosswalk. So you can see kind of how long of a distance it is to get to a crosswalk just to get from one side of the street to the other. So this is giving a distance of almost half a mile for a trip that really should be, you know, just over a third of that. And this was a pedestrian collision, but pedestrian issues apply to us too. And crosswalks are still are still a traffic calming measure. I don't know that there's necessarily much we need to do about this at the moment, but this is an important thing for us to keep in mind and to know about and to be aware about. Of course, it's a tragic thing to have happen. Um, but this road would seem to be a high priority for at least more crosswalks. Um, and, uh, since it's also potentially could be an alternative north-south route. And it's right on the Medford line too, but this could be an alternative north-south route to some potentially even bigger streets. So maybe this is a place to keep on our radar.
[Bruce Kulik]: So one of the other things that I noted there, I believe that the crash you cited occurred down near First Street. Is that correct?
[Emily O'Brien]: I'm not sure. I didn't have... Okay.
[Bruce Kulik]: But certainly, we've proposed a small rail trail on the Pan Am right-of-way, if we ever figure out, number one, who owns it and how the city could get it or get access to it. But there was a crossing right there at Middlesex as well that would be kind of germane to this discussion.
[Emily O'Brien]: in that. Is this it? This rail crossing here?
[Unidentified]: Yeah, that's it.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. And certainly, if there was a rail trail there, then that crossing would be really critical.
[Unidentified]: Right. And the other thing... Bruce, you cut out. Yeah.
[Bruce Kulik]: Sorry, what I said is if you take Highland Avenue North, it ultimately becomes Woodland Road up through the cells.
[Emily O'Brien]: Pull this other map back up again.
[Jared Powell]: Bruce, your mic is muting every once in a while.
[Bruce Kulik]: Sorry, let me permanently put it on. There we go. Highland Avenue turns into Woods Road through the fells, and so it becomes a very valuable north-south corridor, because you come down Highland Avenue, up Highland Avenue, and right down to Wellington. So as far as, I mean, a lot of it is in Malden, but a fair amount of it's in Medford as well. Some of it's under DCR control, if I recall correctly.
[Unidentified]: That's it.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, and I think the parts that are in Medford and that we have any ability to affect, I think you're right, that is an important north-south corridor. And in a lot of cases, north to south is the really difficult direction.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Amy is noting that Middlesex is a mass dot road.
[Emily O'Brien]: Okay. Well, that's a shame.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, thanks for thanks for bringing this up Emily it's just such a, I mean it's such a tragedy I mean that this person was was killed. I mean, I don't think it's something that we forget, but it's certainly really worth reminding ourselves of why we're doing what we're doing. I mean, like you said, this was a pedestrian, but same, same, but different as they say. I think people tend to dismiss a lot of what we do as kind of, not what we do, but you know what I mean, cyclists and that sort of thing. They dismiss that advocacy as silly or work to promote people with expensive toys just having fun, but that's really not what we're doing. It's really worth keeping our eye on the prize for why we're really doing what we're doing here.
[Emily O'Brien]: We all know this, but I think it's worth just repeating. The places where it's the most hazardous to cross the street are often the same places that are the worst places to bike on. If it's that hard to cross the street because everything just goes super fast and it's wide and there's a lot of lanes of traffic, That doesn't mean there can't be usable bike facilities there, but very often in places that look like that, it's also pretty inhospitable to a lot of cyclists. Anything that makes it easier to cross the street slows people down a little bit will help us too. Yeah, I often... Amy, you're still muted or we can't hear you.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I think Amy was saying that her mic might be having issues.
[Emily O'Brien]: Right.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Or the computer thing. Oh, yes. Yeah, we got it.
[Unidentified]: There we go.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Wrong setting, I guess. I don't know. Weird. Yeah, it is a mass dot road, but I don't want that to be to discourage you guys from advocating for safety improvements. Obviously, there's nothing that. I can do directly to it, but Middlesex Ave does not and has not for a while conformed to their standards, their own standards. And there is some space for bike lanes, I think for the whole stretch, if not maybe just parts of it. And obviously plenty of space to add some more crossings and stuff. So yeah, I would definitely, I think it's a ripe street for a makeover.
[Bruce Kulik]: Bruce. Oh yeah so making it a mass stop road or that it is a master road is that mean it's in the same category is like mystic Avenue. And that is, it's literally owned by the state as opposed to the city.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, it is owned by the state. That's true. Mystic Valley Parkway and some of the other larger roads are actually DCR, which is is state, but has a different agency. It has different standards. MassDOT standards are much more progressive and they're known for kind of getting more good stuff done for biking and walking than DCR, I would say.
[Bruce Kulik]: Just really, really think about other sections of roads that we think might be Medford roads, but in fact are dot roads. I'm thinking things like the traffic circle under 93 on Salem. Is that or is that, you know, messed up.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: That is also MassDOT because kind of one of their things is because the highway goes over it, the ramps and a certain distance leading to the ramps is under their control. I can try to find the name of the website. I will put it in the chat if I could find it. There's actually a great GIS website that the state runs that shows basically the entire state who owns what city or what street rather. You just click on it and it'll tell you MassDOT, DCR, or municipality.
[Bruce Kulik]: Any idea what other municipalities do to deal with? I mean, obviously, they're all over the Boston metro area. So other cities and towns must have some liaison or method of influencing MassDOT to do the right thing.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. I mean, through formal channels and just through advocating as well. Those are often the bigger streets and so there can be more dangerous but they still have people on them that need better facilities. It is a thing that we actively do.
[Emily O'Brien]: Given that there are so many streets in Medford that are either masked out or DCR and that this accounts for such a large number of our big thoroughfares, I'm wondering if it makes sense to organize the master plan in such a way to say, here's a list of MassDOT roads that are really important for Medford residents, and here's a list of DCR roads that are really important for Medford residents, that we consider these to be high priorities, and to specifically call those things out in the master plan as being state roads that are still a really high priority for us. And that maybe is just a question of how the information is presented. But it could be a nice thing when we do, if we are advocating to the state, either at MassDOT or DCR, for any of these things to be able to say, look, this is our master plan and this is the network we're trying to create. And these are the places that are not ours. Yeah, I agree with that.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I'm pretty sure we're still discussing exactly what is going to be kept in the plan. We have a lot of ideas we're throwing around, Lily and I, but I'm pretty sure that we are going to come up with some level of recommendations for some state roads in our city, just because, yeah, as you say, people need to travel on them too, and often there are barriers to creating our network. So, yeah, you'll see that in some sort of version of that.
[Ernie Meunier]: Ernie? Yeah, it might be in the meantime just easy to color code the pages in the master plan or notions, little dots on a map, et cetera, with a legend showing the color equaling the jurisdiction of the type of road it is.
[Unidentified]: Just a real quick thing that works with the eye for identification. That's all.
[Jared Powell]: I'm unfamiliar with the mass dot processes, but I'm wondering if an event like this, like a pedestrian fatality on their roads, is a trigger for some sort of process on their end, an investigation, a review, something like that. Does anyone know if there is kind of a formal set of procedures that get fired up and activated when something like this happens? I assume that they don't just pretend like it didn't. I assume there's at least some type of pro forma investigation of some sort that presumably might escalate this on their priority list.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I'm not sure exactly what their processes are for fixing something after a fatality like this. I know that obviously pressure from the public is very helpful in getting something done. Yeah. That's yeah, so it definitely can't hurt and I'm sure they're aware of it, hopefully. Anyway, I did find that website. I'm about to post it in the chat.
[Emily O'Brien]: Hey, Dan.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, I was going to say that having the master plan include Middlesex have will be great, but if we want to get something done, we should try to move on this sooner rather than later. And, you know, come up with some sort of, you know, at least short term action to present to MassDOT and say, hey, this is a problem. You know, you can see the evidence from the crash. And, um, you know, here's at least, you know, like a quick suggestion, which may not be a quick implementation, but like a quick suggestion of like something to do or, you know, ask for a review or something. But like, I think if we can start pushing on it basically now or, you know, within the next month, that would be good.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think you're right. I think that's that is somewhat independent of how we would present all of the totality of how state owned roads are part of the master plan. That is, you're right. That is a separate. That is a separate thing. I think this is I think we can still use the fact that this happened on a state road as a justification for including those things in the master plan. But yeah, I think you're right that this is a good reason to get on it and make some noise about it right now.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I'd suggest that we not in lieu of additional activities, but as an immediate activity write a letter to Matt's dot marking. This is something that they need to start their processes on and fix readily asking for it and asking for say maybe a response from them, like formally requesting a response and perhaps a timeline and a description of what that process might be. It's just something to show that we're not just accepting of this continuing without action.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, and I wonder if this is something we should talk to WAC Medford about too, or collaborate with them. Ernie?
[Unidentified]: You're muted, Ernie.
[Ernie Meunier]: You'd mentioned that maybe this wasn't quite within our bailiwick because it's a pedestrian crossing, but it's also perhaps the only safe place for a cyclist to engineer a safer U-turn on that long stretch of road, as an example.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. So just, it does fall within our purview, I think. Okay.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, the other thing, uh, just having looked at that road inventory link, that's maybe relevant. It's only MassDOT in Medford. It's local in Malden, which is kind of weird.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, that's interesting.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. Like it's just it's mass dot right up to the border. And then according according to that GIS map, at least it switches to local control on for Highland for Highland Ave in Malden, which. Which mostly means that we would want to be talking to Malden as well, because the road is basically the same design the whole length, or for quite a long ways, it's the same width, I think. And we should talk to them about their sections, especially from a bicycle perspective, where we're thinking people might want to ride along it.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I'm gonna also raise that. I don't believe that this map is accurate. High Street is not being listed as being a MassDOT road, and it is. Oh, yeah. Neither is Winthrop.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: That's a numbered route, but it's maintained by the city.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: 60 was recently redone by MassDOT.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Route 16 is a state.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: No, sorry, 60 High Street.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, no, that is at least the majority of it is city owned. It may be a state numbered route, but it is city maintained.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, as I recall, when the Brooks was putting in the Safe Routes to School project, we had to get authority from the traffic commission here in Medford for the parking issues.
[Unidentified]: Do I remember that correctly? Yeah, that does sound familiar. Yeah, I think so. Thank you. Removal of parking.
[Emily O'Brien]: So the part that's in Medford, we do need to talk to is MassDOT, but we will need to talk to Medford, too. Is where the name changes, is that the town line?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, exactly.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. So for this, I guess our next step is we should coordinate with WAC Medford. And I guess I propose that if they are submitting a letter to MassDOT and or Malden, um, requesting improvements and inquiring as to what the process will be for studying this and figuring out how to prevent this from happening again, that we sign on to their effort. And if they aren't, if they aren't, if they don't have anything quick, quickly forthcoming, then we send our own letter to that effect.
[Jared Powell]: I'd say I'm of mixed minds about that. I mean, that that makes sense from a logistic perspective. You know, maybe seeing more names at the bottom of a letter is something that they find compelling. I can't help but they also might benefit from being bombarded by more letters, in which case maybe we should still write our own and sign on to whatever Walk Medford writes as well.
[Emily O'Brien]: That makes sense to me too.
[Jared Powell]: All right, well, in that case, I'll make a motion for Emily to write or to delegate the writing of such a letter to submit to MassDOT to that effect.
[Emily O'Brien]: If anybody has contacts for where such a letter should be sent, send that along. That is one question I definitely have in this case.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I think I also got something we lost. in what the motion for the letter is, or what the letter is that the motion is being made for? That's impossible to do.
[Emily O'Brien]: To inquire what their process is for studying this intersection and what their plans are for making improvements.
[Emily O'Brien]: And that we recommend that they get right on that right now. Because this is this is bad. And it shouldn't happen again.
[Jared Powell]: Right? Yeah. And see seeing all of the relevant elected representatives that cover that area as well.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. And I think that may be also something we should contact the folks in Malden about, the bike committee in Malden.
[Unidentified]: So is that the motion? Sounds right to me.
[Emily O'Brien]: Has it been seconded?
[Unidentified]: Yes, I seconded.
[Emily O'Brien]: All in favor?
[Unidentified]: Aye. Aye. Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: All right. Then I will get right on that or get somebody else to get right on it. One way or another, make sure it gets done. Next up, we have some events to recap. We have the first of those was Bike and Walk to School Day. Um, I am not sure who else was around that day, but this was something that Ellery Klein organized. Um, and this was inspired by the news story that some of you may have seen kicking around about the, um, the guy in Portland, Oregon or something, someplace like that, who organizes these caravans for the kids to ride their bikes to school. And it's basically like, instead of. waiting for the school bus, they get on the bike caravan and they ride the, you know, ride the bike bus to school, so to speak. And so she organized people to lead rides to school, to the middle school and the elementary school from Colton Heights, from South Medford, from West Medford, and There was another one. There were a total of four. And we had, and Wellington, of course, and we had three of them. I started at Joe Pizza in South Medford and picked up a few kids and some parents there. And then we stopped at, we went by the Duggar Park in case anybody wanted to join there. And then we stopped at the footbridge in Medford Square and met up with two other of the caravans. So by the time we got to the footbridge in Medford Square, we had 20 some kids and probably 8 or 10 adults. And we had a bit of an adventure getting through the actual square. This was kind of non-trivial and it required Um, we took the path to the sidewalk on the credit bridge and we came up the sidewalk and we went through all the crosswalks and in order to get all these kids through the crosswalks, we had 3 adults stop traffic in the 3 segments of it because there's no way we can have all these kids waiting in the islands with their bikes. And the we waited for the walk sign before we started doing that but of course not everybody could get through on the walk sign and people were kind of Emily Stein got a video of us being honked at while trying to get the kids across the street. But we made it, and we took as much of the future Clippership Connector path as we could. We had to get onto Riverside Ave on the sidewalk for a little bit. But we made it into the school at the middle school. There were, all told, about twice as many bikes as there were spaces in the bike rack. which is great for showing that we need new bike racks. And also the schools really need more bike rack space, because if all the kids who can easily ride their bike to school actually do, then there's definitely not currently enough parking for them. But it was a great morning event. Everybody seemed to have a great time. And I think it drives home how easy and possible it should be for more kids to be riding their bikes to school and cut down on the traffic at pick up and drop off times and so forth. I did, out of curiosity, I checked on a map and I'm pretty sure the farthest away from Medford High School is not quite as centrally located as the middle school. The farthest away from Medford High that you can possibly live and go to school there, meaning living in Medford, is just over four miles. So there's really no reason a lot more kids couldn't be riding their bikes to school. Basically you have to be on the far side of Wellington to even be four miles away. So the vast majority of residences are much closer to school than that. So I think there may be some hope of getting more regular caravans organized. I think some of the other nearby cities actually have coordinators at the schools who connect up people who can bike to school together, kind of bike pool with one person. parent taking a bunch of kids. Um, so I think Ellery and Emily Stein and some other people who have school aged kids may be interested in trying to do something similar and to the extent that they're able, but it was a great event. It were lots of people rode their bikes to school successfully. And, um, I hope, I hope that happens again. And then the other event we had recently was the Harvest Your Energy Festival that was on October 15th. Pat was there, a bunch of us were there. Pat, do you want to say anything about that?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that was really great. We had a very good turnout of commission members. There were probably half a dozen of us. And it was, our table was busy. We actually teamed up with, we were also representing MassBike. But I would say that like really primarily people were interested in the bike network. We had a few extra helmets left over and we handed out all but one. So I have one left in my basement. And so that was nice to be able to do. We had some talk to people like about bike safety. We had some quick guides that we handed out. And then Yeah, just a lot of good conversations from various...
[Emily O'Brien]: all across the- One colorful character?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. We really covered the spectrum. I'd spent a good amount of time listening, not really talking to, but listening to a gentleman who's insisting that everybody should be riding on the sidewalk because they go too slow on the streets. I value your opinion and I'll take that under advice. Um, but yeah, it was really, really great day, perfect weather. And, um, the, I, you know, every, we've been doing that event for, I had quite like eight years now. Um, it's always well attended. People are really interested. It draws a nice cross section of people. Um, so well, well, we're well worth doing. I think, um, it was, uh, the, um, got a lot got a lot out of doing that.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Yeah, I think it was it was great. We had some, we had some good conversations. We had some people looking for coming up looking for root advice. I hope they'll stay in touch and we can help make it easier and easier to find good roots in the future. If there's nothing else, Jared.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah. I just wanted to follow up about the bike to school day thing.
[Emily O'Brien]: Oh, yeah.
[Jared Powell]: Thanks for doing that. That sounds great. A really nice program. It seems like that should be very easy. And I think you've got some very good, you know, anecdata about why it's not, you know, based on what you experienced, like the people honking at kids, presumably with something other than the best of intentions.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, and that is actually one thing I think is really worth keeping in mind if we're looking at the Clippership Connector eventually opening up. Getting through Medford Square from the Clippership Connector to the river paths is a thing that people will need to do, and that is going to be an issue. And even if... Even if there can't be any changes to the traffic pattern or the crosswalks, there should at least be some signage and paint on the sidewalk saying, hey, people are going to be biking on the sidewalk here because we know they're not going to get off and walk from, you know, where the path hits the Craddock Bridge. Or some designated way for them to do it. And I think this would be, this footage would be a really good reason, a really good thing to show and say, like, this is the one missing link. This is the worst crossing like this between basically Assembly Square and Concord. And it needs to be prioritized to get people across here. You know, everybody wrings their hands about what to do about Medford Square, but this connection is really important. And the fact that it was that big of a project to get a group of kids across just so they can go to school, it really is a real bottleneck. So hopefully we can use that. I know Emily Stein has video of what it took to actually do that.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I suggest we get that footage and use it for our purposes. You know, some maybe public pressure campaign type things.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. And I think part of that is MassDOT issue too. Ernie?
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, tiny add on. Ellery had taken 20 bike light kits for that event. Do you know how many she might have distributed?
[Emily O'Brien]: I don't know, but I would be surprised if she didn't give them all away. Okay. That would be like, I don't know for sure, but my guess is that I can't imagine that she didn't find takers for all of them.
[Unidentified]: Okay, thanks. So a couple of things.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Although, according to the map, at least, the actual intersection Medford Square is not state control. Is that right, Amy?
[Emily O'Brien]: Okay, so I know that part under the under the overpass is yes, that's and I think the and the credit bridge.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I'm not sure the credit is the yeah, yeah, it's all that is definitely on our radar. We have a kind of study. going on with mass dot and uh one of the consultants that we've hired to study that basic area it doesn't go all the way into medford square unfortunately we are trying to get that in there but it's really going to cover around 16 and um main street and south street so that kind of collection of intersections and then also the main and mystic and um combine those together uh so look for more about that soon um it is just a study at this point but we do intend to you know create an alternative and get it built eventually.
[Emily O'Brien]: Does the study area include, like if you basically made a crosswalk right where the path comes out or somewhere in the middle of the Craddock Bridge, not that that's practical right now, there's a guardrail, but does it include going far enough towards Clippership Drive to
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: It's not in that study, but we do have it on our radar, just me and Todd, knowing that that's something we need to figure out. But in a way, we're kind of putting a placeholder on it right now until we see the results of this study I mentioned, make sure it works with that. But yeah, we know. That's going to be a little challenging, but we'll figure out something.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. I mean, like, like, I mean, the ideal thing there for, you know, connectivity obviously is having a crossing that goes straight across at the path, but which is like right where the mass dot section ends approximately. Um, but, um, on. in terms of like, you know, possible things that could be done to improve the situation without involving MassDOT, like, well, there's two major things. One is that that section of sidewalk between the path and Medford Square has trash cans and benches placed so that for like maximal blocking of the sidewalk, basically.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Which part are you talking about?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I'm sorry. The section... Like by Carroll's? Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: Okay. The west side.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, exactly. Which like I'm constantly going over because that's usually how I get from one side to the other.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Trash can stuff we can handle, that's no big deal. Right. Yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: And so it's like, yes, just like moving some things so that people who are waiting for the bus and like, you know, stuff like trash cans are not getting as much in the way of people who are trying to travel along the sidewalk would help. The other thing is that like any reconfiguration of the walk signals Because right now it's a three-phase crossing for a pedestrian. As in, if you actually follow the walk signals, you cross a third of the way, and wait, and cross another third of the way, and wait, and cross the final third. And a lot of people, obviously, or most people don't do that. But having, you know, people going all the way across on one phase would probably help. Sure.
[Emily O'Brien]: Pat?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_06]: You've had your hand up for a while. Yeah, one other thing of interest in that it doesn't solve the problem of getting across the intersection there, but there's just a little bit earlier up in the chat, I shared a new MassDOT website that tracks all of the projects that they've got planned and budgeted. And one of them is, yeah, it's a very, very good resource. But one of them is the, you remember the South Medford Connector? So on the south side of the Mystic River. That is on their schedule for, I believe it's 2026 and it's funded. That's a pretty important development. even though it is a few years away and that will feed on like you know that'll be a route just right into that intersection so it's um it you know makes it that more important to be able to get across yeah yeah that's that's great that's interesting um if we don't have do we have anything else on this topic
[Emily O'Brien]: Um, the next thing on our list is, um, is infrastructure updates. We have some blue bike stations in place. I have not used them yet, but I certainly think I might. It will make it easier for me to walk to work in one direction and then bike home because I don't feel like taking the time to walk in the other direction. Um, but, uh, But that's really great to see. I think we've had some posts on our Facebook about that. Speaking of which, before I forget, I think it would be great if we all, if anybody who uses Instagram, if you use the Medford Bikes hashtag, even in addition to using the hashtag, if you're inclined to post on the bike commission Instagram, but even just using the Medford bikes hashtag and getting other people to use it, I think that would be a great thing just to get more people interested in putting up pictures of their bikes in Medford. I have Medford bicycle infrastructure map, which I think is the map that Lily was sending around looking for feedback on. She's not here, but Amy, do you want to? talk to us about that a little bit.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I don't think I have really much else to share about it, other than, you know, please take a look at it and let us know what you think. As I mentioned, we're still discussing a lot of the different aspects of What the plan will contain. And kind of finalizing that and try to come up with a good timeline and stuff, but. Yeah, it's moving right along and we're pretty excited about it and I think it's going to be a really great plan. And if you guys think so, too, we're planning to do some. more direct public engagement, hopefully like December, maybe January, probably January considering holiday stuff. And yeah, and have something hopefully for the next construction season that we can actually start implementing. That's great.
[Emily O'Brien]: Jared.
[Jared Powell]: A quick question for Amy. I've been around the blue bike stations a little bit and then I see the numbers changing so presumably they're being used and recirculated. What type of data, do you all get from motivate about about usage I assume you get something.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I think that we have to request it. It's not like it just comes in a weekly digest. I wish it did. That'd be cool. But we do get access to, I think, really all the data that they have, which is origin, destination data. It doesn't show routes, unfortunately, because each individual bike doesn't have a GPS. It's a little bit of a bummer, but that's just what they have. But yeah, we can tell which station it started at and which it ended at and that kind of thing. But yeah, no, I miss the same thing. Yeah, that's a big deal. I mean, I bike by the one at Brooks Park almost every day that I bike in, and it's sometimes empty in the morning, which is a good thing to notice. I would actually be curious if they haven't started doing any rebalancing with any of them or not yet. Um, so yeah, uh, I can try to, yeah, figure out a little bit more details about how we get the data and how often we can get it and give you guys a little preview of the first month of blue bikes.
[Bruce Kulik]: I presume that in addition to the source and destination, it's got a time as well. So you might be able to impute about the route perhaps by estimating, you know, if someone went direct. It would take this long and if they didn't go to direct what they might have done, I don't know how helpful that is, but could be too much work too.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, no, it would definitely give time so we would know if it's Monday morning or Saturday night or whatever, you know.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think it would be hard to infer a route from just how long it took them to get from one place to another place because you could have somebody who you know, rides the direct route, but they're going slow and they have, and they're carrying a heavy backpack and it's uphill and they have a headwind versus like, or someone stops somewhere at a, you know, yeah, they stop. They see their buddy and stop and yak for 15 minutes or whatever, or not for that long. Cause you, they might be on a time limit, but Doug.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just one question, what is the deal if there's an abandoned blue bike left, like in the middle of the rotary outside of Medford Square? Or in the middle of the river. All right, in the middle of the river.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I saw one of those a couple weeks ago.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I believe that there is a link to either an email address or some sort of online form on the Blue Bikes website for that type of thing. If you look and there's not, then you can definitely just tell us because we have an email address to send. I'm just not sure if I can share it with you guys or not.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right. Just checking because they're being dumped. I've seen one or two and there's basically the same spot and it's not the same one. These are docked bikes though, right?
[Bruce Kulik]: They're not freeform. No, these are just thrown. No, no, no. I mean, the system uses docked bikes as opposed to lime or the others.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, they're docked. In some ways, it's just part of, I don't know what happens with these systems, but I think Todd and I also think that it might be occurring a little bit more in Medford because we had that Lime, that Lime bike pilot that some people maybe just are confused and don't realize. So actually that's a little update. Todd made the little laminated sign. I forget exactly what it says, but basically saying you must return blue bikes To a station or you will get charged a fee and put them up at our three stations.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: They didn't love it, but like, I think we needed to do it. So, yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: Hopefully after they've been there for a while, people will figure out that. Yeah, how it works. Yeah. The next thing I have on our agenda is bike racks and the funding, therefore. Last year, we had sent in a map of locations in several priority tiers. And at the time, we were under the impression that there would be a possibility of the city buying another batch of racks and installing them. And as far as we know now, that's not happening, and there's no plans for that to happen. Jared and Daniel and I had some back and forth about this. We would love to find grant funding and or somebody who wants to hunt it down and write grant applications and do that kind of thing. We're also of the opinion that this is a fairly basic thing that the city should be that the city should be doing this that the city provides parking on the street for cars and has parking services in business districts. This is just a basic amenity that you should expect in a business district. There should be bike racks on the sidewalk in the places where you expect them outside of the businesses that people want to go to. So I don't know what our next step should be in terms of how we can put pressure on the city to step it up in terms of bike racks. It may be that we have to go the route of finding funding on our own, but it really does seem like this is, all things considered, this is one of the cheapest things that the city can do. It's uncontroversial because it doesn't require taking away anybody's parking spaces. It doesn't have to go through the traffic commission. It's kind of literally the least we can possibly do is put up bike racks so people can ride someplace and park their bike. And I think Ellery has talked about zoning requirements for businesses with larger parking lots and things like that. That is a somewhat separate issue in that we don't necessarily expect the city to buy and install bike racks in a privately owned parking lot. But for the places where there's businesses, there's storefronts, on public streets and public sidewalks, and the city puts out trash cans and signposts and parking meters and all those other things that they should put up, like bike racks as well. Gaston?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, so one idea. So for the past couple of months or so, I actually started following diligently the agendas of the city council, and there have been a lot of you know, discussion or it appears in the agendas, the issues with parking, because the parking switched from private to the city. So one idea might be that we actually, you know, send letters or contact, you know, directly either all of the city councilors or, you know, the ones that we believe could be the most effective and try to push it that way to see whether, you know, the city council can help us to get more bike racks and work on this. So on zoning, I do know that it's kind of a recurring constant work that they pursue. So what Eli suggested, I like that idea. And then I do think that at least some of them, if not all of them, will be open to something along those lines. So that's just one suggestion.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, and I don't know if MAPC still has the bulk purchasing program that they had before. I tried to find out they do.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, last I checked, that was still available.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I tried to figure it out and I couldn't find anything really current about it. But I even checked the just the straight up regular undiscounted retail prices on like Saris's website and stuff like that. And I think 20 bike racks costs, something like $4,000 or something like that it's plus the cost of, you know, personnel that have to go in and install them, but, you know, installing. Um. Our top tier of priorities on that map that we did last year this year, you know, in the next year, installing the top tier, which I think was 20 or 25 spots. And then the following year, installing 20 or 25 more. I mean, this is not an onerous. Some of money here. Um. So. We should be putting some pressure.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: There's kind of two elements to this that need to happen. It's definitely obviously buying the racks, which I think is maybe the easier of the two. The harder one is kind of points to just a global issue that we're dealing with as far as public works is concerned. And that's just that our staff that actually physically do the things in the field, and that's everything, transportation, everything, water, like everything, all the utility, all that stuff is not the capacity that we should have for the need that we have, unfortunately. That's just a reality of the situation. And so that's why it takes a long time for things to actually get done, even if we have a plan for it, or even if we have funding for it, that's a challenge. So I would, in your advocating to the city, I would definitely include that in your ask is to say, we know that we have a lot of needs and we need the workers enough workers to be able to satisfy those needs.
[Gaston Fiore]: Is that permanent or it's just because there's a lot of vacancies currently?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I honestly don't know. I think there's a lot of different reasons. Some of it is related to just that the budget doesn't include salaries for x amount of additional workers.
[Emily O'Brien]: It isn't that there are vacant positions that just haven't found the right candidates, it's that there are also not funded positions to fill. That's my understanding.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I would say in my conversations with various people in DPW in the past, in the engineering department, part of like there's some value in purchasing them and having them in storage so that they're when the opportunity to have If somebody becomes available to actually do the work, they're right there. And it's a shovel-ready project, literally shovel-ready.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: And that might be the first step. And then you guys massage the city council members and let them know how much it matters that we get additional staff. You know, it's a longer lead item, but that's ultimately what needs to happen in order to get all the things done.
[Emily O'Brien]: So would there be a possibility that, you know, installing installing one bike rack while you're already on site to do something else is not nearly as big of a job as installing 20 bike racks all over the city? So is there be a possibility that if they were purchased and in stock and sitting there waiting for somebody to pick them up and put them in? Would there be a possibility of then, you know, any When there's already an employee out doing something else in a certain spot, toss one of those into the truck and stick it in the ground while they're there.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, potentially. I mean, I know that each employee doesn't have necessarily the same skill set, so it would also have to match up with, you know, it would be an employee who knows how to do whatever they were out there doing, plus putting in a bike rack. But that's definitely one way to go about it. I also am wondering if any of the contractors that we just have are, you know, if we're allowed to ask them to do that, if that's within their contract, I'm not sure, but maybe.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Or can we get volunteer bike rack installations?
[Emily O'Brien]: Maybe. I mean, I think they're not actually that complicated to install. No, they're not.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Exactly.
[Emily O'Brien]: You obviously need like. permission and you need to do them the way that it's supposed to be done, but it's not, it's not rocket science.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: No, I mean, like it's, I mean, like, well, it's, it's either, you know, making a small hole in the sidewalk and putting it in with some concrete, or it's drilling some even smaller holes and bolting them in with masonry bolts. But neither of those is super complicated. Like, it's not unskilled, but like, it's not so specialized that No one can do it except, you know, yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: You don't have to be a licensed electrician to put in a bike rack.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Right.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_06]: I was just recalling when Dan and Emily and I put the list together, I think we did specify a few mole tracks, which are installation-wise are much similar. I mean, they're pretty much just getting dropped on the ground, maybe four bolts. Maybe that would be an approach just to prioritize those. the ones that require less specialized installation.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think the staple kind, if it's a bolt-on, it probably requires eight bolts, four in each leg. And that's for one, you know, inverted U, but the multi ones, you might, if there's like a bar that has several of those staples in it, it might be four bolts or six bolts, but you get, you know, three or four staples out of it.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: And those are the higher value locations, honestly, because those are the places that we said there probably need to be multiple people parking.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, multiple spaces. And those are also the locations that have the most space. Right.
[Gaston Fiore]: So I was wondering whether it's easy to do. I know that the city has this program where you can request a tree to be planted on your sidewalk. Um, whether there could be something similar, if it's not too much work where, you know, business or, or someone, you know, can say like, Hey, I, I would like to request the bike rack eventually. I mean, without a deadline or anything like that, but, you know, to be placed here. Um, and whether that would be useful or maybe, you know, to include that as part of the, of the, of the bicycle infrastructure map or something like that, where, you know, yeah, maybe it's helpful. I don't know. One idea.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: So I think that that tree installation program, and I could be wrong, someone can correct me, but I believe it's that the city will plant a tree on your property, not necessarily in the sidewalk in front of your house.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no, no, it's in front of your house.
[Emily O'Brien]: It's the sidewalk. It's the sidewalk in front of your house or on your street or on your in your vicinity. They don't. You can't, it can't, you can't necessarily dictate the exact spot because there's all sorts of various constraints, but it's the plant is there. They have a thing where you can request a tree to be planted on public property next to your house, not like. on your own property.
[Jared Powell]: I don't think there's actually a restriction on whether or not it's in front of your house or not. I've certainly put in requests for things that were just in my neighborhood.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.
[Jared Powell]: Plenty of times and they get added to the docket.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. It still takes a pretty long time before an actual tree gets put in. They theoretically have a list.
[Jared Powell]: Aggie too. They planted a beautiful zilkova in front of my house. It's doing great.
[Emily O'Brien]: Great. They took down four trees and we have, or five, and now we have five stumps. And they needed to go and they were, I had one that dropped a limb on the sidewalk right in front of me as I was coming home one night, but, but so it's good that they're gone because they were dangerous, but we are looking very barren now. Anyway, As far as this bike rack, sorry, Doug?
[SPEAKER_03]: Just one question. Looking for volunteers, can a volunteer mount something on a city street? Isn't there legality about suddenly now it's city property that it's mounted there and the city is responsible if we do it wrong?
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, I would imagine that there that it has to be done with appropriate permissions and approval permit. I know that there's there's a group of a group of volunteers who did coordinate with Aggie. to do some soil improvements and put in like a pollinator garden on the median on Governor's Ave up the street from me. And they have full approval to do that. And that's been kind of organized and coordinated with the city to do that on city property. So I know that at least if it's a gardening thing, there's a way to coordinate volunteers to do that. So maybe it's also possible to coordinate volunteers to do that for installing bike racks too.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just tracking that's all.
[Emily O'Brien]: I mean I don't think we want to have people just like go out and buy bike racks and bolt them in wherever they feel like it. So I guess our next step on this is we need to probably try to pressure a pressure city council to Prioritize buying the racks, even if we don't necessarily think that the staff is available to install them all right away in the on the logic that. That they will be there and in stock and ready to go and then either if somebody has is on site that's able to put 1 in while they're doing something else, they can do that. If there's ever an opportunity, if there's more staff, they're already there. They don't need to be ordered again at that point. And also to say that we can coordinate volunteer efforts to install them if that's what it takes.
[Unidentified]: Do we have other input to that?
[Jared Powell]: Well, you know, on that topic I mean this is something, Emily, that we talked about before but, you know, Ernie, I feel like you've done so much to get people to... Ernie's still here, right? Oh, did Ernie drop off? Oh, there you are. I moved around my window. You've done so much to get sponsorships for the various lights. This doesn't help with the labor issue, but I wonder about something similar perhaps for contributing to the purchase of bike racks, just to offset any funding issues maybe where... I don't think you'd necessarily want a situation where a business owner requests a bike rack and they, in front of their business necessarily, maybe that feels a little too quid pro quo-y for the city perhaps, but maybe you could get sponsorships from businesses to kick in money toward the funding of a bike rack for say their business district or something like that. Maybe it's a broader pool and it's Medford wide, but maybe getting people to think about it as it would being an improvement for their immediate business district might be something that businesses would be interested in?
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I think in the past we talked about that and I approached a couple of businesses about co-opting the cost of bike rack installation in front of their property in exchange for having a labeled bike rack that has their plaque on it because bike rack makers will do that. In our case, City of Medford or JRA bikes and all that. I think I ran into an issue with the propriety of having mixed monies for a public project like that so that I didn't think it was possible. I can't remember what the conundrum was, but we weren't able to proceed with having JRA specified pipe racks in front of their property that they would partially pay for. So that project got stopped. I think that Tim had something to do with saying it wasn't easy to do. And I don't I won't have the time to to bridge that. I think that specialized co-funding for business interests that would have an interest of people biking to their specific location. I think the bigger energy on my part for finding co-sponsors continues to be for the bike lights kits, as I want two more for this year. I really want to talk about expansion of that program to maybe give out 1,000 helmets next year instead of 100. And that's going to involve maybe finding sponsors for about 10 grand.
[Emily O'Brien]: In interest of time, B. Dan just mentioned in the chat that we're getting behind schedule. And I think that's a good point. So I propose that we start. Sorry, I propose that we start by. seeing what we trying to contact City Council about at least buying the racks with the understanding that the labor to install them may be difficult, but that will at least the city will at least own them and have them ready to go at such time as there is an opportunity to install anything. And we can also look into possibly using volunteer labor to help install them if If Amy is right that the real issue is not so much the funding to buy them in the first place as it is just having the personnel to install them. So I don't know if we can either, we can write a letter as a commission to the city council or we can all individually inquire or we can do both. Do we have opinions?
[Gaston Fiore]: I suggest both. I think the commission has more weight, but then of course we should contact them directly.
[Emily O'Brien]: Okay. I am getting a list of letters to write this month, but does somebody else want to take on this one? Not that I don't want to do it, I just don't want to say I'm going to write all of these letters and then not do them.
[Jared Powell]: just on the topic of this particular letter, I think I'm somewhat confused. The city council doesn't determine funding for this sort of thing. So why would they be the body that we need to lobby for getting funding?
[Emily O'Brien]: If we think that they can enact pressure for this kind of priority?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I don't think they can.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I think I think that would be that's kind of the I mean, we're on the executive side. So I feel like that would be asking legislative side to ask us to do something, right?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: We should just ask the mayor, we should be asking them here. And like, okay, it may already be in the budget. just not, they're not bothering to spend the money.
[Gaston Fiore]: Isn't the city council the one that approves the budget?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: The city council approves the budget, but the mayor proposes the budget. Yeah, they don't make it. Hmm, I see. Okay.
[Emily O'Brien]: And then the other question is whether this is a case of whether it's a line item or not. I don't think that it is.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I mean, I've never.
[Emily O'Brien]: Right. I mean, it seems like it would be a weird thing to be a line item, but there still needs to be some direction that that's a priority.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Right, I think this is either ask the mayor or ask the head of, I guess, the works department to just buy them.
[Emily O'Brien]: And I think we need to ask the mayor in this case.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I think it's going to be a case of additional funding. We have sources of funding that we're spending on transportation things now. To be honest, we need it for those things.
[Unidentified]: I think this is gonna be an ad, yeah. So we're now talking about a letter to the mayor?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yes.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I don't think it could hurt to do both, honestly. I have not been present for the budget discussions, but I'm pretty sure it is a two-way conversation. with the council?
[Gaston Fiore]: So if you look at the agenda for this week, the city council is even proposing like a freeze on spending to the mayor or something like that. I definitely think that if we contact the administration, we should contact the administration, i.e. the mayor and definitely the city councilors. I mean, they're definitely, you know, I just don't think there's going to be funding for this year, but when they discuss the the budget, you know, for next year, I do think they need to be in the loop. And I just think that if we just contact the mayor about this, we're just losing an opportunity to make them aware that, you know, they met for a bicycle advisory commission really believes that we should do a better job as a city in starting bike racks. So I think we just have nothing to lose. I mean, worst case scenario, they just ignore us and they don't do anything.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, that is my sense that it also, even if it's not their specific purview to choose funding for this, they are part of that conversation or part of that process or part of making sure that specific things get in there one way or another.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I agree with all that. I'm stating more just the idea that our role is as a designated body on the executive side of the government of Medford. So it's just we need to recognize our specific part to play and that we are not a completely outside advocacy group that does not have a role in the city government.
[Emily O'Brien]: So is that, so are you suggesting that we should contact only the mayor or the mayor and the city council bearing that in mind?
[Jared Powell]: No, I have no problem with contacting both. I guess it's just being mindful when we word a letter like that, that we're asking the right people the right things and not asking the wrong body.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. I think that's a point well taken. Does somebody want to volunteer to do it?
[Gaston Fiore]: I can give it a try, but I need to send a letter first to some of you to make sure that the wording, as Jared just mentioned, is correct.
[Emily O'Brien]: That would be great. I'm happy to look over it. I just don't want to say I'll do more things than I think I'm likely to actually do.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, I'll be happy to do that. But I will circulate it among the
[Emily O'Brien]: like there do you want on that you know first though yeah that's great oh perfect yep thank you um did we need a motion do we need i think i think we do uh do we have a motion to uh indicate that gaston should uh write that letter and circulate it for approval and then send it motions second all in favor aye okay
[Gaston Fiore]: Also weekly if someone has a suggestion as Pat said about the specific bike rack or you know list of suggestions, I think that would be helpful too and I'll see where I can fit it in.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah we did that as part of the map plan.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah we can, I'll send you, I'll send you a link to the map that we did last year.
[Bruce Kulik]: Great, thank you.
[Emily O'Brien]: Okay. Our next item, which we probably should try to think about quickly for now is just so we can get to other things. But this may be an ongoing discussion for several for the next meeting or two is how we can be most effective. As things things have definitely changed for the better in terms of what what Medford now that Medford has. Amy and Lily working on the master plan, a lot of the things that the commission originally did are now being done by the city, which is great and which is as it should be. So in some ways, our role has changed in ways that are really are positive. But we, especially as we think about recruiting more members, we may also wanna be thinking about how we can be how we can be the most useful. How we can best spend our time and how we can best be a part of making improvements. Amy, if you have any input in this, we'd love to hear it from you. But if anybody else has thoughts too.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: My only thing, I was just looking back at the agenda and there is a mention of Vision Zero and stuff. And Lily and I actually had a conversation about this a couple of weeks ago. I'll preface it by saying I totally support Vision Zero. I think it's a wonderful, you know, I think it's great momentum. I think it's a wonderful idea. But I think for Medford, I don't feel like I would put it super high on the priority list only because we don't really get a lot of fatalities. We don't have a lot right now at all, which is a good thing. Some of it is, especially if we're looking at bicyclists and pedestrians, specifically, some of it is because we just don't have a ton of them yet. But we will get more. Is that also a question of Medford is just not that big?
[Emily O'Brien]: Also that too. If you talk about the number of fatalities over in the city of Boston or the city of New York, they have a much higher number, but it's a much higher land area and a much higher population. Totally.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. If you're prioritizing, I wouldn't say don't do it or anything like that necessarily, but if you're really trying to make the most of your time, my recommendation would be to table that for now.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I mean, as a possible counterpoint, if we're trying to get more people to walk and bike, having the infrastructure that is required for Vision Zero might help a lot with that. If people feel safe, then they're going to walk and bike more, basically.
[Emily O'Brien]: Another way of thinking about that, and this is a question that I often have had, which I think is. our number for any area that has some number of fatal crashes, there's always going to be a much bigger number of non-fatal crashes. And then there's also going to be some number of crashes that never get reported. And of course, we know that a lot of crashes that involve bicyclists never get reported at all. So the statistics that we have are never going to be really as good as we wish they were. But I'm wondering if for purposes of Vision Zero planning. I know that Vision Zero specifically talks about fatalities, but maybe it's more to our maybe it's more, more useful for us in terms of our presentation and our conversations to talk about crashes period and injuries and damage, even the ones that are not fatal, because even, you know, getting hurt is still bad, even if you don't die. Um, even just, you know, having your, having your bike mildly damaged kind of still ruins your day. Like these are, even if it's crashes are still bad, even if people get hurt but don't die. So maybe a way of thinking about that just in that we don't have very high numbers, so our numbers of fatalities are not very high, but presumably our numbers of injuries are a little higher.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, well, to which I don't know if Amy was there last month, but we spoke about the need to get unmarked four way intersections in Medford covered with signage. And in my personal case where I entered and was in a collision with a vehicle at such an unmarked four-way intersection, it was deemed by the police as confirmed last week at the Harvest event where they had a table across the way by the person who was in charge of writing the report on the accident I was in, that I was at fault and he quoted Todd as agreeing with him that somehow I was going down the street at speed and entered an unmarked intersection and collided with a vehicle, when the actual right on an unmarked intersection is, of course, the vehicle on the right has the right-of-way, but that gets all to these crazy muddy waters. So I want one of our priorities to be to make sure the city marks all four-way unmarked intersections to show right away if there is an issue around a major or minor roadway. and or the necessity of a stop sign at least on one axis of the two crossing roads. I'm pretty upset that the Medford police were so adamant about me causing the accident, but that seems to be the way the pendulum is swinging now with the police with regards to bicycles and accidents. And to be told that Todd agreed with that, Uh, makes me want to make an inquiry there, but maybe it's to no avail. But since Amy's here, I want her to note what we agreed to as a priority last meeting and to maybe note that Todd may have been misquoted. by the Sergeant of the Medford Police Department with regard to my accident. And on a personal note, I'm finally starting to regain a little bit of gross motor coordination and I'm walking okay, but I'm not ready to get on a bike yet and et cetera. So yeah, on the priority to be get all intersections correctly signed because they do not appear to show right away too many times. And that was almost fatal to me two months ago.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. Amy, you had your hand up.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. just as a way to respond to that. First of all, I'm very sorry to hear that all this happened to you, Ernie. And I am glad to know that you're improving and hopefully be back on a bike soon. I'm sure it was very scary. It was scary to hear about. I have not seen the video myself, so I don't think that I'm in a position to assign faults anywhere. But I will say that, well, two things, two points I want to make. One, the actual kind of, control of an unmarked intersection like that is more, it's, yeah, it's all along the lines of like which road is priority as far as like volume and things like that being a through street and which is the kind of lower class street. And so the lower class side street is, it's assumed to be a yield condition when approaching a higher class street. So that's kind of the scenario for that street there. The other thing that to keep in mind about the idea of putting signs at all the unmarked intersections, excuse me, is that in that case, and not all cases, but in that case and many others, that is actually a private street that approaches a public street, so it's not always necessarily easy to do that. It's kind of that I actually asked Todd this before I left the office this morning or this afternoon, and he said it's a kind of a gray area. We have done it before, but we, as far as putting stop signs on private streets as they intersect public ways, we've done it before, but it's not really defined on whether or not it's okay, as far as the way that the laws are written on the private ways. So it's kind of, we're not sure how, what, it would be hard to do it everywhere, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
[Unidentified]: Bruce. Yeah, am I unmuted?
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, okay. So I'd like to make the suggestion that you actually read the mass general laws. I know it's quite dry and you probably don't have any real legal training, but nonetheless, layman's reading of the laws has no indication of private ways or greater or lesser street with regard to intersecting ways. It leaves a substantial gray area that Ernie got trapped in. And although common sense might dictate that the more major road, if you can identify the more major road, has the right of way, From a legal standpoint, I don't believe that that's necessarily clear. And again, this comes from my personal read of the Mass General Laws, without benefit of knowing any judicial interpretation or anything like that. But it's just, I found it quite curious that, I don't know if that's the right way to put it. Mass law apparently does not spell these things out in more precise detail. To state who has the right of way in a case like that. So my suggestion is just to. to get a bona fide legal interpretation on it. But as I said, a lay person's reading of the regulations that are in the Mass General Laws don't make mention of private ways or lesser streets. How that affects what we do with stop signs, I don't know.
[Emily O'Brien]: Sorry, I'm just trying to keep things moving because we're going to run out of time pretty soon.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, so very quickly. Yeah, so Bruce talked about the law. I just would feel either I was driving or biking or walking that if I have to reason as I'm going through, am I on the smaller road, the bigger road, who has priority? I find that extremely confusing. I'm prone to huge, very costly errors. So I hope that the law is a little bit more clear than this from where I come from. the right has the right of way, wherever it's on the right road, basically. And there's no confusion. And then I wanted to say, again, at the City Council, yesterday I wanted to attend, but I couldn't. There was actually a subcommittee on ordinances and rules, where DPW Commissioner Tim McGibbon and Director of Traffic Interpretations of Blake were invited to attend, where the whole purpose of the one and a half hour meeting was the purpose of the meeting on paper 22-448 regarding private waste in the city of Medford and review city ordinance and state law that pertain to private waste. So if the commission, you know, now or in the future feels strongly about something that should be done in a better way to increase safety for bikers and pedestrians, then we should contact the city council to try to change the whatever ways work or do something so then the city can actually install appropriate signs. I am going to try to listen to this video that happened yesterday and I can report to the rest of the commission to see whether there was something useful that would relate to all these issues.
[Emily O'Brien]: That's helpful. Thank you. I think, sorry, go ahead, Amy.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, just in terms of the legality, it is interesting that it's not addressed in the Massachusetts state law, but I will say that's not necessarily the only resource to look at for such things. I believe it either might be a city policy or it could be from MUTCD straight from there. I'm not 100 percent sure, but I can try to do some research and figure out where that comes from.
[Emily O'Brien]: So one other comment about it is it seems like picking over the legality of who actually has the right of way in a spot like that is useful in terms of assigning who has legal fault. But in terms of making, changing what is on the street so that those things don't happen again, if it's, if it's hard to tell which is the major street when you're approaching it, if it's in any way ambiguous when you're actually in the spot on the ground on your way somewhere, that's still, even if there is theoretically a legal structure for how it's supposed to work, if people don't know what that is and they can't tell when they get there, that's really only useful for after the crash has already happened. And our interest here is in clarifying intersections like this to hopefully prevent any misunderstandings or any cases where both people think they have the right of way, rightly or wrongly. Ernie, go ahead.
[Unidentified]: You're muted. You're still muted.
[Ernie Meunier]: Well said, Emily. I just want to add to Amy that the owner of that video says the accident itself has never shown just me flying down the street by their house. And that it's assumed by everyone else because it was a private way that I was supposed to yield to Woburn Street, which has a yellow stripe on it that's not visible from that intersection because it's worn off and it's something like 20 feet away. Also, it's my understanding that the rules around the world, not just here, are at an unmarked intersection. The traffic from the right has the right of way. What actually throws all the blame onto the driver in this accident, although, you know, he couldn't have prevented it either. So I'm a little dismayed that you take the position of minor road versus major road. I would ask you to look at the pictures that were posted by some of us, including me, showing the view I had entering that intersection where indeed I was, as Bruce said, quite trapped as to figuring out what was what and who had the right of way. and to not fall back on the private versus main road quasi argument, but thank you.
[Emily O'Brien]: I'm sorry to cut this short. I feel like we did talk about this quite a bit last month and we have several other, we still have some other agenda items that we haven't gotten to. Jared, did you have?
[Jared Powell]: Just quickly, yeah, it was on that point. Some of us are from cultures, myself included, I'm from Texas where the idea of an unsigned road is completely unfamiliar. In that case, someone from Texas would generally assume that someone had stolen the sign. Just from a practical standpoint, the idea that there is no sign is not helpful guidance and it just leads to confusion. from Medford and know or, you know, Massachusetts and know how that sort of thing works. So just from a practical standpoint, the signs are helpful.
[Emily O'Brien]: If we I'm since we mentioned Vision Zero and complete streets, but that's also a big topic that we are running out of time on. Daniel has a topic about a possible youth cycling bike racing program. Yes, I think if we wanted to get involved with.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, so I mean it's, um, it's really, so it used to be called, and I forget what Nesca stood for, I believe it's New England High School Scholastic Cycling Association, which is now rebranded to New England Cycling Youth. I know several, I have several friends who have their kids in various programs. A lot of it focuses around mountain bike racing. And I know that, you know, people do rides in like the local area, help bring kids to events, so on and so forth. I'm not sure if it's something that the commission can get involved with in Medford to see if, you know, the high school in Medford would be interested in seeing if any kids would like to participate in that, but I would be happy to go and try and bring that up with them if we deem it something that the commission might. be involved with. If not, you know, it's something that I may follow up, you know, as a, as just a resident myself. But there is a sort of a framework out there for, for doing those sorts of things. And, you know, offering it as another sport to kids who might want to try it.
[Emily O'Brien]: I kind of have two minds in one hand, I think our focus here is really about biking for transportation and even though I used to. race bikes myself and I do plenty of recreational riding myself. I feel like that's not really our priority here. But on the other hand, I think it's also entirely possible that if there's like a Medford High School bike racing team, something like that, those the kids involved with that could be a really great resource for helping to involve their classmates in biking to school and getting involved in getting more kids on bikes for transportation purposes and not just for bike racing purposes. So I think on the one hand, I'm less interested in the commission getting involved in bike racing. But on the other hand, if there are kids who are into that, I think they could be a really good resource for helping, um, for helping getting more people on bikes in Medford. So I'm, I'm open to other involvement. Um, whatever, depending on what other people think. Do we have other comments?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I mostly agree with that. Like, I mean, yeah, it's not our primary focus, but it's still related. And I mean, the more people who are writing in general, whether they're racing or doing it for transportation, the more writing is happening and it sort of contributes.
[Ernie Meunier]: Ernie? Yeah, you characterized the intercourse there pretty well, but I'm apt to want to cleave the Bicycle Advisory Commission's work toward bicycle safety and public events and keep sports maybe organized through rec departments or some other private agencies or departments within the city.
[Unidentified]: Just makes it easier. That's all.
[Emily O'Brien]: I could also see this being something, Daniel, if you want to get involved with this yourself, but then once there's a group of kids up and running who are doing bike racing and interested in other bike-related activities, then that could be certainly lots of opportunities for getting them involved with the commission, which would be great.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Actually, I have a question which might influence us a bit. Where would kids be training or racing, for that matter, for something like this?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: So I know that a lot of times the training is done in the Burlington Landlocked Forest. So this is like primarily the mountain, right? I think most of the Nesca team that I know about, or at least the ones that the people that I know about who work with this, a lot of them go up and will actually just ride the Minuteman because you can get pretty close to the Burlington Landlocked Forest, you know, do sort of a training thing in there. training, you know, riding around the trails a little bit. Races are varied. Typically, you know, a couple of areas around here, Adams Farm, Miles Standish, I believe a couple up in New Hampshire, maybe One or two, a little bit further out west, Hale, Dover. So I think a lot of them are pretty local, at least to the general eastern Massachusetts area. So that's what I know about at least the racing scene and most of the training scene around here.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: The reason I was asking is that, you know, if kids are going to be training or racing in Medford, then it's in some ways falls on us to support that in terms of, you know, making sure they have a safe place to do it. Then, you know, we might not really have much to say about it.
[Emily O'Brien]: I mean, we certainly if they're going to be biking out to the minute man, we certainly have an interest in making sure that they can do that safely. Yep. Doug.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just looked it up on Facebook while sitting here. It looks like a lot of their races are on the roads or at like Great Grand in New Hampshire. And their mountain bike races or rides are basically any place like the fells or Vietnam and all of that is where they have their races. for off-roading. In Medford, we do have the Tufts Bicycling Team, which I see four or five, six times a week just blasting around West Medford. If we're going to support these guys, we should probably do something with the Tufts guys too to make sure it's safe.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, that might also be another potential resource too, is if there are people from the Tufts Cycling Team who would want to get involved in um, in any of these things. Um, I did bike racing in college and I think had there been a local bike committee or bike commission or anything in the part of Boston that I was living in, and, um, I certainly would have been interested as, you know, just as a person who likes bikes. Um, and there might have been other, there might've been other people to get in touch with in the BU cycling team at the time. I don't really know if those people would have been interested or not, but they might've been. They would certainly be more likely to be interested than somebody who doesn't race bikes. So.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, it seems like a fairly low cost, low effort thing, right? Like it's something that Dan is already interested in and likely to get involved in. And it doesn't seem like. If you do that, Daniel, and then we publicize things or send people your way or something like that. It doesn't seem like a big problem for us. It seems like a nice synergy.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Works for me. I'm assuming there's no real committee action here. But okay, so there's at least some support behind the idea of possibly, or if that was to come up at some point, a NESCA team for Medford might be some synergy that could be achieved with the commission.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think if that happens, there probably are ways that we could collaborate and that would be great. Bike lights update. Ernie, you mentioned that briefly. We have five minutes.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I only need two. We're down to about 18 lights, apparently, which is pretty nice because I just heard from Singapore and our shipment for the rest of the year should be arriving in about two weeks. I'll be out of town a little bit, but I would perhaps want to do a major distribution to the schools sometime between like the 15th and Thanksgiving, the following Wednesday or so. So I think it was Gaston, or maybe it was Daniel who offered to help me pack them.
[Gaston Fiore]: I did too, maybe Daniel did too, but I did, yep.
[Ernie Meunier]: You did, okay. So I'll be in contact big month before our next meeting to do that and try to get these distributed before the Thanksgiving break so that kids biking around as it gets dark will have a chance to do that before Thanksgiving.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Feel free to contact me, Ernie. I'm happy to help out.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, and if I have time, I would help too. Feel free to. I think that's something you can post to the list and say, hey, anybody want to come help?
[Ernie Meunier]: Right. So I'll contact everybody in probably about three weeks around that. Thanks.
[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you for doing that. That's great.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_06]: And Ernie, I have a lot of the quick guides and more stickers for the packs. So maybe you might like to be the keeper of those so we can work that out.
[Ernie Meunier]: Sure. I'll need the stickers. But as you know, we have a lot of quick guides.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_06]: We do. Yes. Somebody else might like to offer their storage services for those.
[Ernie Meunier]: Oh, I can handle it. It's OK. Adios.
[Emily O'Brien]: All right, anything else for today?
[Jared Powell]: Before you head out, Pat, just to know that you are always welcome to realize the huge mistake you're making in leaving the commission and come back anytime you want. There's no shame in admitting that you were wrong. I'll second that. Just know that.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_06]: All right, well, I'm still, you know, I still live in Medford and still riding my bikes. I'm really not, I really do hope that we can, you know, collaborate and kind of think of me as your liaison to, you know, the towns to the north of us. And like, I do hope that we can, you know, collaborate on some things. I really do. Like, you know, the things that I've been working on are, it's, It's a lot of the same things, but it's just a little more of a regional focus. So I think I can be of service in that way and just kind of extend the resources.
[Ernie Meunier]: Ellen just said she would have baked a cake had she known.
[Emily O'Brien]: If I knew you were leaving, I'd have baked a cake. All right, on that note, do we have a motion to adjourn?
[Ernie Meunier]: So moved. So moved. I second. Seconded.
[Ernie Meunier]: Aye. All right, meeting adjourned.
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