[Emily O'Brien]: I think we'll get started. So let's see, Wednesday, July 5th, this is the recording in progress. This is the June meeting and Lily do have some verbiage to read us.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Sure, yes, happy to do it. On March 29th, 2023, Governor Healey signed into law a supplemental budget bill which, among other things, extends the temporary provisions pertaining to the open meeting law to March 31st, 2025. Specifically, this further extension allows public bodies to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the public body physically present at a meeting location, and to provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. The language does not make any substantive changes to the open meeting law other than extending the expiration date of the temporary provisions regarding remote meetings from March 31st, 2023 to March 31st, 2025. Thank you.
[Emily O'Brien]: So with that out of the way, the July 5th meeting of the Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission will come to order. Secretary, would you please call the roll?
[Unidentified]: Yes, Jared Powell. Present. Present, here we go. Okay, here we go.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I see you there. Bruce Kulik. Present. All right.
[Unidentified]: Emily O'Brien. Here. B. Dan Fairchild. Nice. Ernest Munier. Who I don't see?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Doug Packer, who I also don't see. Daniel Nuzemuller, present. Nome, Raveni, I'm sorry. Raveni. Raveni, present then.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: Also present, yes.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Mary Kate Gustafson. Quiet, just quiet, just quiet.
[MCM00001790_SPEAKER_07]: Mary Kate, I'm present.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay, Mary Kate is present.
[Unidentified]: Kevin Kotobek. I don't think I see. Leah Broadstein.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: here. Yep. Hey, nice to see you again, Leah. Rebecca Wright.
[Emily O'Brien]: She said she's not coming.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay, she's not coming. And Abigail Stone. Who I don't see. With that, I think.
[Emily O'Brien]: And I will make sure that I will just double check the settings and make sure that Kevin and Abigail are actually getting messages too.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay, great. But in any case, we do have a quorum, and I will note that Lillian Wirth is here from the city, and we always appreciate you showing up, Lillian.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you all. Yeah, thank you. So as you have heard, we have some new names on the list. So I would like to start by welcoming our new folks. And for those of you who are new and who are here, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and your interests in joining the bike mission? And we'll also tell you a little bit about what we've been doing. But go ahead and introduce yourselves.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Oh, may I make one one request? Can we the approval of the minutes from last meeting? Yes, we can do that.
[Emily O'Brien]: Sorry, just want to make sure get that get all of the I would have I would have gotten I would have gotten sidetracked and forgotten. Thank you. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes?
[Unidentified]: So moved. Seconded. All in favor? All right, minutes are approved.
[Emily O'Brien]: Great. Just because you're in the top row of my screen, Mary Kate, why don't you go first?
[MCM00001790_SPEAKER_07]: Sure. Happy to. Hi, I'm Mary Kate. I live in West Medford, right? Like a block from the Brooks. Um, so, uh, my family sold our second car and bought cargo bikes for the fan, uh, two years ago. And we've never looked back. We didn't even own bikes before we bought the cargo bikes. but I love it, we all love it, the kids love it. And I'm excited to just, I don't know, be a part, yeah, of the community and make it safer for everybody to enjoy something that just makes sense on so many levels, you know, personal levels, environmental levels, all of it, just friendliness, quality of life. So I'm also, safe routes to school representative for the Brooks Elementary School. So fun fact. And my kids, I have a rising first grader and then also another one entering kindergarten in the fall. So two very little ones were just getting started at the Brooks. So we'll be around for a while. Is that enough?
[Bruce Kulik]: Mary, I'd be interested in just understanding what's your experience so far. You said you started this a couple of years ago. So you've now had a little bit of time to kind of see what things are like here and in other communities and so forth.
[MCM00001790_SPEAKER_07]: My experience so far and what I, when people ask what it's like biking in Medford, I say it's really easy to get out of Medford. And then there is better bike infrastructure. If you can survive Boston Ave, you can, you can get to Davis, you know, like, um, and, and so we actually end up not spending a lot of time biking in Medford, like Medford square. I can't get through Medford square with my bike. They have that teeny tiny Island. It takes three lights. And I'm like, that is so dangerous. Even if I didn't have a bike and literally my cargo bike doesn't fit. So we end up not, I, I love like living local. I'm in West Medford. We're at CB scoops all the time. I can't even, there is zero bike parking on Boston Ave. I love the Danish pastry house and there is not a single bike place to lock my bike unless I go all the way down to the green line. And I'm like, I just want to support my local businesses. I love, where I live and I'm, like I said, I'm excited to be on the commission and make it easier and better because yeah, it's just about, these are decisions that like we can make as a community and we can help our community hopefully make. Thank you for your insights. Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: Great, thank you. And welcome. Noam, you're next, at least on my screen anyway.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: Hey, so I'm probably neighbors with you Mary Kate I live on Austin terrorists, which is right by the book school as well, I have a rising first grader. Definitely trying to get into. biking, but challenged with like my immediate vicinity, not being, you know, the most friendly for a six year old. And I've been probably biking my whole life, but grew up in Seattle and then moved to the East Coast like 20 odd years ago, and then became more of like a bike commuter and used it as my primary mode of transit. So that has kind of informed my interest in joining the commission and think like five years ago or something, I went to city council to like, provide positive testimony for the Clippership Connector and have really been keeping tabs on that project. So I think that also influenced my interest in joining the commission and taking a bigger part in, you know, creating a positive impact for biking infrastructure and accessibility in Medford.
[Unidentified]: So thank you for having me. Awesome, welcome. Thank you, Leah.
[Milva McDonald]: Hello, I just finished my dinner, so I will be able to be more on camera now. My name is Leah Grodstein. I don't have any kids. I'm 26. And I work as a transportation engineer for MassDOT. So I'm going to try really hard to not have conflicts of interest and just take myself out of any discussions of state infrastructure, but I've found the local infrastructure in Medford bad enough that here I am. A fun fact about me is that I really hated biking as a kid. I grew up in Arlington Heights, a block from the water tower, which meant that every time I went somewhere, I had to go back up a giant hill to get home. And I didn't understand why anyone would wanna do that. but I went to the Netherlands to study abroad and that kind of won me over. Great.
[Unidentified]: That's what the granny gear on your bicycle is for.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Oh yeah. Another fun fact about me is I like refuse to change gears. I'm not a good bicycle rider. I have 21 of them, but I am only in one gear ever.
[Bruce Kulik]: I found that people who learn how to drive standard shift on their car also know how to work the gears on their bicycle. But you know, whatever.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I really hate driving.
[Unidentified]: Try to avoid it. Yeah. Great.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, thank you. And I'm glad that you're here. And I'm glad that all of you are here. We have a number of announcements. First up is the Circle of Square Rehab. I'm sorry I wasn't able to be there more. I did kind of walk past, but I had somebody coming and had stuff to do, so I couldn't really stop. And y'all looked really busy anyway, so. Jared or whoever else was there, do you want to?
[Jared Powell]: Um, yeah, I thought it, I thought it was a really well attended event. I was there. Uh, Ernie was there. I think Dan, you were there the whole time. Uh, so thank you for manning that and doing all the breakdown and everything. We really appreciate that. Um, it was a very, it was a very active event. There were lots and lots of people who came up and wanted to know. you know, the kind of the usual questions about what's the status of the Clippership Connector and how do I bike here and how do I get from here to here? So lots of those types of questions, lots of interest in, you know, why is it harder to bike here than in other places? So just get like a lot of interest from people who want to make the city better for biking. So it's always nice to hear that feedback from people. We also gave away a lot of the light kits that Ernie put together. People snatch those things up like they're gold. People love those. So those are great and I'm glad that Ernie put so much work into pulling those together and getting the funding for them as well. And we also had a bunch of the, Dan brought up a bunch of the helmets from Project Kidsafe from Breakstone, White & Gluck, the law firm that provides big piles of free helmets for kids. So we had different sizes and we were able to give those out and try to put kids in the right size helmet so that they didn't have things that were just like obscenely ill fitting, so they could be safer on the roads and People love those. We gave a lot of those away too. I'm not too surprised when people like. Yeah, go ahead, Dan.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I was going to say probably 50. I have the rest of the helmets with me. I think we gave away 50% of the helmets that we got in the last donation. So yeah, pretty well done. We still have some left. But I just should note, we did go through 50% of them in one event. That's great.
[Jared Powell]: Was it like a few dozen, 30, 40 more?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: 20, 20, or no, 20, 24, and 24. Larges were 20, mediums and smalls were 24 each. So what, we went through about 36 helmets, I'm going to say. Gave away about 36 of them.
[Jared Powell]: Great. Yeah, people were very excited. always tried to make sure that the parents knew how to put them on. So it wasn't just like a grab bag thing for the kid. It was making sure there was like a training component that went along with it without being, you know, you don't want to be like handling other people's children, but you also want to make sure that parents like know how to do it themselves. Cause that's kind of the big takeaway. So I feel like we were pretty successful with that. Yeah, it was a great event. So I hope more folks are able to come to some of those in the future. It's a good way to get the word out that there are people on the inside, so to speak, trying to make it better.
[Emily O'Brien]: That's great. I only walked by briefly, but it seems like it was, and I'm always the one who complains about this, but it seemed like it was really, really loud in that spot.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: You and Ernie could talk about that.
[Emily O'Brien]: I feel like this is an ongoing theme with events like this, but part of it is it really does seem like if you're expecting a lot of community groups to be standing there talking to people, it shouldn't be so loud that it makes it difficult. Not to mention that, like, it really is loud enough to cause hearing damage over time, especially for people standing closer to the speakers. And, you know, lots of, you're assigned a spot, you can't get away from it. Anyway, that's, I only walked by this time. I've been at other things like this where I would have, I would have had a really hard time. I have earplugs, but I would have had a really hard time being there all afternoon personally. And I don't know if there's a way we can give feedback about that, just because I know that there are a lot of people who have questions and who want to talk about these things, and we don't need to be making it harder for them. So I will contact the Circle of Square people if that's the right thing to do.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, probably a good idea. I mean, we had a lot of very productive conversations. They were shouted, but they were productive nonetheless.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. I realized another event that happened that was not on our list was, unless there is something else about Circle the Square, sorry, I didn't mean to, if you weren't done yet, was that there was this, route 16 walk and talk arranged by walk Medford and the route 16 coalition and that was an evening. evening at like five o'clock, we all met at the community gardens at Winthrop Street, and Pat Jalen was there, and Garbally was there, and a number of other notables were there, the new DCR commissioner was there, and a whole bunch of interested people with an interest in all the pathways and the biking and walking conditions along this stretch, the focus of it was basically the stretch from Winthrop Street to Auburn Street at Whole Foods and from Winthrop Street to the Craddock Bridge, which even though it's just a short stretch along the river there, it has plenty to talk about. But it had a lot of good turnout and we had a group walking in either direction and then I think we were supposed to reconvene but that people sort of peeled off and I don't think really reconvened. But it did seem like it was a productive event and I hope that the, you know, movers and shakers who attended kind of realized what it was that they were looking at and why everybody always seems to be complaining to them about these things. We did go as far as to walk all the way to the Craddock Bridge and to point out that, you know, hey, you get to Main Street and then what do you do? You can't get across and the clipper ship connector is going to be right there on the other side of the street, but How do you get there? So that was, I think that was useful. We'll see what comes of it. I think it's just a step in the process, but we'll keep our eyes out for further events. B. Dan, you were there also, if you have anything to add.
[MCM00001790_SPEAKER_07]: I was going to jump in. I was there as well. And I went towards the Whole Foods. I went the other way. Yeah. Yeah. And, but it was also a really productive discussion. And we talked about issues with wayfinding and like, we have this giant concrete post that literally says nothing on it. Like it's so on, it's just in the way and like, doesn't provide any useful lack of like crossing opportunities and like access to the parkway, it's like you cross at Winthrop or you don't cross again until you get to Auburn. Yeah, really long stretch. And then, yeah, they said it was very helpful. The representatives that were there said it was really helpful to understand. I don't even know how you describe that intersection of like Auburn and route 16, and how many times those barriers have been taken out in the only three years that I've lived here. Like every time I go there, there's a new fresh pile of car debris. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I've seen some of just the absolute crazy striving in that intersection. Uh, so yeah, it was, and we're just like, yeah. So they were like, okay, this thing's, I don't even think you could have like taken it all in if we described it in an email to you. So it was helpful for them to experience the chaos of that intersection. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: That's great. B. Dan, do you have anything to add?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Um, I don't think so. I mean, I think, yeah, that, that basically covered it. Um, and like, we also, I guess we also covered like a lot of other things kind of like, there's, there's also the Winthrop street and Route 16 intersection, which is bad in different ways. It's not crazy that way, but it's still a problem. Um, lack of access. to the park from the neighborhood across Route 16, various stuff, other stuff on the east side as well, like the footbridge that you can't get to very easily.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I know we discussed that footbridge and the sidewalk conditions going over the bridge between the two crossings and the crossing where nobody stops. Um, and the, um, and the drainage issues on the side in between, um, Winthrop and, and Auburn. Um, what else? The, um, the fact that the, that Route 16 is so wide there, but yet there's so little space on the sidewalk for anybody who wants to use these pathways. And it's sort of very unclear. Is this a bike path? Is this a sidewalk? Is this both? Is it neither? Is it really the continuation of this path or did the path just end? Is there anywhere else to go? So there are kind of just a whole lot of little things at every step of the way in this stretch.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Oh, and one other thing was discussion of the number of lanes on Route 16, which, you know, west of Auburn is four, east of there is two. their, I can't, I don't remember the exact status is, but Somerville at least is possibly getting a section, their section reduced to two lanes, which would, you know, potentially open the door to get the rest of it reduced also to two lanes and then might have
[Unidentified]: fewer problems from trying to get four lanes into two, basically. Yeah. Jared, you had your hand up.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I guess your tone didn't sound overly optimistic about the extent to which people were going to listen to some of what you were saying. I guess I'm just curious, did you get the sense that they were surprised by some of what you were saying, or that this was new information for them, or they felt like, Or did it seem like they were advocates who were in line with the goals that you were talking about?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: So my impression was that Senator Jalen was not aware of all those specific problems, certainly. That's part of why we had the event. Supportive of getting things fixed, but also there's a lot to fix and like all of it's expensive pretty much um like in particular like like the whole foods auburn street intersection that really needs a whole redesign of the road kind of to actually fix it like you can't get away from the fact that it's on a curve and people are trying to take that curve way too fast. That's why people keep running into the barrier that way. The only way you're going to fix that is to sort of redo something completely differently. There aren't any quick fixes there.
[Emily O'Brien]: And even the fact that there's no walk signal to cross Auburn Street would probably require a redesign of that whole signal system. Even if you didn't change anything else, just doing that is already... Right. non-trivial.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Right. I mean, like, I think, um, I think Ellery was, um, advocating for, you know, redesign at Winthrop Street as a priority. Um, that's Ellery Klein, leader of Walk Medford. Um, just on the grounds that it's simpler, like, Like, no one knows what to do about the Auburn Street intersection, basically. Like, they've done studies. No one has come up with a plan. Whatever the plan would be would be expensive. But there are at least plausible ideas for making the Winthrop Street intersection better. So yeah, a lot of the question was just like, what do we prioritize first? You know, it's like, People are supportive of doing things, but aware that it's not going to be possible to do everything at once. So what do we focus on first?
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I guess. Anyone present know the history of the Powder House Boulevard project? Because it seems like down on the parkway, Somerville is doing exactly that, right? They're reconfiguring the parkway. They're making it safer. I don't know a lot about it, but if that was like a city driven initiative or I imagine it took some state involvement.
[Bruce Kulik]: Part of the reason that is getting rebuilt is they are redoing the affordable housing complex to make it mixed use larger. Basically larger buildings in that area. And so I think that taking advantage of piggybacking and therefore reconfiguring the powder house at route 16 quasi rotary, which has always been. very odd because the yield signs don't match traditional yield signage and people don't quite know how to operate it. And it's again, another one of those where you have four lanes coming in and this theoretically two lanes around the island, but that's also not quite clear. So I've always noticed a lot of confusion there.
[Unidentified]: And certainly even for me, not a very fun place to ride a bicycle at that location.
[Emily O'Brien]: I kind of think this event and something like this is just to kind of get the attention on the issue more than anything else so that next time there's a question of which of these five areas is a higher priority, anybody who is at that event and walking around with all of these residents saying, you know, I can't cross the street here or, you know, look here, you can see on the ground why this is difficult, that they'll remember that they were there and that they saw it. And it's not just, you know, that maybe that has an impact. It's, I think it's not, I don't think anybody's really expecting that the officials that came are gonna go back to work the next day and immediately sign over some money to fix it, I think they're expecting that, well, next time it comes up as a question of, is this important? Is this a priority? Is this area more important than that area? They will have been there and seen it on the ground. So in that sense, I think it's great that they came. It's great that they saw all of the other residents who came and said, hey, look, we really need these facilities. We really need this corridor. We really need access to these areas. And you can see for yourself why it's difficult.
[Unidentified]: So hopefully it is just a step along the way, but hopefully it's a good step. If we have no more on that.
[Emily O'Brien]: We have also on the agenda to welcome the new members. I thought it would also be a good time, which we did already, but I thought it would be a good time to just kind of give a brief rundown of things that the bike commission has done in the past and give you some things to think about, about projects that we might want to take on going forward now that we have new people to take projects on. In general, our role is advisory, but we can kind of do a lot of stuff if it's what we make of it. So we go to events like Circle the Square and answer questions and show people about what's going on around Medford, and we can distribute helmets and lights and things like that. That's one of the things that we've done. Years ago, the bike commission put together a bicycle master plan for the city of Medford, which is in the process of being updated, which Lily is working on. And that's intended as kind of a reference for recommendations in specific areas. I think in a lot of cases, Um. A little bit more ambitious or optimistic than the first time around now that we've made some progress in that, um, in that area. Um. We've been we've had various members serve on other committees related, um, and. volunteer for other related efforts. The bike to school day things are an example of that, or the Wellington Study Committee. We've had chances to give input in a lot of related areas, for example, bike racks or Todd and Amy and Lily have presented some of their thoughts or some of their plans for bike lanes and things being built around the city. And we've given our feelings, our opinions on the matter. Does anybody else have other? Feel free to speak up if you have other things. Yeah, go ahead.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I was going to say, actually, I would suggest that we also, existing previous committee members also introduce ourselves because all the new people have introduced themselves, but they don't necessarily know who we are other than the committee or the previously existing committee. And maybe we should do that.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, that's fair enough. We should probably make it quick, but go right ahead and start it off.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, okay. Hi, I'm Bidan Fairchild, pronouns they them. I've been on the bike commission since 2018, 2019, something like that. I've been in Medford since 2014. I don't have a driver's license, and therefore been biking most of my life to get around places. I used to bike to work in Watertown until the pandemic. since I've been working from home and just trying to get a better network of places to bike that I can use to get places.
[Unidentified]: Daniel?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Hey, I'm Daniel Mosemuller. I live actually very close to, I guess, Nome and Mary-Kate. I'm at the Woburn High intersection. So I see a lot of the things that you see as well and have the same concerns. I grew up in downtown Boston. I was a bike commuter all through school. Um, I came back. I was a bike messenger for a little while. I started racing bikes. I've been a commuter throughout all my years. Um, I've continued racing. I still ride a lot. I ride mountain bikes in the fells. I commute as my, you know, standard operating procedure. And I just sort of want to try to give back and make biking more accessible to everyone because I think it's just a great thing.
[Unidentified]: Yep. That's me. Uh, Jared?
[Jared Powell]: Sure. Uh, hi everyone. I'm, I'm Jared Powell. Uh, Daniel is the secretary by the way. Uh, I'm the, I'm the vice chair currently that we tend to rotate positions a bit. Um, but I've been a bike commuter for a very long time. I like to bike for transportation with the destination in mind is usually what I really enjoy doing. Uh, so I ride all the time when I'm trying to get places that's kind of been my MO for, for many years since, I mean, since I started by commuting, I think when I was like a teenager and didn't realize that that was a thing, but I still did it then. Uh, but now I've got two young kids, a one-year-old and a four-year-old and they bike with me now. Uh, we've got big cargo bikes that can haul them around and it's super fun. And I'm really enjoying seeing more and more people doing that. Kudos to you, Mary Kate. Uh, that's a fun thing to get to do. Um, I think ultimately I think biking is a great thing for any number of reasons that I'm sure you all agree with, but ultimately I want to make. cycling in the area something that is very normal and boring and accessible to people of all different ages and abilities. I don't want it to be something where you have to be particularly intense or hardcore or brave or need body armor all these sorts of things to feel safe when you're out doing it. I don't think that's any way to win new people over to this activity. I would much rather it be just very easy, simple, normal, and safe for kids and normal people alike. I'm willing to ride on busy roads and deal with more intense city traffic, but I think there needs to be a way where it's much easier for people who don't have that same level of risk tolerance to get into it. So that's what I hope we can achieve here. Thank you.
[Emily O'Brien]: Bruce?
[Bruce Kulik]: Hi, my name is Bruce Kulik. I'm one of the founding members of the Bike Commission, and I've really been biking in the metro area before a lot of the infrastructure came on board. So my view is sometimes a little bit contrary to some of the other members. I don't mean to be adversarial when it's contrary, but often to point out where there are issues with some of the bike infrastructure that's put in place, just to be aware of it as we try to make it the best for everybody. I do understand that not everybody, as Jared just pointed out, not everybody's comfortable riding in the street, and I recognize that. On the other hand, there are many of us who do ride in the street, and we need to be careful about for lack of a better word, not obstructing their access to the street as well. So that is something that you'll hear me sometimes come up with counter ideas beyond just putting everyone on the sidewalk and whatever. I'm very familiar with Massachusetts and laws in other states. I am not a lawyer, but I've read up a lot on that. very familiar with the different streets and the situations we get involved in. So I understand where the intersections can be very, very difficult for people. And yeah, the Auburn Street one is a great example, because it's just, it's kind of stupid to drive through there, let alone try to ride any way through there. But I bring a lot of experience to the group, and I'm not afraid to say so. So there we have it. Thanks, everybody.
[Emily O'Brien]: Great, thank you. And I'm Emily O'Brien. I'm another one who doesn't have a driver's license. I've been a bike commuter my whole life. I've done, I don't do road racing anymore, but I have, I did for a while. And then I got interested in long distance events and I still do those. And I have ridden all over this area, all over the state, all over New England, all over a lot of other parts of the country and a number of other countries. I spent two years in Germany in grad school. And one thing that I was really struck by when I lived there is how Here we tend to think of biking as being the slower, more difficult alternative to driving a car. So only a certain category of people are going to do that. But over there, they tend to think of it as being the faster, easier alternative to walking. Because you don't have to work as hard and you can carry more stuff because your bike can carry it for you. And so as a result, you see the grannies riding down the bike lane with their groceries at seven and a half miles an hour. But it really is not just something that only a certain category of people do. It's just something that, well, of course everybody does that. Why would you walk if you've got a bike? And I will even say that I had been biking here for many years at the point when I went to Germany. And when I came back on my semester breaks, I would go back to work at my old job and I had my same commute from West Medford to Brookline. And now I live just outside of Medford Square, but we lived in West Medford at the time. But when I first came back to Boston after being in Germany for a semester, The first time I went back on my old commute, which was very familiar and I had been doing it for many years, but after three or four months of biking in Germany, the first day that I went back on my old commute, it was like, wow, this is actually kind of hair raising. And I wasn't really expecting it to take me by surprise like that because I had never given it a second thought before. So I thought that was just kind of an interesting perspective in that even a few months away, made it probably feel a little bit more like it does to a new rider. Not the same, but just a little bit of perspective on that. And I got over it and I went back to doing that same commute and that's fine. But it was, I think it still is an interesting comment that was a bunch of years ago now. So I joined the bike commission in an effort to hopefully make it, as others have said, a safer, more normal, more comfortable thing for more people to do. I would love to think that any of my neighbors could ride down the street and go to the grocery store. You can't live more than a couple miles from a grocery store and live in Medford. You can't live more than three miles from school and live in Medford and attend Medford public schools. Everybody in Medford has places That they probably want to go that are a reasonable biking distance, even for an average out of shape adult and I would love for more people to feel like that was a normal and reasonable thing to do so. So. Welcome to everybody. And I would also like to just say, in terms of priorities and things that you can take on as a member of the commission or as a member of the public, if you want to participate, we are well, we want to have you. We want to hear your opinion. We want to hear your input. Don't be shy about speaking up. And you can certainly volunteer your time at any of the events or any of the other activities that we've done. So you certainly don't need to be a member of the commission to take on projects to the extent that you have the time and bandwidth to do them. If there's a specific project that you would like us to see, that you would like to see us undertake, then by all means, started on it, have at it. We have all of these fantastic bike light kits to distribute at these events because Ernie, who's not here tonight, Ernie decided that it was important to get lights on kids bikes and he ordered a bunch of cheap We've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a lot of people come in and we've had a to cover the cost of these lights for us. And we have this amazing thing because Ernie decided that it was a project he wanted to take on. So if there's anything else that you feel like is something that you want to make your project or your priority, by all means, don't be shy. We want to mobilize all of those efforts. I just noticed we have another guest here, Connor Higgins. So, welcome.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: Sorry for entering late.
[Emily O'Brien]: No, no, not at all. Next up, I have bike racks on the agenda, but I wasn't sure, Daniel, what the, if there were updates or movement on that subject, or if it's leftover from
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, let's see. So Jared, you probably remember, we were speaking with, I'm forgetting her name, from the city.
[Unidentified]: Jared, do you remember?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Was it Alicia? No, I don't think so. We were speaking with someone from the city during the circle of square, and it sounds like there actually are bike racks This is someone on the Traffic Commission. Jeez.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Alicia is the only woman on the Traffic Commission. We were talking to Alicia for a while.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Oh, it was Alicia. I'm sorry. Okay. So I don't know the members all that well then. This is the first time I met her in person, aside from seeing her on Traffic Commission meetings. We had talked with her, and I believe in storage and it was more of a question as to where they were placed. and that the installation wasn't all that hard. I believe she was saying that we could reach out to her about some of the placement of those racks because I think they have some in storage. Jared, do you remember the details of that conversation? Because this all happened while we were distributing helmets and lights and it was on the side. Our attention was split, but she definitely did offer
[Jared Powell]: to I think she requested that we basically make a request for more bike racks. I think that was part of it. And that with an official request from the bike commission, she could help move it forward and make it happen.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, so we already came up with a list of places a while back.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, we have a document. We have a Google map with several priority levels on it.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: And I think we'd given that to Amy when she was still with the city. But maybe that got lost track of when she left.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Amy and Todd both had it. But the last time we discussed it, I'm not sure that they knew that there were bike racks in storage. Because we did discuss the fact that buying more bike racks is not actually that expensive. They seemed to think that having the personnel with the time to go out and install them was the sticking point. But if Alicia thinks otherwise, then I suggest that we make that we officially move to make a new request for bike racks and send that map that we made before and reiterate that to Alicia and whoever else she thinks we should send it to.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: EPW?
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I mean I will certainly cc Todd on that and Tim who presumably is also sympathetic
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, I'll just jump in here. I believe I remember this conversation, and I know that Amy knew that there were racks in storage. And I believe that you guys are correct that the issue was really staff capacity. But I think re-upping this as a priority is really important. I admit it definitely slipped off my radar. But you've already done the work. You have the map. We have the racks. I think sending a push is a good idea. And copying Tim as well as the DPW commissioner, I think, would make a difference.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think it would also be, this is maybe a more recent development since at least some of our bike rack discussions, but now that there are more parking meters, there are those bike rack attachments that are sort of a loop that get attached to the post of a parking meter. And with so many places with parking meters, that would be, a relatively easy way to increase the number of bike parking spaces. It's maybe not as good as one of those stable racks, but it's certainly better than nothing, and it's better than a parking meter with nothing on it. It's something that has a loop that you could put a cable lock through instead of just trying to put a cable lock over the top of a parking meter. And it gives you something for a little bit more support of a bike to not fall down rather than just a parking meter by itself. So with so many more, and there aren't parking meters in every area, but since we have those and we didn't used to have them, that is something that we could potentially leverage to increase the amount of bike parking a little faster.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, actually I'm assuming that the ones that we have in storage are not the kind that attach to parking meters.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I'm sure it's not that.
[Bruce Kulik]: I just threw a quick link in case anyone is interested in seeing what we're talking about.
[Unidentified]: Just a random link from the web.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, thank you. So I will add that to the request that I make. Do we have a motion to make that request officially?
[Unidentified]: Motion.
[Emily O'Brien]: Second. All in favor?
[Unidentified]: Hi.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Hi.
[Emily O'Brien]: OK, I will make that request officially.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Also, I think I saw that you had your hand up a bit ago, but you didn't say anything, so yeah, that was before you said you already had a list.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, we have a we have a map and we can send it to the we can send the link to the group. It's a Google map and we tried to put racks in all the business districts and space them and kind of even as distribute them as evenly as possible, even though we know that that means that there are some places that are higher demand that will still only get you know that still only get one or two on that first round. So that some other lower demand area can get one, but just in interest of having them everywhere, or having at least something in every business district and then on the second and third priority tiers kind of come in and fill in more spaces. I'm also curious, Lily, maybe you have some idea of this, this might be a little bit outside of your area of expertise, but there are a lot of times that I've talked to business owners who are interested in having bike racks installed, in some cases they would be willing to spend some amount of money for that to happen. When we've brought that up before, the reception of business owners spending any money for bike racks on city property was kind of lukewarm because then it brings up, you know, fairness and inequality issues. It's like, well, you get one if you have the money for it. And they're not expensive, but it was kind of a discussion point and probably made it a non-starter for them to fund it themselves. But I wonder if there's a place that business owners who want one could be directed Even just in interest of having this having somebody at City Hall know that there's businesses out there who would love that love for their biker customers to have someplace to park.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: That's a good question. I don't know that there's any sort of that the city has done any sort of formal, you know, suggestion of this, but if you know of anybody or happen to talk to business owners or who, who would support that, please do have them email myself and Todd because that way we kind of have an idea of where those people are and we can at least use that knowledge to decide how we want to move forward. I see some of the sort of caveats there. So I don't know. I don't know if I can comment on what the official position might be, but I can certainly check with Todd and I do know that there is. The parking department is working on additional meters and I don't think their process for procurement has quite started yet. So I'm happy to bring that up with them and make sure that they're aware that this is a desire and has been a desire to kind of have bike racks that might be either on the meters or located kind of in those business districts and see if we can kind of get some traction there.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, that would be great. Thank you. I think that's, you know, that's one of those things that kind of should be obvious like any place that it's worth putting in parking meters. there should also be bike racks, even though we did make specific recommendations. And we also have a list of kind of other details and link to, like the city of Cambridge has a bike parking guide and some of the bike rack manufacturers have guides that tell, that give recommendations for how far away from other solid objects or obstructions bike racks should be. We're always hearing about the one at Wegmans that's a little bit too close to the wall. At one point there was one installed on Boston Ave at the corner near Tamper in front of the dry cleaners and they put it right next to a signpost. So there were like two signposts on the street, and people would lock their bikes at both of them. But if you put the bike rack right next to the signpost, there's still parking for two bikes. And then the signpost got hit by a car and knocked over, and they took that one out. So there was also some recommendations about don't put it too close to corners, don't put it where it's in the way of people coming out of driveways. And if you can't locate it in one of our desired locations without violating one of those other guidelines, then we would rather that it go to some other place that's further down the priority list just to ensure that they all end up being usable and desirable places to park rather than kind of compromising and putting it as close as possible to the spot that we wanted, but then it ends up being someplace where it's not really going to get the use that it could. So I will send that along with it.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I have a couple thoughts on requesting. One is Can we put a message on the bike commission website saying if you want to request a bike rack in a specific place, email, or alternatively would see click fix be a place to submit those sorts of requests to know we've got like potholes there. Would it make sense to put a link to that instead? Or both, something.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think certainly we could add to the website a message about who to email if you would like to request a bike rack outside of your business. I think since there's not a specific category for that in C-Click Fix, it just means that people are going to go down and scroll down and pick something that may or may not be the right category, and then it might not go to the right person. Um, without it being obvious what you do, once you get to see click pics, they might just not bother.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. And I think just, just having something on the website, because then we can just tell people, you know, look on the website, there's instructions for how to request instead of, you know, email these specific people, which then they have to like write down who the people are and remember, and that sort of thing. And also, you know, no one else can find it if they haven't talked to us. So. having on the website seems like at least a better step.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: Daniel, you and I can coordinate about putting something like that on the website.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Do we need a motion or is that just our website?
[Emily O'Brien]: I think we're just making an update to the website. I don't think we need a motion for that. Somebody else can correct me if that's wrong.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: I also wanted to mention on the subject of bike racks, I believe this may have come up in an earlier meeting, there was some talk about having better and additional bike racks at the schools. I've been in touch with the director of the vocational high school and evidently they're going to start fabricating some bike racks for at least the high school. And there was requests to do them for all of the schools. So to be determined, they got a bunch of new funding for that project, and it's one of their priorities for the fall. And I sent them the guide that Emily was mentioning, which talked about which designs to use, which not to use, and where to place them. So I'm going to check in with them in the fall just to see Check on that project and kind of make sure it's happening, but that's at least another source of of additional bike parking at the schools.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, that's great. That's that's really cool. That's exciting. Yeah. So next up, Jared said he was going to be right back. I'm not sure if he's back yet. We should wait for Jared for the Wellington Circle study update. Next I have MassTrails Priority Trails Network Vision. And Jared should probably be here for this too, but we can start on that. I thought I had everything up that I needed, and I don't. Let's actually come back to this, too, because the also... I'll give you the links that were sent out about that and post them in the chat. Great, thank you. In the meantime, MBAC rides, summer rides, so safe routes to school, high comfort routes, routes for parents, other possible rides. This is about organizing some group rides over the summer. And some of the things that we've discussed is, for example, a Sunday summer ride. people on routes that you would use to bike to school. So that's kind of a. Low stress time of the week and time of the day and a time when you can kind of check it out and see what the see what the roads like. See what get the lay of the land before making the attempt on a school day. That's one thought. High comfort routes. This is one of those cases where in a lot of cases there are. pretty good alternatives to a lot of the major roads, but they tend to be very complicated and very circuitous. And if you're not already a regular cyclist, it's kind of a project to figure out which combination of turns you have to take through a little maze of one-way streets in order to bypass some of the larger roads that you'd rather not be on. So routes, a ride leading people through one of those could also be good. I think that routes for parents, that kind of is in the same category. Other possible rides, I think all of these are just ideas, just starting points. What we really need is people who are willing and able and have the time to organize rides And if there's anything on this list or anything else that you think would be good that strikes your interest, speak up. I think we can have lots of stuff going on. And if you don't have a route ready to go and you would like help creating one, we can help with that too. Leah?
[Milva McDonald]: When you said like a Sunday ride, Um, I thought you were going to talk about ice cream and like start a ride at CB scoops and go for a little loop and end at Colleen's. Yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: That has also been a thing.
[Emily O'Brien]: So, I mean, the other thing is CB scoops and Colleen's neither of them is that far from the high school. So. They're, you know, they're also not far from other schools, but it's not really that big. So. These these things can be we can offer the ice cream to get them on the right.
[Milva McDonald]: So it's nice to have an incentive.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: I also I know this is perfect timing for it on July 5th, but I always thought a 4th of July ride would be really cool like when people can put you know red white and blue decorations on their bikes and like have a little parade. I don't know how to get help with like know, it would be really awesome if there was a fire truck there and we closed the street off. I don't know how to do that.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think that would be a bit of a bigger project, but that would be a cool thing to think about for next year.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I mean, closing things in general is in some ways a bigger project, but also a more, it doesn't have to be just like holidays, like Cambridge has the MemDrive weekends thing. So that could also be a category, potentially.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think the hard thing is that the streets that we would want to close for an event like that are either something like Route 16, which is a DCR road, or something like Main Street, which starts to make it really hard to find an alternative route. But it would certainly be an exciting thing to explore at some point.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I think the benefit of holidays is that hopefully people weren't planning on driving anywhere super, super important. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, but that could be a fun thing for next year.
[MCM00001790_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah. I'm just gonna throw out one more idea because we were talking about the topic. I agree. I think it's kind of crazy. It's like hard to find things to do. And I'm like, are we not in the birthplace of America? Why is it so hard to find? events to attend. I drove out to Wilmington this year, so I could find something that I could do with my kids to celebrate the Fourth of July. And I've always thought a bike parade would be cute, and I think the parkway could be a cool place to do it, that we wouldn't have to shut down a ton of roads for. But I was really going to chime in, and I wanted to say I would love to team up with some of my West Medford people and host some like yeah rides to school I think that's a really good idea. I've never done something like that before. So I would, again, love to team up with anyone just so I can like throw out an idea and somebody can be like, that's a terrible idea. Let me tell you something better or tell me if it's not a terrible idea. Cause yeah, I'm not really sure anyway. I just started thinking about like, how do I choose the route? all those things. So it'd be great to have some partners on that. And I've also wondered if we've ever done anything like I know the Brooks has a fall festival. And I don't know if there's been any history of doing stuff at like school events like that. But Yeah, I've been, I mean I wanted to have something at the fall festival anyway for the safe routes to school and helping people. There's a lot of overlap in these two roles. But yeah, I wasn't sure if, if we have a history of doing that or if we'd be interested in doing something like that. I know people have talked about like what about bike rodeos and like all these different things I have no experience with it and don't even know when I say that word like what the scope of the project I'm proposing is.
[Bruce Kulik]: Mary, I'd like to suggest that you work with the PTO. I know years ago when my kids were at the Brooks, we had a very strong PTO and events like this would be something that they might be interested in doing. And we certainly would be able to help with any technical expertise and organizational expertise as well to help with that. But it would typically need to be push from the PTO side rather than the other way around. You know we make ourselves available but the school would need to kind of organize it and in the past it's been I won't say lukewarm, but trying to coordinate that has always been sort of like, oh, that's a great idea, and then we never hear anything, particularly at the high school.
[MCM00001790_SPEAKER_07]: Do you mean that being like a rodeo or just like- For example, yeah, or anything.
[Emily O'Brien]: We have the rodeo kinds of activities that we've done have typically involved setting up some sort of a course that kids ride their bike through a course and it has things like stop signs and it has intersections and they have to know signal turns or for depending on their age and skill level they just have to stop and start at different points or like make a turn within a certain within a certain thing there's kind of different things that we've done. And so that's a possibility. A lead ride to or from the event is also a possibility. There's lots of options. But the key really is having people who are involved in the school and in the PTO kind of spearhead this. I think one of the challenges we've had in the past is not necessarily always having a lot of people with school age kids. So that's really where having people who are already involved at the schools makes a big difference. Jared?
[Unidentified]: On that specific topic, it's a slight segue, but it's related.
[Jared Powell]: Alicia hunts the city was talking about what we were talking with her the other day at safe at several schools circle the square about this exact issue how we wanted to help with more rides to school and that sort of thing but it does need to be more help and a partnership not just outside people suddenly telling kids at school what to do. But we don't have good connections into the school networks and the school lines of communications there, or at least haven't really to date. But she did put us in touch with Sam Christie, who we may have chatted with before, actually.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think we have. And I had approached him before about helping with this sort of thing. And he had been I guess maybe a little bit lukewarm or wasn't sure he wanted to take on a project like organizing that, but maybe he's more interested now.
[Jared Powell]: Well, she put us in touch and we emailed back and forth a couple of times. I wouldn't say that he hasn't volunteered to run events, but he has volunteered to be kind of the liaison with Medford High School. So to help plug us into the communication network that they have there, so that we can have a better sense of how to advertise things, if there's other support systems, that kind of thing. So I invited him to the meeting, but he's out of town, I think. I think on a bike trip in Colorado or something, if I'm remembering that right. Yeah. Um, so hopefully he'll be able to join the next meeting and maybe we can chat with him about that.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Also, uh, like we have done bike rodeos in the past. They haven't been associated with the schools, but like we did one at like, uh, like Tufts park, I think was the place and just, you know, sort of set it up there and like, we got good turnout, I think. Right. And like gave away a bunch of helmets there too. So, you know, if, so certainly it doesn't hurt to do things in conjunction with the schools, but we can also organize things separately.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: On that note, that sort of brings me to one of the topics that I wanted to talk about, which was, you know, Ellery Klein from WAC Medford. A month ago, she organized a meeting with some parents, mostly, I don't actually think there was a representative from the high school, but from all the other schools, to talk about putting together a Safe Routes to School task force and basically the idea behind this would be to have a group, mostly volunteers and parents from the schools, but also hopefully some representatives, maybe anybody from the bike commission or some other community groups to kind of come together on that topic and do some of these types of things like pull together events. make some of these connections to kind of help, you know, keep people from being too siloed. So she set up a mailing list to kind of get the ball rolling and if anybody on this commission wants to be on it either reach out to LRE directly or let me know and I can put you in touch. One of the things that she has organized is a workshop event at Medford Public Library, which will happen on September 30th, covering bike safety and kind of how to ride a bike. And I believe Vivian Ortiz, who is the state Safe Routes to School coordinator for our district, is going to be there kind of running that event. But Vivian was also available when we met a few weeks ago to kind of advise on this. So this is a group that's kind of trying to get some traction and they can kind of use all the help that they can get.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, that's great, thank you.
[MCM00001790_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, so that's, I was there. I was one of the people.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Oh, you were? Okay, wonderful.
[MCM00001790_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah, that's what I, yeah, I'm like on part, I'm working.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: I couldn't remember who from each, who was there, but there was a good group of people.
[MCM00001790_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, but, so we have somebody on that task force already.
[Emily O'Brien]: So the other thing is Mary Kate, anytime you feel like you, we have to be careful about deliberating on the email list, but you can always, you can always make an announcement and say, if anyone is interested in helping out with this, contact me directly. And that's, that's allowable. So if there's, if you're looking for, if you're looking for help with something, if you want, and you can also obviously reach out to specific people, if you have somebody in mind. But you can, you can use the email list for that. Okay, thanks. Sorry, go ahead.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Or just to announce that like there's a public meeting or something like that, that people could show up to.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, sure. Now that Jared is back, let's go back to the Wellington circle study update. Has everyone had a chance to look at those documents or look at them at some point? I know Leah is backing out at the moment.
[Jared Powell]: Well, I suppose I can give a quick update. It may be underwhelming. Sure, go ahead. They've, they've, we participated in the working group, along with a lot of stakeholders about the redesign of the Wellington circle which is just a, you know, a nightmare tangled knot of streets over near Wellington station. It's obviously a very important gateway to the city and access point to Somerville and points east. So it has a lot of throughput, a lot of crashes, a lot of side swipes, very little bike traffic. And because everybody's scared to bike through there, very few bike accidents, which, you know, pros and cons, I suppose. But the state plans to redesign it and they started big working group to start that process. And they've had a lot of working group meetings, and they have finally released their draft final report, which is a funny way of phrasing it, but that's the, that's how it is phrased. So there is a final report that came at the end of all their deliberations where they had the working group meetings and then they had the public meetings after the working group meetings. And this is the draft version of that ultimate final report. And they've got Yeah, they've got some short-term options for improving things, which, Emily, you're showing there. And they have some long-term solutions as well, which I think they chose the one on the right, if I'm not mistaken, the trial-y one?
[Emily O'Brien]: No, they chose the translate-enhanced version of, that was their recommendation.
[Jared Powell]: There we go. So that's the that's the long term thing. So it's simpler than what was there, but still quite confusing, in my personal opinion, just because I don't know how you see that any other way. But it's the idea, I feel like they had very good goals going in reducing lanes of traffic, making it safer, more friendly for pedestrians for cyclists for more access for public transit, letting people get across that very crazy and dangerous intersection much more much more easily without resorting to redesigns that might ultimately choke it, like a rotary, which they didn't think was sufficient for the traffic volumes. They talked about overpasses and underpasses and tunnels, a lot of different approaches there for making it safer and friendlier. But yeah, I think that figure three is the one that they ultimately plan to recommend. So there's still a lot of design and actual, I think, funding that would have to go into that design and planning. So the fact that they landed on this is not a finalization of what will happen, but it's kind of what the initial group studying it recommends, and then it can move forward from there. And I'm sure there are others on the group who might have more insight into exactly what that process looks like. But they have released this report, public comments are open through The 8th, which I think is was it Saturday or Sunday this weekend. So we could make a comment as a group. I don't know if we're informed enough to do that other than maybe a kind of a high level general thing about please continue to focus on. Cyclist and pedestrian safety and that sort of thing, but people are obviously welcome to submit. Personal. comments as part of the public comment process.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think we should, I think we should certainly do both. We should certainly make a comment as a, as a group, but also, we should all make our individual comments. One other thing that Jared didn't mention is there is some discussion in this spot of having a pedestrian bridge to help facilitate this particular crossing. One comment I would want to include is that if there's a pedestrian bridge, it needs to be wide enough and the approaches need to be wide enough and the curves need to be large enough of a radius that bicyclists can use it without being expected to dismount, which nobody wants to do, and without having the whole approach to that ramp be made of blind curves, especially as more and more people are riding e-bikes. That's just going to increase the potential for huge speed differentials, And, you know, people trying to use the uphill and the downhill direction at the same time and also get around pedestrians and dogs and so forth. I think a good comparison is the Arthur Fiedler footbridge over Storrow Drive, which On the one hand, it's great that it's there. It's, it would be awful if it was gone. But on the other hand, it's if it if there's a lot of people around it just is awkward to use it requires these convex mirrors at all of those curves and even if you're looking in that mirror to the best of your ability, half the time there's somebody jogging the other direction who's going a little fast and a little too on the wrong side, and it's not a lot of room. So I would say that I think we need to emphasize that if a pedestrian, if a bridge like this is part of the plan for making this work, that it's important not to cheap out on it. That this is, that we really need to take seriously decent volume of usage, and also the fact that people are going to be at speeds ranging from e-bikes to toddlers and everything in between. And one comment that Alicia made at one of the meetings, she pointed out that in a lot of these cases, there could be a possibility for, even though there still are a lot of travel lanes, In this plan there. Once something like this was built, it is sufficiently simplified that there could be more future possibility of converting some of that space later into more bike usage. I think that's You know, that's kind of a little bit of a, well, we're not getting it now, but maybe someday they'll decide to give it to us. But my thinking is that we need to emphasize that this is really a bare minimum. This is certainly an improvement on existing conditions. And I agree that it's better than the other alternatives that they considered and that this is a really difficult intersection, but that this spot is worth the resources that doing this would take and that And that it's important to maintain the amount of of bike facilities that are planned and not start kind of cutting back and cutting costs and cheaping out and cutting all of those improvements. So that's my That's my take on it is that this is a big improvement if this were to get built. But if this is the opening to negotiations and then the project gets scaled back, that would end up being not really very much of an improvement over what's there now. Are there other comments?
[Jared Powell]: I agree with you. Value engineering, I feel like, would take out a lot of the stuff that might seem good about it, though I guess my thought would be I would want to encourage them to not simply think that this is good enough and that they couldn't, with further study, come up with something better, in fact. There's oddities about it. It's still confusing to me, I think. There would be cycle tracks, I think, is what's proposed, and the pale blue around the two kind of triangular green spaces, which I'm not sure how that How that functions or what you do with those just do laps around that space or something hope hopefully connectivity would be very good and i'm just being overly cynical about it but. it's an unusual enough pattern that it could still be hard to use, so I hope that they continue to think. creatively about ways to simplify it and if there are ways to reduce the number of. of lanes further from what is here. I hope they're able to do that as well because it is a reduction. But it's, it's hardly a tremendous constriction of the number of lanes.
[Bruce Kulik]: One of the big criticisms I have of the format they have the cycle tracks is they basically funnel the cycle cycle traffic into the crosswalks. And anyone who's been to Europe knows that that's not the way it's done there, which is one of the things that makes it a lot more attractive. So basically the cycle tracks are recognized as high volume high speed roadways adjacent to the main roadway, as opposed to kind of like an adjunct to the sidewalk. And that's what we see here. So when you see the cycle tracks curve, for example, at the southwest corner, right by the police station, and then you got to cross the pedestrian crosswalk. And then you can see that there's a 90 degree angle you got to negotiate to continue eastbound on Route 16. And I've, I've talked to people about this before but it's not met with good reception is sort of almost like they don't care. They want to see the cyclist up on the sidewalk, as opposed to on a track that would go through at a relatively well connected angles through the through it and that's what I would lobby for frankly. because that would be comfortable for people who don't want to operate on the street. It would keep them out of the way of pedestrians who are on the sidewalk. And there was just an article in the Globe about, you know, many pedestrians are kind of rising up and saying, this is a problem. We got cyclists on the sidewalk effectively at high speed, particularly at bus stops and that kind of thing. So I think it's I think it's probably going to be like a third generation kind of thing that we see where people are going to recognize that this sort of format isn't really the best for cyclists, nor for pedestrians, and so on. So that's my take on what I see here. So I'm a little bit disappointed in the way it's come out. Although yes, it is better than the current where it's probably one of the few intersections I particularly don't care to ride through either. As people know, I tend to ride pretty much everywhere, but I will avoid at least the east-west crossing through Wellington because there's just not a lot of good, you know, there's just so much going on there that it's very difficult.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think this is also one of those things where it's confusing when you're expected to go from riding on a facility that's on the right side of the road where it usually is to something that's on the left hand side. And if you're trying to get in and out of any of the parking lots or driveways or businesses at any of the corners, then that's an additional complication. And the details of how they design those intersections and how they time those signals and which signals they put where and, you know, even down to exactly where they put those posts, really, really makes a huge difference in how easy it is to figure out what you're supposed to do when you're using something like this. And if they kind of design everything else first and then figure out what phases of the lights are left over and kind of try to squeeze bike signals in, you end up with something that's very slow, very cumbersome, very confusing. You know, nobody wants to sit through three complete cycles to go straight when the people in the travel lane that's right next to them can just go straight. And I think that's kind of, that's the danger in that those details are not really part of the scope of this part of the process, but they will make or break it in the end. And if that's not given a priority, it will end up being just confusing and difficult to use. And I agree with you, Bruce, this is, this is not as much of, it's not as much of an easy to navigate intersection as I wish it was.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: A couple of things to add to that. Yeah. I mean, so, so one thing I think to advocate for is to think about the signals and to allow enough time in the pedestrian phases for a pedestrian to get all the way across all those lanes of traffic, not have to stop at in the middle. But I would say, I mean, you know, like for each, when you've, when you're crossing like six lanes or, you know, the thing is about the most of those, um, not have to step, you know, cross three lanes, stop at an Island and then cross the other three lanes. Um, that also makes it a lot more comfortable for bikes. Um, there's also less like one weird, but very specific thing. Note that like over on the right side there, um, to the east of where the pedestrian bridge could be, there's no marking of bike path. on that one green section. Yeah, right there.
[Bruce Kulik]: And like, there should be there's like, there's no, there's no connection to the bike lane, right, which is something which certainly better than having no facility there at all. Although, again, I know a lot of people who don't like that bike lane, because even though the speed limit is 35, you know, it's basically a freeway.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. I ride that regularly.
[Bruce Kulik]: The sidewalk's not bad there either, if you're so inclined to use the sidewalk. But your point is well taken. There's no connectivity for, what is it, 150 feet? 200 feet? Right.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: And there's no reason not to have that there. Right. In particular, like that section now is, and the part immediately to the west of it where they are, saying to put a bike path, is part where the sidewalk is really not great just because it's so narrow. You know, once you get past that onto the bridge, it becomes a bit better. But still, all but also all of those driveway, road, wherever there are crossings are poorly laid out now.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, one of the excuses I've heard about not putting a bike facility across that section, and it's stupid, but it falls on deaf ears, is because you have the slip lane to make the right turn into the, in between Kelly's and the whatever the other building is next to it, right? they consider that to be unsafe for cyclists to cross at high speed, which is true. But the answer isn't, don't put it there, it's figure out why it's a problem and fix it.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: It's redesign the traffic turning motion. People are going to do it anyway, but if you make it so they have to do awkward turns, that makes it even less safe.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, what I do right now is I actually go behind everything. I tend to cut through the park and then cross over by President's Landing. And it's, you know, it's an extra quarter mile, but just because it's so awkward to come through there. And then I come out by Kelly's, I can turn right onto the parkway. And then at least they have the bike lane at that point, you know, which provides some right of way, if you will.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I mean, honestly, I usually go along the river around Wellington, which is much longer. but at least it avoids that entire section. But then I'm also stuck crossing at that weird signal that's currently sort of on the south part of this that is like 12 seconds long to get across, I don't know, what, eight lanes of traffic right now?
[Unidentified]: It's pretty ridiculous.
[Emily O'Brien]: So I think what I'm getting is that we have concerns about where the bike paths cross all of these driveways and parking lots, and also that there's no connection to the bike lane that's down here, and that that connectivity needs to be provided for.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, well, or, you know, just continue the bike path like that would be my right.
[Emily O'Brien]: What I mean, but one way or another, that this is, you know, we can't, you don't want to, we don't want to just dump you out and stop. And it should continue through here and it should connect to whatever the existing condition is at such time as they actually, you know, plan and build this.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I think that I think it can be summed up as how to how to through cyclists who are traveling either east, west or north, south, actually come through this at a reasonably effective manner.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Bruce Kulik]: As opposed to get on the sidewalk and then stop 20 times to try to cross a million different crossings to get through, because that's not much of an improvement to what we have now and be able to see.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: was coming. The way a lot of those crossings are structured now is that you sort of turn into them and you look back over your shoulder to try to make sure that no one's coming in to take the turn.
[Bruce Kulik]: Right.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Because you're facing, you know, the wrong direction at that point.
[Bruce Kulik]: It's like a right hook, a right hook that's even worse because you're, you're literally facing exactly the wrong way to detect the right hook coming.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. And, you know, I know this is kind of my ax to grind in all of these things, but the signage needs to be carefully thought out and planned so that you can tell where the heck you're going if you don't go there every day. And I feel like we shouldn't have to specify that, but we do because somehow or other it's never part of the process and nobody realizes that it's actually an important thing that makes a difference in making the expensive stuff that we build practical and usable for people who, you know, go there sometimes, but it's not their backyard. So that's the other part that I know it's not really a comment on this part of the process, but it has to be said because otherwise it just is never said. Other things. I think I think it might be worth it for us to comment that this is the transit enhanced version, and they had another version that doesn't have basically those the bus lanes. I think it's, I think it's probably. worthwhile for us to mention how improving access to transit aligns with our interests in that we want to make it easier for people to get through this area in all of the various different ways that are not motor vehicles.
[Unidentified]: Well, I guess a bus is a motor vehicle, but... That aren't cars.
[Emily O'Brien]: It's not a car.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. Emily, I had one other thought.
[Jared Powell]: I'm looking at this design that they've come up with, and I'm not a traffic engineer, so I'm sure there are reasons that people could poke holes in whatever I'm about to say. It just seems like we have a tremendous opportunity here to redesign this in the best possible way, and it is an exceedingly complex intersection that is very challenging for people who are not intimately familiar with it. to use. It seems like they have not moved far enough away from that current state of affairs. It is still too complicated by my take. Maybe it's better than what was there, you know, they drew bike lanes on it. So and there's more bus routes. So that's, that's great. But there's an awful lot of like, frankly, wasted green space in the middle, like that's not going to be a park, like who's going to hang out in the middle of those streets there? Like, it's, it's unused space there by by my reckoning. And it just seems like it's still very far away from what any normal road user would expect to find and on their streets. there's no normal cross intersection, it's not a rotary, it's not a roundabout, it's just still this kind of tangled mess of large streets. And I can't help but think that there has to be room to bring this more into some type of condition that is more in line with what people expect out of either something that looks more like a rotary or something that looks more like normal intersections. And I feel like some of what we're talking about, the bike lanes being confusing and not in the right place and requiring like awkward turns. Some of that to me seems like it's a function of, of the strange spaghetti map that is still on the page in front of you. So that could be my personal comment, I suppose, but, um, I feel like there's still room to simplify. I can't help, but think that there is.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think that's a valid, I think that's a valid point. Um, and. Yeah, I think we're all in agreement that our priority as cyclists is being able to get through here efficiently and safely and without it being 17 and a half really convenient confusing steps that that, you know, I think when one thing that's notable about about Wellington now and also places like Medford Square is when you get a group of people together who all ride their bikes through there, they can talk for hours about which exact route they take. And the mark of a good intersection for bicyclists is that nobody thinks it's an interesting topic of conversation because you just go straight through. And if people can sit there and talk for hours about which strategies they use and how they get around it and how they bypass this and what their favorite way of getting through Wellington is or bypassing Wellington, that's an indication that It's too confusing. It's too complicated. It's too dangerous. It's too difficult. The goal should be that nobody feels like sitting around and talking about it anymore.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I had another thought based on what Jared said, which is, yes, it's still too complicated. But also, one of the reasons for that is there are still too many lanes. Like there's, it's not clear that there is a way to make it less complicated while maintaining eight lanes of traffic.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah. And the problem with that, the reason that there's that many lanes is this particular intersection has a lot of high volume left turns. Yep, probably more than any other intersection, at least in the northern metropolitan area. Right. So, yeah. On any one of these roads, which both of which are very busy roads, about half the traffic is turning left. which is unusual. And so therefore you need to have a lot of queuing space and decision-making space. And it becomes ridiculous because you can see, I mean, just the coming in from the East, you know, we've got three left turn lanes and then a couple right, a couple through right lanes and then the bus lane, right? And then all the sidewalk infrastructure. Oh, I don't know. I don't have a solution either, but that's what causes all those lanes. Yeah. And that's what makes this intersection so horrible to operate through in any mode.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, absolutely true. And so the kind of thing that I think that they don't think about is what would it take to reduce the volume? You know, like, Why are there so many people trying to go through there?
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, that's an unanswerable question. I mean, you might think you could answer the question, but... Right, there's no one answer. There's no one answer.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think one thing that was also particularly complicated about this is that the patterns of what the volume is in which directions is also not symmetrical between the morning commute and the evening commute. It's like just a completely different mix of motions that people are trying to make by volume at different times of day. I think we have to move on, but thank you. And do we have a motion to make all of these comments as a group? And what I have is that we have an opportunity to redesign this in the best possible way, and it's still too complicated. We think it's important to consider the needs of cyclists getting through efficiently and intuitively Um, we need, we think that the details of signage and signals need to be carefully planned out and not left as an afterthought. Um, that we have concerns about all of these, uh, all of the places where the bike paths or bike lanes, um, cross driveways and interest and, um, parking lots. that there needs to be a connection to the bike lane on Revere Beach Parkway right here. And that signals need to have enough time for pedestrians to cross all of these enormously wide roads completely and not get stranded in the middle.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: And that bicycle crossings should be separate from pedestrian crosswalks. That was early on.
[Unidentified]: I motion we accept all those and have Emily write it up and present it from the group. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: Aye. Okay, I will go ahead and do that. But that said, I think everyone should also submit comments on your own behalf. These things are certainly not mutually exclusive and the more voices they hear, the better. So next up is the MassTrails Priority Trails Network vision. Daniel, did you have a chance to pull that stuff up? I'll stop sharing this.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yes, I did. I placed a link up in the channel.
[Emily O'Brien]: I can go and I can do that and. And I can share that screen too.
[Unidentified]: If it will load. Thank you. And, oh, come on, Zoom.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: This, yeah, this was brought, who was it that had, sorry, I'm gonna go and find the email.
[Unidentified]: This is, Yes, that is it right there. I'm having mouse issues. Not squeaky kind. Here we go.
[Bruce Kulik]: My immediate reaction to this is it wasn't clear to me what they were trying to show here because it looked like it was primarily just a map of what they've used as existing infrastructure without really any discussion of what's the overall vision of what they're trying to do, even though they're calling this, I thought I saw it called as a vision somewhere here.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I'm not totally sure what they're looking for, I guess.
[Emily O'Brien]: I mean, we want trails to be built and I guess this has some things that are like. So this is these the dotted things are planned and this is the clipper ship connector and these are some other planned things.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Do you want the description of what it says it is?
[Emily O'Brien]: Sure.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: The MassTrails team is pleased to share its Priority Trails Network Vision Map. Trails shown on this map were selected from many envisioned by communities, trail groups, and agency staff to present priorities to be worked toward, but they are not the only places MassTrails team attention and funding will be devoted. As key gaps in this network are completed, new priorities will be identified and pursued. The network has been identified and the Master Trails team will be working toward its realization in recognition of the many benefits that trails provide. Since 2019, a majority of Master Trails grants have focused on extending and connecting existing trails to one another, the ultimate goal of having all trails statewide connect to this established framework. This statewide vision consists primarily of existing and to be built rail trails and greenways that form the core spine route of a statewide connected shared use path network.
[Emily O'Brien]: Um, and there's some more, but like, that's basically, I mean, sorry, I guess, are they looking for, are they looking for comments on, for people saying, yes, please build this.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Uh, they do not say they are looking for comments. That's just, it just exists, but like, I mean, so like, I would say that like the relevant things for us are. well, A, doesn't actually constitute a network, which looks like it does. B, the not yet done parts that are highlighted. So, you know, we've got the Clibbership connector there. We've also got the South Bedford connector there. That's pretty cool.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: You know, there's some other things that are, in the area.
[Emily O'Brien]: And there's some of this that I know we've discussed more than some other. I think some of this we haven't really heard that much about. So my guess is that some of this is fairly far off, but.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. And certainly, that was the last I heard about the South Bend free connector. But it's still good that it's been identified as a priority.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: know sorry point of information what is the south medford connector shows shows what i know here um that is the route along the mystic on the south side of the river while the cleavership connector is on the north side um going you know sort of next to 93 um and 16 um
[Emily O'Brien]: A couple of things that I'm seeing notable about that is this area where you've got these paths and these connections to get you on and off the path, but then you're on Harvard Street.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yep. Right. So that's not considered to be part of the network. Harvard Street isn't there. It's to get you from Medford Square or near Medford Square down to assembly, basically.
[Emily O'Brien]: But these are the things where for somebody who needs to go from some place over here to some place over here, or some place that's on this network to some place that's on Harvard Street, that's one of the relatively few ways you can access that network. that might be something to keep in our pockets for the next time we're trying to get improvements on streets like Harvard Street, which are one of your few choices for how to access this network from those areas.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: That area is also important to the city economically, right? It's a commercial center, and it's zoned for business and commerce and all that. So I think also kind of promoting it on those points too. It's like a vital kind of missing link there from kind of the College Ave, Rotary down.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. I mean, the thing that I think is, you know, I said this before, the thing that's missing in a lot of these places is the signage. just because the connections that we have that are already there, if you don't already know where you're going, somebody is going to have to write you a whole novel to tell you how to use these connections that are already there, giving you all kinds of esoteric landmarks and stuff because there just aren't signs to help you find the next segment of path if it's hidden behind a corner or something. Leah, I see your hand up.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and I think this will be something safe to say, hopefully. It's not, you know, it's my own opinion, but I think Emily, you're right at getting at one of the ways to use this map, which is that, you know, when projects come up that connect to this, it's a way to say, well, look, this isn't in the middle of nowhere, like this is the plan and this is where it will go to. And then on the other hand, using this network of what's going to be there eventually to say, OK, what connections become really important with the knowledge that this will be here, like Harvard Street, and advocating for a project on Harvard Street because of this map?
[Unidentified]: Yeah. I'd like to augment that as well.
[Bruce Kulik]: I think one of the things that we could do is when you look at this map, and especially when you compare it to some of the other nearby towns, there's some notable lack of connections. And so I see right away, for example, if we're looking at the Harvard Street one, you would want to see something that really goes all the way from Powder House, not in Medford, but across to connect to the paths along the river for eastbound. Also, you can note that kind of mid-map, if you were to come across Central Avenue, you would want to have a blue line that basically goes from Central Avenue all the way across connecting to Route 60 all the way across to Arlington. So you'd want to see a blue line east-west right across that map. Right. Similarly, we got some north south gaps, and these are all I think these are all in our quarter master plan, more or less, but by kind of penciling in our own dotted blue lines, we might be able to say hey here's the vision for the larger trail network and here's what we need to fill it in. Right here's missing pieces Salem Street. etc. Or not Salem Street at least Central Avenue so that there's a much better east west connection to some of the other main, the main bicycle arteries, if you will.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think that's great and I think that could be. You know, some of these could be a case for contra flow bike lanes, for example, that help you get from. Also, you know, if you're trying to get from someplace over here to someplace over here and avoid.
[Bruce Kulik]: this uh this circle um that would require some amount of contra flow lanes on some of these side streets and maybe like for example you come central avenue to park street uh turn left on i forget what street it is behind the roberts school um and there's one part part where if you're going eastbound there's a real right where your cursor is a real short stretch yeah yeah right here would be ideal to be contra flow so you could make that turn eastbound legally
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, and I think depending on which routes you're taking, I mean, it is kind of intentionally set up so that you can't, so that the one-way streets prevent you from going east-west on those neighborhood streets. I mean, they are set up like that on purpose so that- Yeah, from a motor vehicle traffic standpoint, certainly. But that's where I think we need to We need to think about where the places where just a few short stretches of contraflow would enable east-west travel there for bicyclists. I think that's good for us to keep in mind. And there are some areas like Fulton Heights is always the difficult one because There just aren't. There's all these little streets that don't connect with each other one way or another at all. But that's an important thing to have in mind for there should be a blue line somewhere in here. These these colored lines don't quite connect. Maybe there's a way that those could connect in here, so that's those are things that we can. Have as bullet points in our arsenal, I guess.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I think the other thing that's maybe especially relevant to this map is the intersections. because there's a bunch of places on here that, you know, are between highlighted things, but there isn't really a way to get across, like Medford Square, for example. You know, we've got the ClipperShipConnector there. We've got, they don't even list the path on the... uh north side of the river there but like well it doesn't even really have a name that's right but i mean they could have they could have drawn a line anyway but like either way you know if you're going from west of medford square to east of medford square or you actually even worse east of medford square to west of medford square you might have those paths that are priority trails, but you have no way to do that safely and smoothly, not even to the extent that the Wellington Circle redesign would let you do, just like you're stuck there walking across a pedestrian crosswalk in three light phases and going way out of your way.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think it also is worth pointing out that Salem Street up here is you know, one of our small number of real business districts in Medford. And we have all of these bike paths here. And this is a really short distance. But if you look here, you just can't get up there. And you have all of these things that just don't go through. And the idea that somebody might want to go shopping at any one of the businesses on Salem Street, And get there from one of these paths is not a crazy idea. And it's not a long distance and it's flat. But, but the fact that it's that hard to find a way to do it. Is is definitely a missing link in this in this map. I mean, I think I certainly do this myself, that a lot of the places in Medford that are business districts are also the worst roads to ride on. So I find myself all my little circuitous routes. to avoid all the business districts, which, of course, that means that I don't make any impulse purchases there. And it doesn't occur to me, oh, that restaurant looks good. I think I'll try it sometime. And it doesn't occur to me, oh, look, there's a specialty food store there. I should pop in and see if I want something. If my daily habit is to avoid those places, then I will never I'll never shop there and I think that's that's an angle that we can keep in mind for some of these things too. We should be. We should be bringing bicyclists into business districts, not focusing entirely on keeping them out of business districts. We are running out of time very quickly, but I wonder if we can have a quick infrastructure update. From Lily, who's probably up past her bedtime.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: No worries. I usually say it quite late. Yes, I'm happy to do a quick kind of infrastructure roundup. Let's see. We've got a bunch of notes here. I guess I want to start off mentioning in terms of signage, I think we've talked about this at prior meetings, MassDOT is creating signs for the four-foot passing rule and Bruce brought to attention, brought to Todd's attention, a program to apply to get signs from the state. And we applied for it. We got, I think, about 100 signs. So those will be going up. It's really great news. We haven't received the signs yet, but we have a bunch of locations that we needed to give MassDOT as part of that contract. So we had a plan for where to put them, but I think there may be a little bit of flexibility there. So we haven't really kind of made a plan for the rollout of these signs since we haven't gotten them yet, but that's happening. Thank you to Bruce for bringing this to our attention. Apparently several other towns also were a bit late applying, but they extended the deadline and now we've all got signs. In terms of actual on-the-ground infrastructure updates, many of you probably have seen the progress of some of these. So I'll just give a quick rundown of the ones, of the bike lanes that are being done by Eversource. South Street has been milled and partially painted. It's not finished yet. They've got some green squares for the super sharrows, but no actual markings, but hopefully that will, come soon. There have been delays due to the rain. Winthrop Street, again, sort of staggering forward. The markings are milled. They're waiting on paint, depending on the weather. And on Mystic Ave, they just started doing the milling of the markings, so like that groove that they put in, which they'll then put the paint in. In terms of stuff that the city is doing, we don't really have a date yet for College George in Maine, but we're going to still, you know, stick to trying to get this done this summer. Haines Square reconstruction is kind of rolling along the first part of the bike lane closer to the actual business district will be going in and then after that the city will basically connect from approximately Paris Street up to Haines Square later on. Um, and then there will be a short stretch of governors have north of Lawrence that will also be going in at some point this summer. The other thing that we're trying to get off the ground is potentially proposing something for Lawrence road so this is. Another kind of key stretch that will connect up to Winthrop Street will provide some good sort of east-west connectivity. Before she left, Amy did a couple of potential designs for Lawrence Road and over the last several weeks I've been doing some parking counts because any sort of Any plan on Lawrence would involve some removal of parking, so we're collecting data on utilization. And then I'll work with Todd to figure out a good strategy for outreach and proposing this to traffic commission, since this is something that has not gone before traffic commission. And traffic commission is on hiatus until September. So we do have some time to kind of put together a plan.
[Emily O'Brien]: My guess is that there are a ton of crashes at Lawrence and Governors.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yes, it's a pretty bad night. Every time I've been out there, you know, you can observe how fast people are going and how sort of just general unsafe it feels, even though it's a very sort of otherwise calm neighborhood. So yeah, it seems like a very good candidate for infrastructure.
[Emily O'Brien]: I noticed they moved the speed radar sign that was outside my house until recently. Oh, really? Which is great, because I had been really frustrated that it was after this blind hill crest. So I think people didn't see it until the last possible instant, at which point they're looking at the intersection already. And they moved it closer to the square, so now it's in view for a much longer time, and it's at the point where people's speed tends to peak before they get to the crest of the hill. The spot where it was is right at a point where a lot of people cross the street, but hidden by this blind hilltop. So now I think it's much better positioned to hopefully slow some of them down before they hit the blind hilltop. So hopefully, yeah, I did notice It happened while I was out of town.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Oh wow. Let me just check my notes here. The last sort of thing is just a update on Blue Bike. So Todd has been continually trying to prod Tufts into kind of making their stations happen, but we haven't really had any updates from them, but we're kind of marching on. And the next step will be to try to locate one in West Medford, right in the central sort of business area. So Todd and I are going to try to go out there either tomorrow or Friday to chat with a business owner about a potential location. It's been surprisingly challenging to find a really good spot to put a blue bike station in West Medford, somewhere that's going to be really central, very visible to people. So we're working on it. And yeah, I think that's kind of, that's basically it. Oh, the city will be submitting public, or sorry, comment to the MassDOT project team for the Wellington Circle design and many of the points you guys raised in this conversation will also be included, kind of. looking towards further improvements for bikes and pedestrians, emphasizing usable pedestrian bridges, perhaps like a shallower flyover style like the ones in Boston and Cambridge, and then just kind of viewing it as more of a floor rather than a ceiling for that area.
[Unidentified]: Great, thank you.
[Emily O'Brien]: Do we have any other comments, questions? We are almost 10 minutes over time.
[Unidentified]: Does anybody have anything else?
[Jared Powell]: Good luck in advance of any negative comments about the lanes on Winthrop, which I can only imagine you all are starting to receive. But thank you all for for sticking with that and getting it painted.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, we've received a few, but that's okay. I think at this point, we're committed, we're gonna try to have the best possible outcome. We've had struggles with Eversource kind of just on the actual implementation, but we're just gonna keep soldiering on and try to build the network out from there.
[Bruce Kulik]: The north, the northern end of Winthrop street, several times now the past few weeks on a morning ride and it's great to see that Winthrop, sorry that Winchester is connecting to the past that we have. So, it makes Winthrop street. a much more comfortable street to ride on, right on the street, because the lanes now are narrower and there is dedicated space on either side to go there. So it doesn't just stop at the city line anymore, which is great. Even though it's not painted, it's just sort of halfway striped, but good job.
[Milva McDonald]: I also heard that some of Riverside Ave is getting Is that correct?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yes, that is correct. I'm actually not sure what the schedule is for that, but I believe that there is there is a pre-existing plan approved by traffic commission that involves like a one-way bike lanes in one direction, and I can't remember the exact specs, but I will go back to.
[Emily O'Brien]: our files and try to find that and make sure that I'm... I remember we talked about that, but it feels like it was a really long time ago.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: This is something that I think wasn't really even talked about much when I started my internship. So I'm not really sure, but I know that it's in the plan and I believe it's been approved.
[Emily O'Brien]: But that's great because it really, really, really needed... It really needs paving. There's been a lot of really, really bad puddles there.
[Bruce Kulik]: Is it all the way from Fellsway to the rotary that is getting repaved?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: I think so, but I'm not sure. So I think I'm going to check in with one of the engineers who's kind of managing this project and see if he can give me more info. I think I overheard folks talking about the pavings like happening very soon, like perhaps next month.
[Bruce Kulik]: Is there any way we could get even preliminary plans on the bike lanes? Because it seems to me that from Fellsway to I forget the name of the street now. The first light outbound, no, no, that's not right. The one that goes to Meadow Glen Mall, whatever street that is. Locust Street. Locust Street, yeah. From Fellsway to Locust, it seems like there's a lot of space on that street, and it could afford to have lanes on both sides. From Locust, westbound, it gets a little bit trickier, because I think there's only space for one, so you'd want to probably have it in the uphill direction, even though there's not much of an uphill there.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: We discussed this exact question when we discussed this at least a year ago, maybe two years ago. I don't remember exactly when it was, but we definitely went over all of that. And I'm pretty sure Todd was here. So hopefully that all made it into the plan. I don't remember what we decided or what our recommendations were, but we definitely talked about it.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yes, actually looking at a draft that, yeah, I found a draft that Amy sent me a while ago that does in fact show exactly what you're describing. Like there are bike lanes in two directions at the wider part and I believe they're buffered. So I'm gonna just, I'll go and find whatever the final version of those plans ended up being and send it out because I guess this was done quite a while ago.
[Bruce Kulik]: That'll be a really good east-west connection. That's good to hear.
[Emily O'Brien]: I'm looking forward to my next trip to Boulder Plywood.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Jared Powell]: If you wouldn't mind following up about that, Lily, that would be great. I just, I thought I saw an announcement from the city about paving on Riverside and it sounded like they were talking about a very limited stretch of like only the east most portion of the street. Maybe I was misreading it, but I was hopeful that it was the larger stretch like we're talking about here.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Okay, I will check on that because I'm also not super sure. I know they're doing some paving, but yeah, I'll check.
[Jared Powell]: Great, thank you.
[Emily O'Brien]: One last thing before we go, since somebody brought up the topic of negative comments, if you are a social media person, it's great to have as many of us as possible in the various Medford say social media groups or on Nextdoor or whatever, kind of to be the voice of reason and the voice of somebody who knows what the heck is going on. When somebody says, oh my God, there's a painting on this street, you know, with, for example, there were a bunch of threads, there've been a bunch of threads saying, what are these green boxes on South Street? I don't understand what's going on. And, you know, we all know that it just has these green boxes because it's not finished yet. But it's helpful to have people who do know that to step in and just answer that question. So if you are, whatever social media platforms you partake in, you know, think about joining some of the local groups where people discuss this kind of thing. and chime in with, you know, what you know or what you think is important, just so that there is, so that our voices are there too. And for the new folks, if you are interested in getting, being active with the Medford social media accounts, by all means, please, please do that and let us know and we'll assign you to those and you can start. posting to your heart's content. So if you're interested in joining in that effort, then please speak up. So do we have a motion to adjourn?
[Bruce Kulik]: Motion to adjourn.
[Unidentified]: Second. Second.
[Emily O'Brien]: All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you, everybody. This is what we get for those last few ending early. Good night, everyone.
[Unidentified]: Bye, folks.
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