[Emily O'Brien]: We have some verbiage that needs to be read.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Hi there. I'm doing the reading today. Let's see. On July 16th, 2022, Governor Baker signed into law an act relative to extending certain state of emergency accommodations, which, among other things, extends the expiration of the provisions pertaining to the open meeting law to March 31st, 2023, which is soon. Specifically, this 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 act does not make any new changes to the open meeting law other than extending the expiration date of the temporary provisions regarding remote meetings from July 15th, 2022 to March 31st, 2023.
[Emily O'Brien]: Okay, thank you. The March 1st meeting of the Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission will come to order. Daniel, would you please call the roll?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yes. Jaron Powell.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I don't see.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: He's not here. Bruce Kulik. Present. Okay. Emily O'Brien. Here. BDM Fairchild.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Here.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Ernie Meunier. Here. Doug Packer, who I do not see. Gaston Fiore, who I also don't see. Daniel Nuzemuller. present, and Rebecca Wright, who I... Here. Oh, you are there. I'm sorry. I missed you there. Present. All right. I think that means that we have a quorum.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yes, we're good to go. Our first thing, shall we approve the minutes from the previous meeting? Are there any questions about the minutes?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Motion to approve the minutes. second. Move to approve.
[Emily O'Brien]: Second All in favor.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right.
[Emily O'Brien]: Opposed. Okay. Our last minutes are approved. Um Announcements. Um. I Oh, there's a Jared says he's joining momentarily One is I'm still working on getting some contacts related to a bike to school day. The people running CCSR were just kind of slow to get back. And it seems like it's the sort of thing that on general principle, they're more or less interested in, but they didn't have somebody who was quite enthusiastic enough to step up and do the, do the work. But I think I have some other possible leads to follow up. So more on that soon. But hopefully we'll have one. And then we'll be looking for volunteers to help lead caravans. So more on that later. Bruce, you have your hand up.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yes, so I followed up on the bus advertising that we discussed last meeting. It turns out it's run by a company called out front, which manages all the advertising. And unfortunately, it's quite expensive. They got back and said an entry level campaign. On the bus starts anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 for a 4 week period. And an entry level means that you get certain sectors or approximately 1 garage worth of buses. So they have divided by the garages that the buses are parked in and maintained out of, which kind of makes sense and. I'm not quite even sure how many exposures you get at that level, but it struck me as certainly more than we would want to afford on our own. I could probably drum up one month if I really got involved in other organizations and pool other resources, but that's a lot of work. Bottom line is, I don't think we could do it, unfortunately.
[Emily O'Brien]: That also seems like something that if that were to be undertaken, it would be more of a mass bike scale of a project, not just a Medford scale. Yeah, I agree on that. But yeah, that is really very expensive. Ernie?
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, just a short announcement again, rather than later. I'm expecting the spring batch of bike lights to come in next week from Taiwan and to distribute them to all the schools and a couple other venues during March. before and I will be here for the next meeting to tell you how that went because in the second half of April and pretty much all of May I'll be traveling and not around so I'm going to try to pack in all this activity uh the rest of March and into the first week of April so once this stuff is in I might just contact you online to see if anybody wants to help either pack these things or distribute them with me during March. And that's it. That's all I have to say tonight. And I will beg off at eight o'clock. Thank you.
[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you, Ernie.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Jared. You're muted. I think he's frozen too. Oh, no, he's there.
[Bruce Kulik]: But he's still muted.
[Adam Hurtubise]: We can't hear you.
[Jared Powell]: Now?
[Jared Powell]: Yes, all right. Terrific. Sorry, I was late. Technical difficulties. We're doing announcements now, is that right?
[Emily O'Brien]: Yes.
[Jared Powell]: Okay, I have a couple. Quick thing, Circle the Square, I think we signed up for that this year. I'm not positive if we did, but I think we did because I just got a vendor announcement the other day kind of with protocols and things like that. That's June 17th, so that's a ways off, but we did it last year. It was a really nice event, very well attended. I think a lot of people with COVID fatigue were very happy to be out and about last summer. It was a pre-happening event. Several of us attended. I'll be away on June 17th, but I just wanted to put a bug in people's ear about we should find some coverage for that because that's a worthwhile community event for us to attend.
[Bruce Kulik]: That appears to be a Saturday, which is good because maybe more people can attend.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I hope so. It was fun last time. We got a lot of interest in the bike commission.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I can't necessarily, I can't totally commit, but it's possible that I might be able to that day. I'm not 100% sure, but it would be great for us to do it. And hopefully by then we'll have some new faces that we can rope into.
[Jared Powell]: Right, right. Yeah, it's a it's a it's three to seven or something pretty long event. So hopefully being kind of tag team is no one really feels responsible for the entirety of it. That's one thing. Another thing tomorrow, somewhat awkward time, I suppose, but from 1 to 2.30 p.m., MassDOT is having another of their Wellington Circle Redesign working group meetings. So I'm officially on that working group. Emily subbed in and was on it last time. The working group is perhaps a little bit glorified. It really seems like we just get to comment before the general public, I suppose, but we're not privy to information before anyone else on the working team, really. But it's a good opportunity to comment. So I actually have a client meeting for kind of the first half of that time window. I can jump on as soon as I can, but I will inevitably be hamstrung by not really knowing what they talked about in that first hour or so, which limits my ability to comment as effectively as I would like to. Emily, I don't know if you're around tomorrow.
[Emily O'Brien]: I saw your email, and I think I can do that.
[Jared Powell]: Okay, cool. Awesome. Yeah, I'll jump on as soon as I can, but you did a great job last time, obviously, so thank you for that.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I can do that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sorry. I have a visiting dog who's expressing a little too much interest in my plate of pizza. Sorry about that. She's usually not one of those.
[Jared Powell]: Dogs will be dogs.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, that's a little too much temptation right there. Also, looking down the list, before I forget, Amy, I had said that I would get that letter of recommendation to you by yesterday, and I realized that was yesterday. So I will send it to you tonight. And this recommendation letter that I'm talking about, this is, we might as well mention it now, is Amy had asked for a quick letter of support for the bike rack grant application that they have submitted for the upcoming round of Community Connections grant funding. So I think we can probably wholeheartedly support that, but since we're here, we might as well vote on it, and then we can officially say that we did. Thank you. Do we have a motion in favor of writing a letter of recommendation to support funding for bike rack grants?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Motion. Second. Seconded.
[Emily O'Brien]: All in favor?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Aye. Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: Excellent. I will get that to you tonight.
[Jared Powell]: I have another brief announcement. Well, it's kind of halfway an announcement, but it fits with the bike rack topic. On Facebook recently, someone who doesn't actually live in Medford, but was in Medford was complaining, frankly, about biking somewhere and not having any bike racks. And they were wondering how did they go about requesting bike racks? Obviously, that's something that we're working on. I had, you know, obviously contact us contact some people at the city see click fix. I wasn't really sure if if like Amy if you have like a preferred answer to that sort of question for if someone has something like that that they want to alert the city to is there a preferred best channel for directing them to to you all.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Not really, I mean, they can email me, they can email Todd, they can do C-Click fix if they want, they can call, whatever, it'll all end up on the same list.
[Emily O'Brien]: If they just, you know, go to the city website and click on DPW or click on some general, the easiest to find email address, is that likely to get to somebody who will pass it along or should we give them more specific instructions?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Hmm, that's a good question. I would probably not recommend that, just in case. I'm not sure exactly who that would go to. So yeah, I would say, yeah, go to the traffic and transportation page if you're just going to go to, you know, kind of general email, which I'm not even sure there is one. You'll probably end up emailing Todd. That's probably what you'll see there. It's his, so yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, that's good. When I have conversations with that, I always feel like, well, I can give somebody a specific name or whatever, but then by the time they finish what they're doing and go home and sit in front of the computer, they will have forgotten that person's name, but they might remember that they can go to the DPW website or something. But that's good to know. Do we have other announcements?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Not exactly an announcement, but a hopefully quick question. Who has access to edit the website? Because I've noticed that the list of members is very badly out of date.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I will take care of that when I update the website after this meeting with the notes. So thank you. Perfect.
[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you.
[Jared Powell]: Actually, on the announcements front then related to be dead specific point. I don't know if his email went to the group but Peter Calvin's resigned from the commission, I forgot that was a small circle email or a broader email but yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: That is worth announcing here just to just for completeness to. While we're on the subject of new members, on the city webpage for boards and commissions, there's a link you can click to apply and we would We should all be recruiting and encouraging people to do that, especially people who fill categories that are not currently represented. For example, we don't have anyone right now with school-age kids. Well, you have kids, but they're still too young to bike to school.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, preschool, preschool, preschool.
[Emily O'Brien]: But we don't have we don't have anyone whose kids could plausibly be biking to school yet. And it would be, and it would be sort of nice if we had somebody with connections at the, you know, the middle school or the high school in particular. So that's one thing. You know, there's always Uh, always other ways that other skills can be useful. Um, The more that, you know, if anybody has ideas of how they can wrangle more people, get more volunteers, uh, talk to more people, that's also, those are great skills to have. Um, so if you come across anyone who likes bikes and has skills that seem like they would be really useful, uh, Try twisting their arm.
[Jared Powell]: On that point, Emily, you might have seen some of my Facebook posts in the past few days. I posted the Boston Bike Advocate Group, the Camperville Cargo Bikes Group, Medford Parents and Caregivers Group. There was a fair amount of interest. I didn't count them. somewhere between five and eight people that expressed pretty strong interest in participating in some way.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, that's great.
[Jared Powell]: A good start.
[Emily O'Brien]: Um, and I, I posted a couple of places too. Um, so hopefully we get some interest that way and we can also, you know, don't, we shouldn't forget that not everybody in the world actually does Facebook. So, um, if anybody, if anybody does next door or anything like that, Um, maybe also spread the word that way I don't do next door.
[Bruce Kulik]: So, uh, I used to do next door, but it's, I don't know.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I never hear anything good about it.
[Jared Powell]: It gets angry real quick.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, yeah, at the at the risk of touching a raw nerve here. Do we have a sense of, you know, we've had a pattern of people joining enthusiastically and staying on for a year or year and a half, and then deciding not to continue? Do we have any sense of what's triggering that? Is it simply everyone's overworked, et cetera, or have people expressed concern that they can't be as personally effective as they thought they were going to be or whatever. I don't know what the answer would be. I'm just curious if we know.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think it may be worth touching bases with some of those people and asking. All that I have been told is that they got busy or they got busy with work things or that they changed jobs and the new job was more demanding at certain times of day in particular and that kind of thing. But it would be, but that's a good point and that would be, that would be worth touching bases with some of those folks.
[Bruce Kulik]: And if we knew, I don't know what we would necessarily do about it, particularly if it's a case of people feeling like were less effective than they might like us to be. Right. Or the time frames are longer than they're expecting, et cetera.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Bruce Kulik]: I mean, at least we can prepare people and say, yeah, this is what we do. Here's why we do it. And here's the reward we get out of it, even if it's not, you know, gold bike lanes. Right.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I think it's good to prepare people regardless, can't hurt. Certainly, I think a lot of the people that have joined relatively briefly and left have been younger who are probably more likely to be in those situations where things change rapidly. Um, and like, we also do, but we still need younger people. So, you know, we should keep trying to recruit.
[Bruce Kulik]: It seemed like a good idea at the time. And then when they got involved, it was just more effort than they expected.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Right. Or if, you know, people get new jobs, like. Yeah. Circumstances change in all sorts of ways and it's easy to get overwhelmed. So, you know, we should keep recruiting people and it's okay. Like if we get someone for a year, that's okay. That's still useful.
[Ernie Meunier]: Ernie? Yeah, to add to Bidan's comment, even to have them visit, to basically audit our groups, invite people to come to a meeting, see what it's like a few times, and then apply to be, that breaks down the onerous brick wall of actually formally applying to a commission, perhaps taking on responsibilities they might not be quite prepared for. So to invite people to the meeting, since we are open that way, I think is a really good introduction to possibly applying to join the group.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. So it's a and it's, you know, if they're interested in being involved one way or another, it's great if they come to meetings and get involved.
[Bruce Kulik]: Also, it's you know, the only difference between a member basically and an attendee at the chair's discretion, of course, is other than voting. They can't vote, but we often vote unanimously anyhow, just because it's a good idea.
[Emily O'Brien]: I don't think we've ever not voted unanimously.
[Bruce Kulik]: Well, it's a voice vote, so that's sort of not quite exactly the same, but close enough.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.
[Bruce Kulik]: Anyhow, my point there is somebody who attends as a guest has almost as much voice as we do with regard to the questions.
[Emily O'Brien]: Speaking of which, though, I realized that after we called roll, we didn't list the people who are here as guests and we should. So I know Daniel has his mouth full, but I guess we'll hear from Amy and Lily and then Caitlin.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Hey guys, I'm Amy Ingalls, transportation engineer for the City of Medford.
[Unidentified]: Hi everyone, Lily Worth, intern at the City of Medford. Good to see everyone. Great to have you back.
[Kaitlin Robinson]: Hi, I'm Caitlin Robinson, Medford resident interested in better bike infrastructure. I guess one question I have, if you serve on the commission, what does that mean as far as like, Um, your abilities to like speak at a city council meeting as an individual, like, are there ethics rules that would would impact that.
[Emily O'Brien]: No, no, you, you can't like. You probably shouldn't say something on behalf of the commission that wasn't, you know, approved as something the commission has decided to, you know, speak as that. do your own thing as an individual, you're still a resident, you can still do all the other stuff.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: There's this whole packet of rules, most of which are pretty easy to follow, basically. You can't do things that present an actual conflict of interest. If we were voting on something that might give a family member money for something or other, you can't do that. It's mostly pretty obvious stuff.
[Bruce Kulik]: If you worked for Blue Bikes when we were doing the bike share thing, you'd have to recuse yourself. That's another example. That would be a conflict of interest.
[Ernie Meunier]: And I think we're formally organized under the mayor's office. So if a city council person, as an example, attacks you as toeing the mayor's line, you have to be aware that we are formally organized under the mayor, the commissioners. But again, you know, doesn't really affect anything in any way.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you. Thanks. Jared says he has to step away momentarily and he'll be back. Um, next up. Uh, let's see. We've already done. I already mentioned what we have so far about the bike to school day. I'm still working on that. And, um, and I'll be back in touch when I hear more. Um, I'm still hoping to get a enthusiastic bike riding student at the high school to help get involved with organizing this, um, or at least a parent who has kids at the high school. But we'll get there. And we had the bike light updates. So let's do the pothole priorities list. We discussed this last meeting and Amy said that before we formally approved it, she would like to go back to the rest of the DPW and kind of discuss what their process is or how they prioritize which potholes get filled when. Amy, do you want to give us some, fill us in there?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, their process wasn't as clear as I guess I was hoping. It sounded like, you know, they try to do what they, if they get, obviously we get a lot of requests for pot, you know, pot filling potholes, but they try to do them, you know, all in one area of town kind of like, you know, kind of bank on efficiencies that way. So they're not like going back and forth all over the city trying to hit the worst ones. But, you know, if they happen to be in a part of town just to get all the ones that they've gotten in that part of town, they also, you know, try to do ones that are biggest first. But like people don't always say pictures and like how they really decide that. I wasn't really completely clear. They did say that they they tend to take care of all of them within a few days. Honestly, I'm not, yeah, I wasn't sure that that was my experience, but.
[Emily O'Brien]: I'm pretty sure, I'm very, very sure that that's not the case.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. It's like, yeah, what can you say? But basically, where I've kind of landed with it is that I will basically be applying the process that you guys put together. which might actually be the easiest anyways. I've been kind of like snooping on all the pot cool requests on LinkedIn or LinkedIn on CClickFix anyways, just to see like, you know, since these kind of like safety ones have popped up recently just to see if I see any that look like that. And now I have like a guide for what those might be. So yeah, so I'm just going to kind of do the same thing and filter it through that process whenever I see a pothole request. It's not a perfect system, but we'll see if that helps a little bit. We also got a nice offer by our tree warden, Aggie. She said that if she's out and about, which she almost always is, and there's one that is a request that doesn't have a picture, and I would like a picture, to just let her know, and she'll take a picture.
[Emily O'Brien]: Oh, that's great. That's great to know. So I know that this is just most likely just for Amy's information, but I think I hope it's at least useful for you. And if you need to, you know, use it to pester anybody about anything in particular that this can be, that you can apply it. So I guess I'll share the screen and show you what I have. Oh, this says host disabled participants screen sharing.
[Unidentified]: Oh, that might be me hold on.
[Emily O'Brien]: While she's doing that just a quick review I put together two things one is a map where I highlighted the roads in Medford that I think are kind of the highest priority places where if there's a pothole on that road, it's the most likely to cause somebody injuries because of the other circumstances of the traffic or the other details of that road. And then I also wrote up a list of attributes of locations and attributes of potholes that make them particularly dangerous or likely to cause a crash or likely to cause a more serious crash. So that's what I have. This is my this is the map. And I tried to keep it as limited in scope as I could. There are lots of other places where potholes are bad. And of course, everybody hates all the potholes. But I tried to uh, keep it to as the few worst places, um, that I could. So I used places where the traffic is especially complicated, um, places where traffic is especially fast places where you're going downhill. So if you're going faster and you hit a pothole, your crash is likely to be worse, or you're maybe more likely to go down. Um, places where it's harder for cars to pass a cyclist or they're for various reasons more likely to try to do it inadvisably. So if anybody has comments or if there are places that you think should be added.
[SPEAKER_10]: I feel like Boston Ave from that downhill stretch from the Tufts Hill towards Harvard
[Unidentified]: Here.
[SPEAKER_10]: Across from Semolina, that one. Yeah. Just because there's a very large one on that hill that I have to circumvent in a very sketchy way every day.
[Emily O'Brien]: I even have pictures of that one and I've been meaning to put it on CClickFix. It's already been done. I know, but I don't want that to stop me from doing it again.
[SPEAKER_10]: Included my bike for scale. It is several times larger than the bike.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, there's a spot where there's been for a long time, and it's been getting gradually worse, and it has been kind of just rough, but now it's like a giant hole. And there actually are a couple of other holes after that.
[SPEAKER_10]: I included it empty and also full of water, so you can see how invisible it gets. When did you post that on SeaClickFix? February 21st, I think. That's the date of my photo.
[Emily O'Brien]: So I think that's, I think that's probably, yeah. I was, I mean, I was thinking of, I was debating whether to include that stretch anyway. That's not what I wanted to do.
[SPEAKER_10]: I think that, yeah, that stretch is one of those where I don't usually take the lane, but now with that pothole growing, I do. And then a lot of, a lot of drivers are a little fast to pass.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. That's a spot where I think it's right in between It's like right in here, right where the word kitchen is.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, there's several. I feel like the number, oh, I put the number actually in my notes.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, there's like a couple of them afterwards too.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, I can't photograph all of them, but that stretch is magical.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I have a handful of photos that I tried to take while riding past. Yeah, it's 530 Boston Ave.
[SPEAKER_10]: I took a picture of that.
[Emily O'Brien]: And that's another spot where you're going a little faster, but you're not going quite fast enough to satisfy the people behind you. And it's a narrow lane. You can't pass without crossing the double yellow. Well, then you throw in the church parking on Sundays or for funerals. Yeah, so I think that is a reasonable addition. Are there other streets that should be added?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I would probably add also going north on College from the same point, just the steep section. just, there aren't any potholes there, at least not last I checked, right now.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, this isn't about where there are potholes.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: This is just a hypothetical pothole. If there were one, like I typically hit, you know, 25 or 30 miles an hour going down that.
[SPEAKER_10]: I agree with that. Yeah, this one, for future potholes, it should be on the list, especially like right down to the bottom where all the crosswalks are. Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: Right. So kind of ending, Where the where the bend in the road is, yeah, not.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, I mean, yeah, that would have been in the road is maybe not quite there where the where the entrance to the field is about about at Frederick Ave, I'd say.
[Adam Hurtubise]: That looks reasonable to me. Well, there's also actually.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: No, even a bit further than that, because there's the point at which it narrows, which is past.
[Emily O'Brien]: It's right here. It's at Stern's Stab. It's right where it is. Actually, yes.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Go all the way up to there, because that sort of semi-merge.
[Emily O'Brien]: It's a curve and a bottleneck in the same spot, which is a bad thing.
[SPEAKER_10]: For a while, there was some raised sort of thing that always had a pothole around it that would be covered in wafer when that starts up.
[Emily O'Brien]: thing. There was like a grate that got recently repaired right over here.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I was very excited when that got repaired.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I don't feel like I'm going to die every time I go past this.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Anything else?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: There are probably a few intersections.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, so I was trying to keep it to a specific stretch of road, because once you start to get to specific intersections, there are just so many little details. And I think it is also worth saying, just because it's not on one of these roads doesn't mean it can't be a really bad kind of pothole. It's just that these are the places where it's like a longer stretch that's most likely to be a problem. For the record, I did not include Winthrop Street by the high school, basically because it's wide there so you have more you have substantially more space to get around a pothole. The places that we've been talking about are and the places that I listed are places where if there's a pothole it's really hard to avoid because there's just not really enough other place to be. Um. And either because you know, either because there's just going to be traffic in that any other place that you could be or because there's just not very much road. Period. Um. So. In terms of specific intersections that. That gets. You know that gets a little bit more into the weeds, and I think it's important to keep it at just a. like the manageable highest priority stretches of road. Otherwise, it just gets to be not very useful.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I wonder if, as a sort of secondary priority, we could just say, you know, these stretches and, you know, immediately in or joining any intersection of major roads, basically.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, and I also do have this other I do have this other document that describes that describes a little bit more. And I knew that this is probably also things that Amy knows because she breaks into. she bikes in from Brookline, but for having it laid out in case she needs to show it to somebody who doesn't bike in. In case there's ever people are being like, why are you making so much noise about this pothole in this place? That she can come and be like, well, this is why. Yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: The other thing is any road with significant truck or bus traffic.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I mean that starts to add up to a lot more places. It's not a it's not a bad thing, but you know, for example, secondaries has buses through the whole length, but I only have singled out the specific places where. Um, where it's. Where conditions are, are the worst or that's the tightest or you're going the fastest or where the bike lane disappears or et cetera. Um, it's not like, you know, it's still as bad to have a pothole when you're got a bus running. Your backside, but, um, but if we're, but in the interests of keeping it to a limited number, Ernie.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, maybe Robert's rule should be put in place so this doesn't become dragged on too long, but I want to mention what you were saying about going northwest on Winthrop. As you approach the high school, I painted those potholes for three years now and found it that even though that's a wide stretch, it should get particular attention because of the break off right lane into the high school and the temple just before it and potholes can occur. randomly in both of those lanes, making it really tricky to try to slalom through that area. So I wouldn't take it off the list because it seems to be wide. When it goes into two lanes because of the high school of the temple, it's trickier to navigate because there are two lanes of cars operating there. So just a thought to
[Bruce Kulik]: Isn't that area getting repaved by the end grid?
[Ernie Meunier]: That's why I thought it wasn't on the list, because it's getting all redone. But regardless, if that's going to be in the far off future, no. And well, that's what I've noticed for several years. I always pay particular attention there because it was difficult and the potholes that tended to occur were long ridges, you know, that would trap wheels. Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: Let me go to this other component here. Can you still see this?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yep.
[Emily O'Brien]: Okay, good. I have a a list of initial points and the reasons why crashes might be more likely to happen. I noted that lack of photos on CClickFix doesn't necessarily mean that potholes are not as bad because somebody didn't feel like it was worth taking a picture. Sometimes the ones in the worst places are the hardest to take pictures of. Also, the ones that are hardest to see are sometimes very difficult to take pictures of because they just don't show up in the pictures. There's another one that I've been meaning to report that's like a sinkhole that I encounter always on my way home, so it's dark. And it's a sinkhole, so it just has smooth edges. And it's a big enough hole that if you hit it, you hit it pretty hard. But I could not get it to show up in the pictures. Like it looks completely invisible in all the pictures that I tried to take. And that's kind of like, well, you have to take my word for it that there's a pothole in this picture. But the fact that it's impossible to photograph is for the same reason that it's dangerous. It would otherwise not even be that bad of a spot. It just is invisible because of the shape of it, because there's nothing cracked. It just kind of slumps down like the ground subsided underneath. So, Ernie?
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, there's nothing you can do about that in the wintertime or when it's wet. But when I ran into those circumstances, I would simply mark with an orange-red stripe across the front of it, warning a bicyclist who's about to enter it to perhaps slow down. It seemed to be the only thing to do with something that was broad and deep and required a visual warning.
[Emily O'Brien]: Sorry, Bidan?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I should say, in terms of taking pictures, having a light which is very low to the ground will help with... I even tried it with my flash with my phone held next to the ground and it was still invisible. No, what you want is the light down at the ground, but the phone higher up. And that helps it show up. Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. I didn't, I didn't quite have my stand light on my bike. Wasn't quite good enough to, by the time I had been stopping to figure out fiddle with it. Anyway, the point is, um, a lack of a photo doesn't mean that it's not that bad. It just means that it's hard to take a picture. And if the traffic is really messy, um, it's hard to get out of traffic and. you know, pull over onto the sidewalk to somehow take a picture and have people looking at you weird, and then you have to get back into the flow of traffic again. So that was one point. The next thing is, additionally, while the map specifies the roads where conditions make it more likely that a pothole will be particularly dangerous, there are other places where a specific location might be particularly problematic, even if that road's not on the list. So that would include complicated intersections, or even a pothole that just, it's not that bad of an intersection, but the pothole is just positioned just right where you're most likely to hit it while somebody's trying to get around you or something like that. So there are lots and lots of specific circumstances that can make it particularly bad, even if it's not one of the roads on that list. I have aspects of the road that make a pothole in that location more likely to contribute to serious injuries. So if the roadway is narrow, if there's heavy traffic in both directions, which means that passing is more difficult, steep grades, roads without quieter alternatives. So if it's a busy road and you also have no way to avoid that road, then everybody who needs to go that direction is on that road and will encounter that pothole. Um, and then I have factors that make specific potholes more dangerous to cyclists. One, if it's obviously, if it's large enough for the wheel to fall in and not roll out very easily, um, if it's in the most likely path of a cyclist. So if it's. You know, right next to the double yellow line, then it's probably not that likely to be a big problem to cyclists. That's not impossible, but it's probably, um, or even if it's in the left-hand wheel track in the middle of a block. you know, drivers will care about it, but cyclists might not. If it's difficult to see in time to avoid it, so those are the ones that get filled with water or the ones that have rounded over edges or the ones on dark streets that are downhill, you just, if you're going faster, you need more time to steer around something. So if it's harder to see in time, if it's in a low-lying area that fills with water. I debated including an image that maybe some people have seen a number of years ago. There was a photographer, I think in China, who took some controversy over a series of images that he took where he basically laid in wait in front of a pothole that was under a puddle and got this series of high speed photos of a man riding a bike holding an umbrella hitting that pothole and you see like three images of him doing a complete face plant. And you can just see the moment when his wheel, it looks like a smooth puddle. It looks like a smooth surface, but there's a pothole under that. And the photographer took some flack for, you know, lying in wait for somebody to get hurt instead of warning somebody so they wouldn't get hurt, which is understandable. But it is, it's a fairly, it's a fairly dramatic image that resulted. So then I list wheel diversion hazards, so that would be long ridges that could also include steel plates. or the edges between a patched area and a not patched area or where there was a rectangular patch that started to crack and break away. Even if it's not actually a trench, but if it's just a ridge on one side, so if it's like there used to be a patch there and the patch is broken away and you just have a lower area and a higher area, it's kind of like riding alongside a curb. Deep holes, obviously, pavement hazards with sharp corners that can cause sudden flat tires by pinching the inner tube between the tire and the rim or, you know, dent up your rims. So that includes things like raised castings or potholes that are right next to manhole covers or something like that, where if you hit that, you're going to hit basically a sharp corner. I included a couple of the photos that I could. It's not always easy to get the photos of the good spots because they have traffic and the drivers don't like it when you stand there blocking traffic so you can take a picture. But here's one where if you just look at this corner, sorry, this is in Somerville. It looks fine, but there's actually a fairly deep pothole there. The water is actually over the rim at that point. There's another wheel in a pothole, pretty clear. This is where I was trying to take a picture of this hole that's invisible. This is the pothole. It just kind of looks like a dark smudge, but it's actually a fairly deep hole. This is hitting a sewer cover that's right next to a hole. So the rest of the road surface, that metal edge is not a problem. But if there's a hole right next to it, then all of a sudden it's a really sharp edge that you would hit. So this is what I have. And hopefully it's useful to somebody. So, and then I have one other thing I think I mentioned this, that if somebody goes to the trouble on see click fix of saying, this is a particular danger to cyclists, then that should set off a flag that it's more likely to be urgent. You know, just from just from this discussion we all know that we can all list off dozens and dozens of places where there are potholes off the top of our heads, and we don't bother to report most of those because most of them are, you know, we don't like them they're annoying. But they're not like they're not going to cause us imminent injury. The ones that we do go to the trouble of reporting are the ones that we really think are likely to cause imminent injury. And I think that's probably true of most people. Every you know, every cyclist has a list of potholes that they hate, but they only bother to speak up about the ones that are really bad. So if they do bother to speak up about it and say it's bad for cyclists, then it probably is fairly urgent. Ernie.
[Ernie Meunier]: Emily, this is excellent work. Really, really nice. I would add one thing, and maybe this is to be directed a little bit to Amy too, is that to reference small angle conditions, meaning when you cross, a good example is when you're crossing railroad tracks at an acute angle, you have to learn to turn parallel and then turn quickly to be perpendicular so you don't get caught in that small angle ridge. Is there a way that this city can fill in more continuously a railroad track and the adjoining asphalt so that that gap is very narrow and not apt to trap a tire or is this a technical technological impasse? But something like that, will you address it somewhat in ridging and all that? But I think there should be some mention of the particular hazard of crossing railroad tracks and to try to cross them at a large angle instead of a small one where you could get your, you get sucked in.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, so I didn't mention railroad tracks because the railroad tracks that I, as far as I know, none of them belong to the city of Medford. And it's also not instructions for cyclists for how to cross railroad tracks. It's instructions for anybody who's gonna fix stuff to know what's likely to really hurt somebody.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I know, but I wondered if the city has the ability to fill in an especially large gap between a railroad track rail and the adjoining pavement.
[Emily O'Brien]: like what there used to be in West Medford?
[Ernie Meunier]: I think so. I think that's what I'm referring to, but my memory isn't serving me right.
[Emily O'Brien]: What I remember is that there used to be huge gaps at the railroad tracks in West Medford and that got fixed maybe three or four years ago, but Bruce?
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I was gonna say that one technique that people that I've seen is the use of rubberized railroad crossings that seem to be particularly effective to help with bicyclists and for cars for that matter. But just it's, I'm sure it's much more expensive, but it really makes for a much better crossing.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Ernie Meunier]: I think that's what I'm referring to. And I don't know if we have control over that infrastructure detail, or like you say, it might have to do with MTA or the state or something.
[Bruce Kulik]: But okay. City must have some influence. Yeah.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I'm not gonna say there's none, but yeah, the people who manage the various railroads have a lot of control.
[Bruce Kulik]: So do we need to vote on this as a official paper?
[Emily O'Brien]: I guess we might as well.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Motion to endorse this document. Second.
[Emily O'Brien]: All in favor?
[Emily O'Brien]: Aye.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: Okay. Amy, I know you already have the link to it, but now officially approved it so great.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I did actually use it. I think twice, and I do believe both of them did get bumped up in priority and taken care of. So, and then one of the thing that kind of came through this was. we do have some ability in CClickFix to create categories. I wish that it was less about categories and more about tags so you could have more than one, but you can't. But I did create a new category called Bike Hazard or something like that. That's great. So when I see those potholes, I do.
[Emily O'Brien]: Is that like when you There's there's like a bunch of things you can click on when you make the report. It's one of those. Yeah.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. Yeah. The original poster is the one who selects one. That's great. We have the ability to change it, which is good because people select the wrong thing all the time. So, yeah, I'm not I still haven't decided if I should change that, if I should make the potholes that are dangerous, especially dangerous bicyclists. a bike hazard or leave it as potholes because obviously the pothole filling people need to still need to see it. So I'm not sure about that yet. But but yeah, it's it's a it's an option now. So if you guys are reporting something, consider that one, too.
[Emily O'Brien]: That's great. Thank you, Ernie.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I remember we discussed last time and I'm sorry I'm forgetting if it came to any decision or fruition. What's the difference between private roads? and city roads with regard to potholes and are prioritizing them. Are we gonna be blind as to whether it's a private road or a city road with this project going forward?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: The city will not do pothole, any kind of resurfacing or pothole filling on a private road.
[Ernie Meunier]: It's up to the owners. Well, that put me in the hospital. Okay, thanks.
[Emily O'Brien]: So we also have infrastructure updates via Amy. Moving on with our agenda.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Not a ton, being with the winter and everything, we are continuing to coordinate with Eversource so that they will do all the things that they said they'd do last time. you know last uh fall um so you know when exactly that is will depend I guess on the weather but I don't expect it to start until probably spring just because you know yeah it's been so the weather's been so erratic it's hard to know that we're going to have a string of like dry and and warmish days so But yeah, we're still coordinating with them and hoping to get Mystic Ave, South Street and continue on Winthrop and get the final payment markings for the part that's been resurfaced on Winthrop. Yeah, just as soon as we can. One thing that has kind of come out in these meetings I've been having with the operations dbw operations staff is that we've decided that so previously, like any kind of payment markings, whether it was like. You know, just restriping a crosswalk that was already there or adding new bike lanes or anything in between, whether it was new or or existing. was basically being managed by our DPW staff and contractors were doing it, that they were managing. But we have found that because we have short staff and DPW operations, it's just been really hard to get them to do the new stuff because they're just so bogged down with all the restriping and keeping up with all the maintenance of what we already have. So, we've decided You know, we also didn't want to step on their toes, but we decided that a good way to kind of break it up is to let them handle all the maintenance aspects of pavement markings and any kind of new pavement markings that would go in. Todd and I will be directly dealing with the contractors to install that stuff. We haven't employed any of this yet, but so, you know, we do expect some bumps, but like, I hope that this will streamline things and like the handful of bike lanes that we passed through traffic commission last year that have still not been installed by us. will hopefully be installed quicker next time around.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Great Thank you Bruce you have your hand up.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yes, I was just curious what's the status of the clipper ship connector I thought that was actually going to go out to bid last year.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: yeah yeah they haven't been giving us like regular updates, but my understanding is that. There was a landowner that needed, I don't know if there was an easement or a taking or exactly what was going on, but they needed some cooperation from this landowner in order to actually do the project, and that person was being difficult. But I think it is finally resolved. They have the design. Basically, they just needed to get all that stuff squared away and get all their permits and stuff done. So I expect it probably should be going to construction this coming season.
[Bruce Kulik]: And that's strictly a DCR project, is that correct?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah.
[Bruce Kulik]: Not even on city area property or a transition area?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: No, if it's on any city property, not that I'm aware of.
[Bruce Kulik]: What about getting from Clippership Drive to the path? There's no transition at this point to do that.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: They're just connecting into existing sidewalk.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, but not the ability to get from the street up to the sidewalk easily? Correct. That's really part of the through infrastructure for cyclists.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, Todd and I have been talking about that connection and also getting it into the square and stuff like that, but that's not part of the DCR project.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right, thank you.
[Emily O'Brien]: Thanks. At such time as that is up and that is actually moving forward, it would be great to have, you know, some designated method of crossing the square from one part of bike path to the next. Even if that's a, you know, paint on the ground that tells you this is how you weave your way through the crosswalks, if that's what it has to be, that's what it has to be. But it would be nice to have, you know, not just sort of dump you out and like, make you have to get out your phone and figure out like scroll you know zoom in and scroll around and kind of figure it out figure out how to pick your way through um that's you know that's kind of one of that's my complaint that you've all heard before about a lot of these bike path connections that as long as you know the area intimately and know exactly where you're going it's great but if you're new to it or if you're just someplace that you don't go as often.
[Bruce Kulik]: I found that to be the case even on some very well-known long-distance trails, like this one into New York City from, I forget the town, way up north. But there are places where it just stops and you have to go a quarter mile somehow to find the rest of it.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, places where it stops and you only have to go around the corner or across the street or something, but it isn't visually obvious. It would be nice to at least have if we can't build something like a more reasonable way to cross Main Street, it would be at least nice to have a signage or paint or something that tells you like there is more bike path and this is how you find it.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Those new way fighting signs that have gone up are great, so you know just a couple of those which I assume will get. Hope so.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Yeah. This is a little bit off topic and probably outside of maybe outside of what you would know Amy, but the Greenline extension. has those segments of bike paths. This is in Somerville between like Magoon Square and Lechmere. And they look all finished, but they're still fenced off. And I assume that has something to do with the contractor not deciding they're done yet or not signed off on or something. But there's lots of bike paths that would be really useful And all of these things, it always happens that it's done and then it just sits there until people push the fences away and start using it anyway. But there's enough like little sections that people haven't pushed away all the fences yet. Just wondering if you have any information that we don't know about about when those might be open.
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Not specifically. I have been attending monthly meetings with the various contractors and stuff in Somerville as much as I can. Yeah, I don't have specific information. They are receiving a lot of pressure about that path. So they're very much aware and very much trying to get it open as quickly as possible. I don't know the reasons for why it's not right now, but there are definitely reasons.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: I can jump in here just for a second. I live in Somerville, and I think very, very recently, Somerville City Council approved the lease agreement that they have with the T for doing the maintenance on the path, and so the latest estimate, which is still an estimate, is that those segments of the path that are now kind of shut, like you were speaking about, will open sometime in April, hopefully. So I think that's also public.
[Emily O'Brien]: Fingers crossed.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, fingers crossed.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I heard something about that, and a lease agreement, and then a few finishing touches or something like that. Yeah.
[Jared Powell]: I saw no sooner than April based on that information was a phrase I saw written about it.
[Emily O'Brien]: Great, thank you. And do we have any other questions along those lines or about those topics?
[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I don't remember last time I gave a blue bikes update but I can give a little bit of one. We have seven that are, you know, kind of in some stage of like going to be happening in the next couple months. I think we ordered three, and then the other four we haven't ordered quite yet, but we will be very soon, and basically installing them as quick as we can. Do you have locations for those? Generally, yes. So trying to close the gaps between the Medford Square one and Wellington Station one. There's a few in that area. One's hopefully going to be in Haines Square. and then one or two in the neighborhoods kind of south of that, heading towards the river. And then a couple, maybe one, yeah, I think one more in South Medford probably, and then one or two in West Medford. Yeah. Great.
[Jared Powell]: If you need my address to cite one of them, as near as you can, that's happy to supply it.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, my address too.
[Bruce Kulik]: Isn't that known as a conflict of interest that we talked about earlier today?
[Jared Powell]: I think I missed some of the meetings, so maybe I missed that part. I'm all set there.
[Emily O'Brien]: I'm like, I can suggest I can suggest Lawrence Hospital and the library is great locations and it has nothing to do with the fact that I live kind of equal distance between those two places. If the last thing on the agenda was new member recruitment, which I think we already discussed, but worth another reminder that we are looking for new members and know people who have experience with getting things done in city governments or getting things done in volunteer organizations um all of those are great but not the only not the only useful skills um so and you know people at all levels of cycling it doesn't have to be just the people who have been biking everywhere since they were seven, you know, um, I think it is also really valuable to hear from people who only ride a little bit and they're kind of nervous about it. Um, or people who. You know, like to, like to ride on the bike path and would like to be able to ride on the street, but they're worried. Um, so it doesn't have to be only the people who are like the lifetime bike nerds or whatever.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I totally agree with you, Emily. If people have, like, other networks that they want to reach out to, like, to the point that you made previously, Emily, like, please, please do. I mean, we have a social media presence, obviously, but it's limited, and the odds are the people who know about the Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission is a self-selecting group anyway, and it's easy enough to be someone who bikes in Medford without, you know, coming across the commission as well, just because that's kind of how city government-type things work, so. Looking beyond our normal parameters is certainly a good idea. I'm hoping we can get some people, including people who have some time. That's one of the greatest resources that people can provide, frankly, just a bit of time.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, that's true. And especially for all of the events that we like to be able to set up at things like Circle to the Square or at the Farmer's Market or at Harvest Your Energy, all of those take somebody's time and it's not always, not everybody has time on those times of days or those kinds of, that kinds of time blocks, but people who do have time, that's great too. And those people can, we can have people setting up at those tables who are not bike commission members. So if you come across people who don't want to come to a monthly meeting, but would love to help out at an event like that, that's fantastic too. Do we have anything else?
[Jared Powell]: I have one quick thing, which I probably should have mentioned under announcements, but it is tangentially related to what we were just talking about because It came up in the course of me posting about looking for other people. The Melrose bike committee, it's bike and pedestrian committee combined, perhaps. They reached out and were interested in maybe attending a meeting or maybe vice versa, looking for ways to kind of partner and that sort of thing. So I might reach out to them if you all are okay with it and suggest that maybe we try to partner up on something, or they can attend a meeting, something like that.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I'd go be an exchange student at a Melrose meeting.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Great, sounds good. Do they have a regular meeting schedule like we do? I'm not sure, but I think so.
[Jared Powell]: I think so. Yeah, I'll look and find out.
[Bruce Kulik]: Do we have any common borders with Melrose? I know we're close. Maybe up at the hospital, at the Woodland Road area?
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I feel like Melrose is one of those places that I never, ever, ever go.
[SPEAKER_10]: I just learned they have a really cool bike shop for cargo bikes and then also a French bakery and a yarn shop.
[Emily O'Brien]: So I've got a bike there. Well, maybe I'll have to join you. Yeah, it looks like we are close, but I don't think we quite have I think that's Malden that actually touches Melrose, but it's very close.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, there's like a narrow strip of the fells between us and Melrose, basically.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, very narrow. It's like really, we just almost touch right at Highland Avenue. Or more, what is that, South Border Road, I think is in Medford. I think you're right, it's Malden.
[Adam Hurtubise]: East Border Road.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah.
[Adam Hurtubise]: East Border Road, yeah, sorry.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's, it's, if you go up Fells Way East, then you're in, then you're in Melrose.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Still worth talking about, uh, better ways to connect.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I, you know, I think of that as a place that's really not very far, but that I never go because the roads to get there are just kind of crappy. So.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Um, yeah, we just need sick mountain bike trails.
[Bruce Kulik]: There actually is a road all the way across the fells right there from Woodland road to, uh, fells way east. So you need a mountain bike for it. Oh, yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Well, you need a bike with like medium tires. I've definitely ridden it on 28 C, but like, Not, you know, I wouldn't do it on 23.
[SPEAKER_10]: I probably would, but yes, you probably would do a mountain bike route through Fulton Heights.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, yeah, you could throw it up there.
[SPEAKER_10]: All the sort of like not developed roads that are very rocky.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yep.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Are we all done?
[Emily O'Brien]: All right. Do we have any other business?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I am not sure we were, we moved, we moved in, uh, uh, sort of jumping around me around the schedule, but I think we've covered it.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think we have hit everything. We did jump around a little bit. Um, but, uh, I guess we got Ernie didn't, Ernie didn't miss too much due to his cello lesson.
[Jared Powell]: No. One quick plug, this doesn't need to prolong the meeting, but just Peter, I think was after Pat left, Peter was one of the other people who tended to post on social media a bit, not a ton, but he did it some. Yeah. So if there's anyone else who's... I do it occasionally when I remember to, but not that much. I know, Emily, you post some too.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I do it occasionally when I remember, but...
[Jared Powell]: Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of in a similar boat, but if there's anyone who has more of an interest in it, please do. We can give you the reins to the Instagram and Facebook accounts if you're so inclined. In the course of recruiting for other new members, hopefully, we'll find some people who are just burning to exercise their social media muscles.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, definitely.
[Jared Powell]: Keep in mind.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I am happy to help out with that, although I am not a good social media user, even in my personal life. So I will try.
[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you. Yeah. Along those lines, I think it's also worth just to, I think we've mentioned this before, but if you are on social media or Nextdoor or any of those things, it's good to have kind of friendly, helpful, Bicyclist voices weighing in on some of the arguments that people get into complaining about traffic, complaining about parking, complaining about road maintenance, complaining about, there was one recently about, you know, bike paths that hadn't been plowed and all these people were dogpiling on about how nobody should be riding their bike in the winter and stuff. So it's, you know, There's a certain category of loud voice that gets noticed a lot in places like that. And it's kind of nice to have counterbalancing arguments when possible and when it's not too down in the weeds of the flame wars or whatever. So to the extent that you can stomach it, I think it's a good thing to occasionally try to do. Anything else?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Let's see. Next meeting, March 29th?
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, that's... That will be... 1, 2, 3, 4... I guess by our normal schedule, it would be the 22nd, but since we're here now, it makes... And there are five... Oh, I'm not... Wait, I'm looking at the wrong month. We're usually we're usually the 4th Wednesday, but since there are 5 in March, we might as well. We might as well take the 29th. And I will put that in my calendar to. Remind me that we decided that.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Can you email that to me as well? And we just don't totally forget, yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: I mean, if we all were to forget and accidentally have our meeting on the 22nd, that wouldn't be the end of the world either.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: As long as we announce it, yes.
[Emily O'Brien]: Right. I mean, as long as we announce it. But I think it probably does make sense to do it on the 29th, given that there are five in March, unless there's something else that happens in intervening time that makes us think that we should have it a week sooner.
[Adam Hurtubise]: But that seems to make sense to me. Anything else? Move to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: All right. Awesome. Meeting adjourned. And we're early.
|
total time: 4.71 minutes total words: 470 |
|||