[Emily O'Brien]: So on that note, the September 27th meeting of the Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission shall come to order. Dennis, do you have some verbiage for us?
[Denis MacDougall]: Yes. Sorry, I've been having my dual computer issues. Give me five seconds, had it, and then glitched out. But I will have it in. I had to switch laptops.
[Emily O'Brien]: We can have Daniel call the roll in the meantime.
[Denis MacDougall]: I'm all set. On July 16, 2022, Governor Baker signed into law an act relative to extending certain state of emergency accommodations, which, among other things, extends the expiration of the provisions pertaining to the open meeting law to March 31st, 2023. Specifically, this extension allows public bodies to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the public body physically present at a meeting location and to provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. The act does not make 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. I hope you heard that. Great. Okay, good.
[Emily O'Brien]: Daniel, would you like to call the roll?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Jared Powell. Here. All right. Pat Bivens. I believe told us would not be here. Bruce Kulik. Present. Emily O'Brien.
[Unidentified]: Here.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: B. Dan Fairchild. He's not here. Ernest Munier.
[Ernie Meunier]: About 93% here.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I'll count that. Doug Packer. I don't think I see him. Yeah, Doug's here. He waved.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Oh, he is.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I'm sorry. Yeah. All right. Peter Cowles, I see is here. Gaston Fiore. I do not. Steve Gaston. Daniel Moser-Muller, present. And Rebecca Wright. Here. Here. And I believe that Dana Phillips has resigned, so I will not call Dana Phillips as an NBAC member.
[Emily O'Brien]: And we also have Lily Wirth as a guest.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Lily Wirth. Nice to see you again, Lily.
[Emily O'Brien]: Good to see you guys, too. Thanks for coming. For our first agenda item, we have minutes to approve from a couple of previous meetings. We didn't have a quorum at the last meeting. That's often the case in August. Everybody has stuff going on. So we have, I think, August minutes and July minutes that both need approval.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: We may have one more as well.
[Emily O'Brien]: Or maybe August, July, and June.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I believe we have, yes, August, July, and June.
[Emily O'Brien]: Wow. We had a couple with not quorum. Do we have a motion to approve those? Does anyone have any questions about them?
[Jared Powell]: Motion to approve.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Seconded.
[Emily O'Brien]: All in favor? Aye.
[Jared Powell]: Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: All opposed? Minutes are approved. Do we have announcements? I know one thing that Pat sent on the email list is just a reminder about the Harvest Your Energy Festival, which is Saturday the 15th of October from noon to 3 p.m. It would be great to have as many of us show up and support the cause and help out and be extra bodies at the table as much as we can. And I think Pat will take care of the most of the setup so we can coordinate with him about that, but keep that on your calendars. Our next announcement is a follow-up on Ernie's accident, which I know we were chit-chatting about before we started. But Ernie, do you want to give us kind of the short version of the follow-up and the details of the road and the problems with the insurance and so forth?
[Ernie Meunier]: Oh, OK. Well, was everyone able to read my email to the group earlier today?
[Emily O'Brien]: So we were, um, for the sake of this being a public meeting, you still need the executive summary.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yes. Yes. Okay. So I was in an automobile, uh, an accident with an automobile. I was on my bicycle, an accident with an automobile at the intersection of Smith lane and Wolverine streets in Medford on August 18th, where we. The driver of the automobile and I entered perpendicularly to each other and were involved in a collision wherein I was knocked unconscious and was sent to the ER Mass General Hospital for two days. In that happening, the driver of the automobile thought he had killed me. So he experienced a bit of trauma on his own psychologically. The important notices here are that I was traveling slightly downhill on Smith Lane, which is a narrow road, the right side of which was filled with huge potholes, forcing me to try to stay as close to the middle as possible. There was no signage at that intersection. The left side of the road had just been paved with fresh asphalt, continuing without interruption across Wilburn Street and onto the lane opposite, lending me visually with no other hints that perhaps I had the right of way, or certainly visually the stronger right of way when there is no other indication of who does. I was actually entering to cross Woburn Street from which on my left obscured by trees for both of us was an automobile coming at about 20 miles an hour. So I popped into his view. He swerved to the left to avoid hitting me directly. And I then crashed into his right rear door, bounced off the car. lots of road rash in the right side, was knocked unconscious, then spent two days at the ER. Up for discussion, I think, if we're getting to that point, are two important factors. One, oh, okay. So that was followed by a slow recovery. And then a couple of weeks ago, I visited the scene, spoke at length. with contiguous neighbors to the intersection, including the one who had rigged cam video, which was misinterpreted by the Medford police as to what actually happened, which is its own issue. They all agreed that some road calming needs to occur on Wolverine Street and that there are, as Daniel just mentioned, several such intersections where there's no markings at any of the four corners. It's interesting to note that while I was talking with these neighbors at length, I witnessed a teenage boy coming down the sidewalk on Smith Lane, perhaps trying to stay away from the potholes on the right side. So he was on the sidewalk, perhaps not knowing that there was a sheer cliff he was about to go over as there was no curb cut. So he bounced off the cliff, toppled over his handlebars and crashed right in front of us, which was just an incredible bit of deja vu for me, who did essentially the same kind of crash several weeks before. The neighbors agree that speed bumps or something are needed and that people race up and down Woburn Lane. So we need to get the potholes fixed for one. And secondly, if we get even one sign put up at that intersection, it should be on that slight downward slope of Smith Lane as it comes to Woburn and should be listed as a full stop. I don't know what to suggest as traffic calming measures on Wolburn Street or road, whatever it is, itself, as that's a much bigger topic. And, you know, Daniel, as an example, lives there and may have a whole, as well as all other neighbors will have a lot to say about what the needs are for Wolburn Street. that there was no publicity of this event, despite the fact that I was told by these witnesses that four to five cruisers showed up, a fire truck, and finally an EMT to cart me away is indicative of the fact that we don't have sufficient press for these kinds of activities occurring here. I happen to mention that to Daniel Kelly, Kennedy, my neighbor, who, you know, has been in journalism in this these parts for 40 years and was yelling about how yeah, we don't have a Medford newspaper anymore. So nobody finds out about this stuff. Unless you die, Ernie. Yeah, so I didn't make the channel five news. But I don't want this to get lost historically. In addition to taking on the charge of distributing bike lights to the kids, we'll talk about maybe helmets later. I'm obviously the obvious poster child to visit the schools and give out lights and talk about the need for kids to wear helmets. as all the principals and vice principals I've spoken with last spring and recently say it's a serious problem. The kids who do ride to school, you would think would be wearing helmets, but even those who ride back and forth to school do not. And school leadership is sort of at their wits as to how to deal with that. I guess I'll talk about the bike lights issues later in the agenda. I'm not sure what else to say about the accident. I did suffer subdural hematoma between the left and right hemispheres of my brain, fairly significant. It worsened over the first day and then subsided, at which point they kicked me out of there. just as my wife and I contracted COVID in the ER, because that's what happens when you go to an ER, you get COVID. So I'm clear of that and had a follow-up scan a week, eight days ago, which was red Thursday, stating that I'm progressing quite nicely, but that confusion, repetitiveness, memory loss, and imbalance issues will take a little more time to dissipate. I'll answer questions, of course, but I'm not sure what to add at this time.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think that's mostly what we need to know. A couple comments about what you had said earlier, though, just for the record, is one, Ernie, you mentioned that the insurance company was claiming that you ran a stop sign when, in fact, there is no stop sign at in any direction at that intersection. And also that you... Let me address that.
[Ernie Meunier]: The follow-up to that was that I indeed called them to have a kind of, you know, a conversation with someone in Texas at USAA and told them there was no stop sign there, that their assessor was being awfully creative. and they had testimony from me and said that they would reassess the situation at a higher level. I then got a letter from them yesterday stating that they no longer wanted from me $2,500 to fix the door of the car, but at the same time, they don't want to entertain a lawsuit from me for medical damages because I caused the accident by flying into the their insurance car. So they're talking out of two sides of their mouth there. But but they've lessened their they're not demanding money, but they're and they're also not talking about the stop sign. Somebody must have finally told them that there is no stop sign there. So your next point, Emily. Thanks.
[Emily O'Brien]: And then the other thing is that you had also mentioned that you didn't think that the police report gave an accurate description of what happened.
[Ernie Meunier]: No. He states that I caused the collision by ramming into the side of the car and that that was supported by the rig cam video. The drawing by the police shows the intersection not well mapped out and makes it look like a pure T-bone with me hitting them. It just wasn't carefully done. But I've been told that that's routine. And that fault assessment is often routinely an error. Also, at the at the attending officers initial report level. So I was told it is no surprise that the cops got it wrong in writing the initial report. So the fact that the woman who has the ring cam video responded to me when I asked to perhaps see it, said, you're not going to learn anything because it doesn't show the accident. It just shows you going down the hill by our house. Then you're obscured by the trees, as is the whole accident. Large bushes slash trees on that corner made it impossible for any of us to see each other.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Bruce has his hand up.
[Bruce Kulik]: Hi there, thank you for recognizing me. There's just a few points that I wanted to make here. Some of them quoting from both the summary of the mass general law on the mass website, as well as I believe it's from the driver's handbook that is issued to people looking to get a motor vehicle license. And also some questions about uh, prejudices that, um, police may have against bicyclists in incidents like this, which anecdotally seems to occur from time to time with, um, officers who are less, just less familiar with bicycle operation. I know there's plenty of officers who are both in Medford and other communities. Um, but. There's enough of a pattern here that I think it bears maybe a discussion with the chief or whatever they do for training to make sure that there's not an implicit assumption that the cyclist is at fault. And unfortunately, I've got to say that many times that assumption comes from behavior of many cyclists. perhaps including ourselves, who are reluctant to adhere to the rules of the road for whatever reason. So I'll leave it at that. But regarding unsignalized intersections, Massachusetts is a bit of an anomaly, I believe, because in most cases, especially those states that subscribe to the Uniform Motor Vehicle Code, I forget the exact name of it, The code basically says that when you're entering a more major street from a minor street, that's the traffic that is supposed to yield. Massachusetts, however, does not subscribe to that code and specifically has a competing method of determining right-of-way, which is, from a practical standpoint, very unsafe. From a legal standpoint, might give you actually more perhaps more, I don't know what the word is, more rights, if you would. Now, I'm not a lawyer, I'm just reading what I'm reading here from the book, but it basically says, intersections not controlled by signs or signals. Slow down at an uncontrolled intersection, look left and right for oncoming traffic and proceed if the way is clear. However, You must yield the right-of-way to any vehicle that has entered the intersection from your right or is coming from your right. That would be you, Ernie, in this situation. Look for traffic coming from the left. Even though you may have a legal right-of-way, make sure that the other driver is yielding before you proceed. Now, that's what it says legally. Practically speaking, I believe that most people strongly interpret the major road having the right-of-way, and in particular, Woburn Street with a yellow line down the middle, and many other streets for that matter. I haven't looked at Grove Street, but I know we have a lot of side streets coming in. They are private ways, but there's no distinction made in the right-of-way rules listed here regarding private ways, although it's possible that there is a, something to do with driveways or other private ways in that regard, that maybe there's an interpretation there as well. Either way, it's quite ambiguous. And equally so with the pavement markings that you said that led you to believe that you had the right of way coming into there. And therefore, it didn't quite occur to you that you would need to observe traffic crossing. Yes, Ernie.
[Ernie Meunier]: Well, my reading, just from a simple Google search, confirmed my long-time belief, and I was trained in France, that even a small driveway, for instance, has right of way over a multi-lane, stronger highway coming across it. and then learn to reinforce with the advent of four-way stops in lots of neighborhoods, where we're all supposed to stop and yield to the person on the right and go around clockwise. That's along that same interpretation of the law. So I threw this at USAA. I said, look, there's no stop sign there. I actually had the right of way, as preposterous as it might seem, because Woburn is considered the more major road. The view at that intersection does not show Wolburn as the more major road as there's no yellow marking. And indeed, the new pavement is continuous through Smith Lane and not Wolburn, giving someone visually the impression that he or she is on the major road crossing.
[Bruce Kulik]: Well, I'll repeat the Massachusetts law makes no distinction about whether it's a major road or not. It just has to do with intersecting ways and I'll simply quote the, the chapter in verse here, literally, Mass General Law, chapter 89 section eight entitled right of way and intersecting ways. turning on red signals. And the first paragraph basically discusses several different types of intersections. But in particular, it makes mention of when two vehicles approach or enter an intersection of any ways as defined in section one of chapter 90. Now, I haven't referenced that, so I'd have to see if that includes private ways. At approximately the same instance, the operator of a vehicle on the left should yield the right of way to the vehicle on the right. So again, that's apparently legal standing, practically speaking, as you observed, you couldn't see each other. That's a very dangerous situation to have the right of way coming from a blind corner where people will likely believe that they have the right of way as well. So to that regard, that's what we really ought to think about is what would we like the city to do in general And what else can we do, maybe more generally, to clarify exactly what happens? Because this has got to happen a lot, not just with cyclists, but with motor vehicles as well. Collisions of all sorts that can occur because somebody thought they had the right of way and pulled into the way of somebody who also thought they had the right of way, right? There's no reason for that kind of a collision.
[Emily O'Brien]: This seems like a case where there's probably a lot of these intersections across the city where That in principle could be solved by putting a stop sign at one of those signs at one of those streets, even if it's not an always stop. One.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Absolutely.
[Emily O'Brien]: One of the streets has a stop sign. The other doesn't. The other thing is, we don't In Massachusetts, we don't tend to have a whole lot of convex mirrors, but in places where the visibility is really bad, maybe we should think about asking for some. The downside is that since we don't have a lot of them around, people aren't really used to looking for them, so they're not used to looking in them. But at least if you have one, you have something that you can see around the corner.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I'd have to say, practically speaking again in my 65 years, I've never ever used a convex mirror at any intersection.
[Emily O'Brien]: The one place that I've seen that had a lot of them when I was in Taiwan, they have a lot of intersections where the buildings go right up. The property line basically goes right up to the street, so there's not a sidewalk. And there's no visibility at all of these intersections. And they have convex mirrors at every single intersection. And you just get used to looking at them. But what do you think we can do?
[Bruce Kulik]: What do you think we could do or get the city to do that can help alleviate these things? I mean, paint might be one one thing where pavement markings indicate a stop, for example. Yeah. You know, to go and put stop signs everywhere would be a very long term project, clearly.
[Ernie Meunier]: Well, the very low hanging fruit here is to bang a stop sign in at the bottom of Smith Lane and to fill the potholes post haste. The accident that I had happened and a kid deciding to go down the sidewalk because he didn't want to go in a pothole and goes over a curb and does an endo. know right so one question there is is Smith Lane a private way that becomes I believe not I got lost up there cutting over from yeah coming home from Brookline Bank with all those pens and I got lost off of Winthrop Street took a left into some road I hadn't been on before and I went up a hill and ended up on some perpendicular intersection with Eugene, and I smelled my way downhill on Smith Lane, which looked like a real road, and then saw what I felt was a nice thruway, but of course it wasn't. It was crossing Woburn Street, which to me was like a pair of driveways. It was so small and minor looking.
[Emily O'Brien]: And this is also a case where, again, there's probably a lot of these across the city where it doesn't, it wouldn't, it would be less likely to happen to someone who lives there. But of course, people go through all of these intersections who don't live in that neighborhood. And we have to be cognizant of what it looks like to somebody who's never, who's not that familiar with it. We have hands up from Jared and also Gaston. I think Jared, you were first.
[Jared Powell]: Sure, thanks. I think this is kind of a simple thing, just put up, I think the city has a responsibility. I mean, it's me speaking personally to put up stop signs here. I think you're just asking for many problems, legal problems where people are suing each other, insurance companies are suing insurance companies, people are suing the city. I think it's something that could happen as well. I think you're looking at a big liability problem. to have these unsignalized intersections. It seems like the existence of them is frankly asking too much of people who are driving, who are used to following basic signs on the road that tell them what to do, asking people who've been driving for however many years they have been. to pour back into the knowledge of something maybe they learned when they were teenagers, I think is just a recipe for disaster. It should be much simpler, just a stop sign. And maybe that is expensive, but some things are necessary expenses. It doesn't really seem like it's really worth quibbling over the cost of one or however many need to happen.
[Emily O'Brien]: I agree, I think this, obviously we know this intersection needs stop signs. I would also think the same is probably true for any number of others that look similar and that the same thing could have happened in any number of other places and they should also get stop signs. Gaston?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, I just wanted to quickly add that just based on the picture that Ernie has sent, I see this as an extremely unfortunate Swiss cheese effect is, because I see a lot of things that have combined here, and maybe this can help the city to identify similar intersections. So even if the potholes are fixed, which they should definitely be fixed, the fact that the road, after it crosses the intersection, it's much narrower and to the left, could still mean that you know, cyclists or even cars coming down that hill will still be to the left of the road, because if they're on the right, they will crash against the house on the other side of the intersection in the right. So then you have to go to the left no matter what, which means that a lot of attention needs to be put to that corner kind of vegetation on the left that precludes any traffic coming from the main road to see who is coming on the right. So I feel that this is a very tricky kind of intersection where the fact that the road, you know, you come down the hill and then the road narrows after the intersection to the left means that you will probably go to the left no matter what. So in addition to a stop sign, something that helps visualize you know, traffic coming on the main road to be particularly careful to look for people coming down that hill and also definitely clear that vegetation. I mean, that corner should be clear so then people can see whatever traffic is coming down the hill on the right.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I agree that. I think that's true. And you can see, I put the picture up on the screen. This is one of the pictures that Ernie sent. And you can see the potholes, but also what Gaston mentioned, how the road goes, kind of the left side of the road goes straight through and the right side of the road kind of doesn't. And you can just barely see the foliage over here. that blocks any sight lines, especially if you were over on the part that goes across and doesn't have the potholes. Ernie?
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, just a quickie. It's clear to follow what you're saying, Gaston, that a speed table on Wolberg coming from the left going up that sliding client would be a good idea because someone might be coming down Smith lane on the left side of it, and it's obscured by trees and bushes, whether a speed table is needed from the northern side or the right side from this picture. Coming approaching I think in a more linear I think a straighter fashion to that intersection may be arguable, but certainly those three neighbors and you see the blue house on the right. That's where we sat and that's and what you can't see in the foreground and the right is the house that had the ring cam. And, but those three neighbors all agree that the traffic is too fast there on Woburn Street, and that it's fortunate that Smith Lane isn't so well traversed, because it's a small hill, because otherwise it probably would have been more accidents by now. And yeah, you can see this is also the view that the kid on the bike had. So if you're on a bicycle and your choice is to go down the hill on this or on the sidewalk, which was pretty clean on the right, you'd stay on the sidewalk. But look at that curb at the end, and that's what he just flew over and crashed. So the thing is a mess, but there are about 50, there's another one or two potholes not in that picture that are significant and lead one well ahead of time to ignore that right side of the road. So those are gonna be filled quickly and one stop sign put up. Gaston, you're right, a stop sign on that curb on the right side of that fairly wide road may not be sufficient to deter people from ignoring it and going straight through across Wilburn Street, but it's a whole lot better than nothing.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, and it does tell you that you don't have the right of way.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yes, of course.
[Emily O'Brien]: You can understand where visually it may be indeterminate. It may be unclear, but you do have, but a stop sign does tell you something. So I think we should move on from this, but I wanted to mention one other thing that I think a while ago, a year or two ago, we had a meeting with the police chief and we had a chance to kind of bring our concerns and ask some questions. And I wonder if that's something we should ask for again and maybe do that on some kind of a regular basis. I think we have brought up a number of concerns here. relating to officers' assumptions about what cyclists do. And I think it's also worth noting that in most of these cases, a lot of the time, the driver may remember what happened, but the cyclist hits their head and doesn't remember. And that's very, very common. So you have a case where the cyclist really is not able to speak for themselves very effectively. And that's another thing that I think is worth mentioning to the police chief if we get a chance. I would also add that we know that lots of cyclists run red lights or do lots of things that that we see you know we see all the time. And we also know that some of the time people do that as a reaction to other situations that are not being addressed in other ways. And that's also something that we could bring up. So I wonder if this is something that we should mention. Ernie, just a second, Gaston had a hand up.
[Gaston Fiore]: I just want to talk really quickly. So whether we could. So one is like write something or put a forward motion or something like that to get someone from the police department to come listen to us or not listen, but talk to us. And the second one is whether we could actually also put forward a motion or something like that, write an official letter to the city with our recommendations for Ernie's intersection. So at least there's some sort of official kind of request that we put, and then later on evaluate whether something has been done or not. That's it.
[Ernie Meunier]: Ernie? Yeah, it's just unfortunate that neither of the traffic engineers are here to hear all this, and I wish they had been. But at the very least, we should be careful, Daniel, maybe in the minutes to make sure they're forwarded to them. And as Gaston says, maybe a separate letter saying, fix this intersection and fill those puddles.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think there's two things here. I would say the first thing is we can certainly, at the very least, Ernie or whoever else, but Ernie in particular, you should put a note in C-Click Fix. I think Todd and Amy really are paying attention to this. Todd is sick and Amy wasn't available tonight and for some reason doesn't get the email list messages. And she still doesn't know why she doesn't get them, but she is on the list, and she just doesn't get the messages. But she does know. I think this is somewhat on their radar. And Lily is here. But Ernie, you could also put a request on see click fix because that's where people. That's where these sorts of things are tracked. If we want to, we can also write a letter to the city. about more than just a specific intersection, say that we think this specific intersection needs stop signs at the very least. But I would say if we're going to actually write a letter on behalf of MBAC, we should address it to more than one intersection and say that there's a lot of completely unregulated intersections, unsigned intersections in the city, and we should you know, put that on the to-do list to add some sort of signage to those as well. And using your incident as being exhibit A as to why this matters on all of these narrow little roads.
[Jared Powell]: I agree with that approach, Emily. I like that idea. Like it's worth using this as an example of a broader problem rather than using it as We specific people of the MBAC want to improve our specific circumstances. And this is just a really good poster child for why it needs to be done throughout the city.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I would appreciate if the group writes the letter and not put it on my shoulders because yeah, it's too much of an individual effort by a victim.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, if we write a letter broadly, I'll write the letter with input from whoever wants to. We can move to write that more general letter. If you don't want to put it on C-Click Fix at this specific intersection, Ernie, then somebody else can do it.
[Ernie Meunier]: Oh, I could I can do that easily. I had just been told that see click fix was kind of ignored. But maybe not. Okay.
[Emily O'Brien]: I mean, I think that is I think that is how the city keeps track of certain things.
[Ernie Meunier]: Well, what about the photos I've already uploaded? Can't they just be sent quickly to Todd?
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, we can also that that can also happen. Yeah. But I think requests for this specific intersection are slightly different from requests for addressing the broader picture of all of the intersections across the city that look like this.
[Ernie Meunier]: Well, of course. But I mean, do I need to go take more pictures? No, no, no.
[Emily O'Brien]: You have pictures. You're fine on pictures.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
[Emily O'Brien]: Um, so, uh, do we have a motion, uh, Bruce?
[Bruce Kulik]: Yes. Yeah. Real quickly. So I just did a quick scan, uh, on Google, uh, street view of. Intersecting streets on growth street right near where I live and virtually none of them. I couldn't find a single stop sign on any of the streets that I looked at and looked about a half dozen quick sample, um, up and down the street. So I've got to believe that this is. in general, a problem everywhere in Massachusetts. And why it hasn't been addressed sooner in some fashion, either by changing the regulation such that it becomes more apparent who has to yield the right of way in a case like that, or street markings or whatever. As I think about it, it's just astounding that there's not more of a problem where you know, even motor vehicle traffic has problems because what I'm reading from this is if I'm going down my street at even the modest 25 miles an hour and somebody pulls off from a side street in front of me, according to the law, I would be at fault. And that does not make practical sense. Although as we know, practicality and legality are not always in sync. So that was just an observation I made from Google.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, and I know I can think off the top of my head of a number of small roads around where I live, including some that I know are private ways and some that I'm not sure. that also don't have stop signs in places that certainly could. And it also occurs to me that if we are trying harder to create side street routes for bicyclists to use to avoid the major streets, That means that more of these small back roads, we're going to be encouraging people to use those as through streets on bikes. And these are all the places that now we, that don't have stop signs at these intersections. And so that's another, I think that's another important point. If we're encouraging people to use these side streets as alternatives to inhospitable major roads, then it becomes that much more important to straighten it out and make it clear who goes when.
[Ernie Meunier]: Right. Yeah, good point.
[Emily O'Brien]: So I guess our next step there is do we have a motion to send a letter to the city, which I guess would mean Todd and Amy saying that we would like to request that this issue be addressed broadly over the space of the city in all of these little places that have unclear right of way. And I wonder if this is something that needs to go to more people than just Todd and Amy. Any thoughts on that?
[Bruce Kulik]: Would we want to, um, would we want to copy city council in any way, either as a possibility of create the cities can, as I understand, create some ordinances, although in many cases. You need to be home rule petition. Um, and particularly with traffic regulations, you don't want to have a patchwork different regulations in every city and town, but they could certainly fund, um, uh, stop signs or paint or street markings. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator): yeah different intersections as an alternate as a some of the city council could do.
[Gaston Fiore]: Pablo Su?rez Hern?ndez-Sandoval?nando.: : yeah I support copy the city council and then also talking about this specific example, though, of course, the letter will be general, but they do really appreciate specific example of something that has happened at some you know sort of as evidence.
[Ernie Meunier]: I wonder if copying the DPW might just save a few days in getting instructions to them to get those particular potholes filled more quickly.
[Emily O'Brien]: So if we're talking about the broader situation that's not as specific about those potholes, so I would write to them directly. You have their contact information, or I can if you don't want to, or somebody else can. But that's just as a one person write to them and say, this is a factor in this one particular spot. If we're writing a letter about the broader picture, I don't want to get too bogged down in the details of things that only affect this one spot. OK. So if that goes on CClickFix, that would be another thing to mention. But yeah, I think it would be great to copy the city council. And regarding ordinances, aside from the issue of having a patchwork of different traffic regulations in different cities, That still doesn't help actually tell people who has the right of way if the people who are at that intersection don't actually know what that ordinance says. So that also seems like an ordinance kind of clarifies things for the insurance companies after the fact, but most people don't. pay that much attention. And if there was a specific city ordinance that said, if there are no stop signs at this intersection, then here's what's supposed to happen. Most people would have no idea anyway.
[Ernie Meunier]: Right.
[Emily O'Brien]: So it wouldn't really change whether anybody actually crashed or not. So do we have a motion to send that letter?
[Unidentified]: So moved. Seconded.
[Emily O'Brien]: All in favor.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Emily O'Brien]: Opposed. Okay, I will write that letter and get it off as quick as I can.
[Jared Powell]: as maybe a request for a point of information in response to the point of information that you put up, Bruce, where you mentioned that Smith Lane is a private way. Maintenance is the responsibility of the owners there, but I assume that signalization is something that falls within the city's purview, right?
[Bruce Kulik]: That is a great question. I have no idea whether that is typically the case or whether the private way would be responsible for a sign facing there. Maybe that's part of why in Massachusetts, there's this weird dichotomy of all this stuff because private ways are much more common here than in many other states.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I was just assuming that maybe there's some, odd split in responsibilities where perhaps the city still pays for stop signs, but the residents might have to approve it's being put there. I don't know.
[Bruce Kulik]: Maybe so, or I do believe that there are private ways that perhaps the contract with the city or maybe because there are major, I don't know the details, but in some cases there may be snow removal, for example, as a possibility. On the other hand, I know several private ways around our area are plowed by private companies. So perhaps it's an agreement with a residence or a contract or something. I don't know the details on that as I don't live on a private way myself.
[Gaston Fiore]: I live on a private way and I get snow removal from the city. You do or you do not? I do get snow removal from the city. I did not even know that I was supposed to maintain my own road.
[Ernie Meunier]: From another vantage point, it would be clear that the city would want to protect Woburn Street by forcing private ways coming into it to have stop signs. So you can throw it on the city's or the state's back that way.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, that's another, I think at this point we have, yeah, we'll see what we can do or we can see what comes of any letters that we send. It seems to me that if it turned out that, for whatever reason, the city couldn't put a stop sign on the private ways that intersect Woburn Street, they could still put stop signs on Woburn Street, which is maybe not preferable since that's the larger throughway, but it would still be safer than not having any stop signs at all.
[Ernie Meunier]: Or at least the signs showing that there's an intersection, a cross sign.
[Emily O'Brien]: So, and that, and again, if we're looking at things that might be applicable to other places as well, I think we should go on. We have, let's see, we mentioned the upcoming events. Vision Zero for Medford was the next item on the agenda. And I think Ellery sent something out about that very recently, or maybe, Gaston, you saw what was going on with that. I had a bit of a mad scramble today. So I didn't get myself up to speed. Gaston?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, I think there was a nice discussion. Jared also commented. So I don't know whether you, Jared, want to go first. Sure.
[Jared Powell]: Well, I mean, I guess there's the Vision Zero and then Complete Streets, which are kind of tied together.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, I responded. We can talk about Complete Streets later, because I just responded. I think there's some misunderstanding. So let's talk about Vision Zero. You can go ahead. Yeah.
[Jared Powell]: Sounds good. Well, I guess the... Vision Zero, I'm not sure exactly kind of, I guess that's something that a lot of municipal, I don't know a lot, but some fairly progressive municipalities have adopted kind of a Vision Zero policy. Whether or not that's something that happens through legislative ordinance or specifically by executive action, I'm not really sure how that's implemented. I'm not sure if it's consistently done across different municipalities. Maybe you can do it one way or the other. or maybe there's a wisdom to doing it one way or the other, but that's kind of a, I think it's a nonprofit organization that kind of set it up in the first place where it's really kind of a set of rules and priorities that cities can adopt where you're basically saying, you know, any amount of death on the roads, whether it's pedestrian or in a car or on a bike or whatever is unacceptable. Peter, you're a traffic engineer, so I'm sure maybe you know the details of this far better than I do, but it's generally setting up this framework of we do not accept death on the roads as an acceptable.
[Emily O'Brien]: Cost of doing business.
[Peter Calves]: What's that?
[Emily O'Brien]: An acceptable cost of doing business. Exactly, yeah.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, I mean, in my understanding of the term as it's used, it is more of an aspirational thing than, I mean, Plenty of municipalities are Vision Zero cities that still have fatal crashes. Of course. It's just to say that the official position of the city is that we don't accept this and we're working we're working to stop this. Vision Zero, in my mind, there may be some differing opinion among activist groups. To my mind, Vision Zero is an aspiration, but there's not much in the way of teeth. There's no teeth to Vision Zero. You can call yourself Vision Zero City. fatalities can go up. And if you haven't worked on it, that's your problem. And you still technically call yourself a vision zero city. It's all words. Sure.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah. I mean, I guess it's something that, you know, it is like aspirational, it's a philosophy, it's a goal. I suppose it's something that I would still like it to be the goal of the city, you know, whether, you know, obviously you can't remove like all death from the roads. The question is, is it something that you're actively trying to prevent? Are you putting efforts towards stopping it?
[Peter Calves]: That's what in practice it's supposed to be. I know that there has been in some corners of the active transportation, sustainable transportation world, some cynicism about that because you have major cities calling themselves vision zero cities and doing not much.
[Emily O'Brien]: So my question about this in terms of what this could potentially actually mean on the ground in Medford is, it seems to me that adopting this as a policy or as an aspiration, as a goal, When that comes, the way that that would manifest in a concrete way is, for example, we've talked about Medford Square being a wretched intersection to get through on foot or on bike, and it's not that much fun in a car, and that when they talk about how to redesign Medford Square, They say, well, you can't change the pattern because then you would have lower traffic flow. And all of the alternatives would allow for lower volume. Therefore, we have to keep it the way that it is, even though it's more dangerous for everybody else. And the Vision Zero aspiration would be to say, well, we're going to change our priorities. So we're willing to accept lower through flow for the sake of making it safer and more user-friendly for everyone else. And that would be certainly the hope. And so my question is, if we convince Medford to adopt this as their goal. Are we actually going to get that reshuffling of priorities out of it? And do we, and how do we make it clear that this is the, um, that this is what we're ultimately going to be asking for at some point, there will come a point where we're asking to slow down vehicular traffic or, um, reduce the number of cars that can get through a certain intersection and a certain amount of time in order to make it. safer for everybody else. So that's, I don't know what that means for us asking Medford to adopt this. That's what I hope that we would get out of it.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, that's what I think it should be. I think it should be about priorities and about whether you want the most number of cars in the lowest amount of time, or if you want the safest possible experience for all users.
[Gaston Fiore]: Gaston? Yes, I completely agree with everything that has been said. So I just want to add that, so Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville are Vision Zero communities. So I also add that if we can convince the administration to jump on board, I think it should also serve as a motivator to sort of work together with Somerville in particular, because it's neighbor to us and sort of, you know, work more at the metro level to, you know, link all the places together. Because, you know, I feel like a lot of people are, you know, they don't just bike within Medford, but they might be going somewhere else. So I think if we can convince the administration you know, sign up to be a Vision Zero community. Of course, it's an aspirational thing. And then we'll talk later about the working group on how, you know, we can help that happen, implement that. But at the same time, I think, you know, we're just working together with our neighbors, basically. And I think that's important.
[Jenny Graham]: Becca? Yeah, I'm not a big expert on Vision Zero, but one of the things is my understanding that HAB-Juliette Boone, COB.: : You know, ideal for if a city were to adopt that is that when there are crashes that there is an invest sort of a more investigation and. kind of study done so that there's a process that's built in. So the circumstances of the crashes, there's a way to kind of remedy them. So it's not just things go off the radar, it's kind of recorded more formally. There's more kind of awareness of the police and how they do that. and then there's kind of a follow-up, like there's a crash at an intersection, what can we do to evaluate to see if we can improve this situation? So it's kind of built in, in certain sort of like city operations, but I'm curious how other kind of neighboring cities do that, because I, you know, there is some of that, but I know that, you know, it's not necessarily held to it, but it's like what, maybe it's what Medford wants to kind of you know, practical steps built in, not just necessarily aspirational, but what practical steps could be incorporated.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think that's a great point. And especially given what we were just talking about with, um, with Ernie's accident and the other intersections that look a lot like that, and presumably have a lot of the same potential problems. Jared.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with what with what Becca said. They're seeing an actual outcome after any type of event like that just seems to be like a demonstration that you are trying to do something about it. I feel like, you know, maybe it's a, maybe this is too slow progress, but in Somerville, like one of the critiques that people sometimes make is that they're a vision zero place and basically someone dies on a bike and then they build a bike lane, right? Like that's, it's kind of this like one for one thing. Someone gets doored, someone dies on a bike. It's like, all right, well, I guess that's enough like pressure on us to then do something substantial. That's a very like kind of dark way to think about it that it takes a death to like get a bike lane, a very like dark and transactional approach. But there is something to be said for, a thing happens that you do not want and you respond with some type of improvement. It doesn't have to be quite so waiting for a death, I think, but not just letting things like what happened with Ernie go or any number of things that happen like that that we don't know about, or a kid getting hit on Summer Street a while back and ending up in a full body cast. These are things that do require remediation.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think you're right. And I think having a process for assessing what happened when there is a crash. And how can this be improved? And how could those improvements be carried across other places that look like that across the rest of the city? I think that is really important. And a lot of the time when crashes do happen, especially if it's a relatively minor one, it's barely recorded at all. And there's not a lot of analysis done And, you know, and I think the minor crashes actually could be potentially really useful information too, because a lot of the same things that cause major crashes also sometimes cause minor crashes. And if you can get the same useful information from somebody who didn't die, that's better. I mean, that's like, going back to Jared's comment about it being a dark and transactional way of looking at things. Um, if it, if it takes somebody dying for the city of Somerville to decide, oh, well, I guess we really do need a bike lane there. Maybe they could have found that out if somebody survived, they still, um, the same thing could have happened for the same reason. Ernie, go ahead.
[Ernie Meunier]: You know, I agree with what Jared said, but I'll put a lighter cast on it and just say that it's firefighting. You know, what happened to me was a fire and you fight it and put it out quickly by, you know, treating that intersection, et cetera. It shouldn't disappear. And I'm taken again by your comments and saying that bicyclists are going to have to get creative with contra flows and taking minor routes in order to improve safety of flow through the city. And that really does beg what we're talking about in the general sense of establishing right of way of those secondary intersections. That's very important. I think that was important that you noted that.
[Emily O'Brien]: So what do we need?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Jared has his hand up.
[Jared Powell]: Sorry, I just had a quick comment about the Vision Zero thing in general, just to kind of circle back to that. I recognize that it's an aspirational thing. I think the thing to recognize though, is that if we are to move forward with something like that, we are advisors to the city, but we're not the city in the same way that the city staff is. We don't control the money, right? So what I wanna be clear is that if we're able to move forward with something like this, It's really important that it become the city's aspiration and not simply our aspiration as a bike committee. People already know that we care about bikes and we want people to be biking and be safe biking. We need other people to be on board with that as well. The people who do control the policy and the finances of the city. So I think there, our power is to some extent limited to be power of persuasion more than power of directive. And it's probably worth taking that into account when we're figuring out how to move forward with something like this.
[Emily O'Brien]: So I think the thing that we can really ultimately do is make recommendations that Medford adopt a Vision Zero policy, but more than just say, well, we're the bike commission and we think Vision Zero is a good idea. Maybe our recommendation should also include here's what we think that means in terms of, changes that the city should adopt and and one of them might be. the change in prioritizing, for example, safety versus maximizing traffic flow. And then the other thing might be putting in a process for assessing the things that the city could do to mitigate the reasons behind crashes that happen and look for other places in the city that have similar circumstances and fix those too. And there may be other things that we would include on that list. So my question right now is, if we are going to move forward with recommending a Vision Zero policy, what kind of recommendations are we actually making, and also to whom?
[Jared Powell]: Does anybody have- It's a good question. Yeah, I don't know if it's worth some type of strategizing offline about thinking that sort of thing through and figuring out who needs to be influenced, because I think there's salesmanship involved in this sort of process. And just a letter isn't that.
[Emily O'Brien]: Right, right. Gaston?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, I do think this requires some strategizing offline. And that was one of the ideas behind what I think we have been calling the complete streets working group, maybe incorrectly. But I think this is actually one of the low-hanging fruits of that effort. But yeah, I think we need to do this offline. Because even, for example, I think there's not enough emphasis made on the advantages of biking I mean, there's so much talk about, you know, there's a tree ordinance, tree protection ordinance coming up, like about all the benefits of fighting for climate change, for health. So those are all things that I think we should include in terms of, you know, we are not fighting cars. We're just proposing, you know, an alternative that has a lot of advantages for certain trips. you know, it's about sort of, you know, making sure roads are inclusive and there's space for everyone. So, but I do think we need to strategize what will be the best, the best way to proceed. I should mention though, I don't want to mention that the city council, it's probably would be very receptive to something like this. I've already been talking to two members of the council. So I think if we, do the job well, we have for this, so for Vision Zero, kind of a high probability of success.
[Emily O'Brien]: Um, Gaston, I know you were, um, you were part of an effort with walk Medford as well. And you mentioned the working group that's being put together with walk Medford and other people. Um, so is this a thing that our next step should be that those who are interested, uh, should get in touch with you and join that working group?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, I would say so because I think that the vision zero again, it's kind of the low hanging fruit and then, um, We just have a constraint that with any kind of project, I know that we can't be over quorum. But other than that, I think as many people that want to get involved, that would be great. So in terms of that, I don't know how much time we have, but I mean, so very briefly, I think there was some confusion overall. So beyond Vision Zero, So we do have, there is a complete streets policy, which is, it was actually signed by Mayor Berkey in 2016. And that is not what I personally and this is all up for discussion. Pablo Carreon Hernandez?s iPhone 2?s iPhone 2?s iPhone 2?s iPhone 2?s iPhone 2?s iPhone 2?s iPhone 2?s My view is like for a long-term project is to have an ordinance similar to what the city of Pembroke has as the cycling safety ordinance, but avoiding to have the strict timeline that the city of Pembroke wrote in that ordinance, but then it's leading to all sorts of problems. So if you read the Pembroke cycling safety ordinance, the only thing it is, it's basically, so Pembroke designed a bicycle master plan. And as I understand, It's not designed by the city or by an official commission of the city. It was sort of some external group in Cambridge, obviously, that designed this plan and then got people to buy into it. And then the city council wrote an ordinance that just bound the city to follow that master plan with a strict timeline. Um, so the strict timelines link was a problem because, you know, with parking space and things like that, this is actually getting sued by businesses. I do think at some point we should discuss the results of that lawsuit. Um, but, um, I think, you know, it would be very kind of cool if we could design a, let's call it for the purpose of this discussion, the inclusive streets plan. where it's kind of like a very visionary plan that is designed independently of the city staff. And that's only because I feel that, you know, the city staff has tons of constraints in terms of budget and things like that. And I think like, if we get, you know, if we work more at the way we have been working now, which like, you know, we have, this is a road, how do you think it should be fixed? Then it's just, we're not going to get anywhere. So this is kind of like, you know, a dream plan. that we get and that then we can use, for example, to present to, you know, city council. And then based on that, then we draft an ordinance that just says like every time that a street needs to be completely redone, then it's going to be redone according to what the master plan says. And once we have the drafts of those two things, then At that point, we should definitely work in particular with city council to get this ordinance passed. And also we should work hand in hand with the city to help get funding to implement that. I should say that based on my experience, just based on the ordinance aspect of this, this is what Trees Medford has done. So they came up with to protection audience that they wrote themselves independent of the city. And then now this is going through the city council and the city council, of course, it's, you know, making tons and tons of modifications. But the idea, the original idea of this method was to sort of like, you know, we've got to come with the wishlist first, because we know this is not what we're going to get. But if we don't kind of overdo it, then we'll never know what we could have gotten, basically. So that's why I think it's very important to sort of work separately. Now, of course, this poses a lot of issues because I do think, you know, there's a lot of time investment. There's a potential for, you know, people put a lot of time and then things don't come to fruition. I do think that we probably don't have the bandwidth and or the experts to design this kind of plan. We will have to apply for funding to, you know, get something to do this for us, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I do think this is kind of a long-term project. And I think Jared wrote a very nice email that sort of says like, yeah, we should make sure that, you know, this is not going overboard. So, and I completely agree with that. Now, at the same time, I do think, you know, we kind of should dream big and see what can be done and how we can do it. The last thing I'm going to say is that the Vision Zero looks like kind of the first step, low-hanging fruit. And we should probably start with that and then see how we can proceed. But there are a lot of people on WorkMet as well that are interested in this.
[Emily O'Brien]: So I think our next step here is that those of us who are interested should participate in this working group. We can't have, we have to have, we have to keep that number of MBAC members below the number that constitutes our current quorum. But we can But that working group is taking it from here and will address what they bring to us, or we'll talk about signing on to what comes out of that effort when it happens. Do I understand that correctly?
[Gaston Fiore]: I think so. But it's also up to the group. I'm just suggesting stuff. And of course, people here are much more experienced than I am. So yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: So basically, there's a working group. We're all welcome to join it as long as there aren't so many of us at its quorum. And we'll bring it up at future meetings as there is output from that working group.
[Jenny Graham]: other things on that topic?
[Ernie Meunier]: Is that a motion, Emily?
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, I don't know that we need a motion to not do anything for the time being.
[Ernie Meunier]: Okay.
[Emily O'Brien]: I don't think we need to move to do nothing for the moment. I think we can go on with the next thing on our agenda, unless somebody wants to correct me on that point of order. But because this is not on the agenda, but because this came up briefly, Dana Phillips has resigned from the commission, and so our numbers are now down a little bit. And that means that we could talk about adding new members. Jared and Daniel and I emailed about this briefly. We could also, since it's been pretty recently that we did add new members, we could also wait until, you know, maybe the spring and then it's been a year-ish. And we're not sort of constantly asking for new people to be added. Does anybody have comments on that? Jared? Jared, you have your hand up.
[Jared Powell]: I see that. I do. And I was muted as well, so that doesn't help. I had a comment about the complete streets thing. Oh, sure, sorry.
[Emily O'Brien]: I didn't see your hand. That's OK. That's OK.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I guess. I like the way you tied that up with a bow, Emily. That was actually very elegant, shifting it to this other group. I appreciate that. I probably wouldn't have thought to do that. I wouldn't have thought to do that, so nicely done. I guess I'm interested in other people's thoughts, not to totally belabor it. I like the idea that you're proposing Gaston, like creating this like ambitious thing. I suppose I just wish that the ambitious thing was the thing that is being created by the city itself. It feels a bit like we're, I mean, at the very least duplicating work with like what the city is doing right now. I recognize maybe the city is looking at more realistic, to use like the crass word, you know, outcomes of what could be done, and then yours is more aspirational, but it does feel like it's creating a competing narrative and plan about what we, whoever we is, for like what we want to see in this city, particularly since it was the bike commission in the first place with Bruce and Pat and Tim McGivern and any number of other folks who wrote it in the first place. And so now it's largely been shifted over to the city in no small part due to bandwidth issues, right? Lack of time for all of us to do it again. And at a certain point you need expertise and a lot more people, a lot more bodies working on it, frankly.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think we've also kind of been talking about two different things in a way. Because one of those things kind of overlaps with the updates to the master plan that Lily is working on. And the master plan that was created before. And that's kind of specific granular street by street infrastructure recommendations. And the things that we were talking about in terms of vision zero being more about general priorities, but also processes for how certain things get decided or processes for what happens after a crash and that sort of thing. And I don't know if all of those things belong in the same document or not, the changes we want to see to broad processes versus the granular street by street details. So I'm not entirely and I don't know if this is something we need to see what that working group comes up with. But I think we have been talking about kind of two slightly different categories of things.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, just a short one. Despite Jared's concern about inefficiency. I think that having parallel paths here helps with our not having a deal with the intransigence at the larger city level. And if there's cross fertilization that ends up being to the benefit of all within. That's great. So I do like the idea of having Gaston lead a working group and think about it from our angles and put stuff together. And there'll be some maybe some synergistic effect later on down the road, whether we have a motion to do that or not.
[Emily O'Brien]: Gaston?
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, I just wanted to add that. So there's the comprehensive plan and just talking to people. So it looks like, and this is obvious, but so just to give an example. So because the city staff are understaffed and they have budget constraints, et cetera, we can't even have a meeting of their complete streets committee. I've been emailing about it. I get no update. I don't think it's happening. And I know that it's not because Tim doesn't want to have it. It's just because he's totally overloaded, which I totally understand. So no criticism, but I'm saying like, you know, we want to, for example, work with the city. How would that work if we can't even get the complete streets committee to meet? It's just never going to get us anywhere. The second thing is that I do think that the city and also by design, it's just working on kind of like, you know, things break, let's fix this. And I think breaks, let's fix this. Whereas I think we could benefit from a parallel approach where we have the comprehensive plan for the whole city. And then we use that, we sort of dovetail into that and say like, well, considering streets, then given what this comprehensive plan for the whole city ambitions for Medford, how can we, you know, delve deeper into it and then help us, for example, design inclusive corridors that connect all the different business areas that the comprehensive plan have identified, for example. And I do think we should work with the city at some point. I just feel that if we, for example, start trying to set up meetings with Todd, it's just not going to work because they don't have the time for it. And they're too kind of occupied by trying to fix the immediate things that happen. I don't necessarily, I wouldn't call it necessarily like even a parallel approach. I just feel that it's sort of complimentary where, you know, the city is focused on one aspect of things and then we become focused on another aspect of things. And then later on, we sort of like converge and sort of like, you know, we give the vision and then the city will help the city to implement that vision in the long term. That's how I view it. Now, I'm not saying it's going to work, but I think they're complementary. I wouldn't even describe them as parallel.
[Jared Powell]: It's kind of municipal versus advocacy, right? Kind of two different bodies.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah. And again, I mean, this is how Cambridge did it. And I think it worked. They might have pushed it a little bit too far. So we have to be careful. And I think there's a lot to learn about it. But I think there are some success stories to some extent.
[Emily O'Brien]: Those are good points. And I think we're I think we know that what the next steps are for the moment, which is that the working group will continue working. And I know that Lily is still working on updating the bicycle master plan. And Lily, while we're speaking of which, just looking at the rest of our agenda, do you have other updates for us on anything else that we need to know about?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yes, first of all, Amy was sorry that she couldn't make it, but she wanted to make sure. I think everybody's aware at this point that there are three operational blue bike stations now, one of them right in medford square the other one at brooks park on main street and the other one. In tough square right opposite tufts park i've kept an eye on the sort of status on the blue bikes map and it looks like they are getting some. use and i've kind of been by on my own bike kind of watching and it seems like sometimes there are a couple bikes and sometimes there are a few more so hopefully we'll see more kind of ridership there so very exciting um and also extremely exciting that's yeah that's great thank you so much yeah i was riding i was riding by one and on my bike and pulled over and chatted with a couple of people who were
[Jared Powell]: A little skeptical about them, a little skeptical, but thought it was a money-making scheme from the city. It's like, no, no, no, it's not what it is.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Oh, goodness. I hope the ridership goes up and we continue to see people kind of going along.
[Peter Calves]: I was gonna ask, does the city get, is there like open data from Lyft or Motivate to see what those stations will do?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: That is a great question. I'm sure there must be a data sharing agreement. I don't know what it is, but I'd be happy to look into that.
[Peter Calves]: That would be great at some point to be able to see the numbers the Medford stations are doing just for planning purposes or even for argument purposes when we're trying to bring in other stations.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Absolutely. I'm just making a note to look into that.
[Peter Calves]: And I'm sure Lyft has that data somewhere.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I'm sure there's a whole team of people just focused on analyzing that. The other thing that I wanted to share is I've been kind of chipping away at working on kind of like a draft map of kind of plausible network connections. A lot of them are the same or are building on what has been done in the 2016 plan. And there are quite a few new ones and different ideas. So I wanted to share that with everyone. basically the ideas I've gone through and this is kind of the granular street by street kind of thing where like we've kind of looked at all the places that we kind of think people will probably want to go and then try to assess, you know, will like what type of infrastructure could be potentially built here so in parallel to the map. I have like a database that's growing of like the streets themselves including like dimensions like grade conditions parking conditions all that kind of stuff. And I think somebody in a previous meeting mentioned something like a playbook like, is it possible that we could come up with a set of designs, and then just match them to criteria. on a street, and I think that would be ideal, but I'm gonna, I think what the goal is, at least for me, is to try to get as close to that as possible, but there's, it's always going to be kind of a case-by-case basis, but part of what we're trying to do right now is come up with like a bunch of options for what we think are good designs, then kind of match them to these streets. So I'm going to just share this in the chat, but I can also send it, I will send it to the entire list. This is just made in Google Maps, so you guys should all be able to see it and edit it. I would totally love feedback. I've ridden probably 50% of these routes, but there's a big difference between riding them once or twice and riding them every day. So if you know if any of these things are in your neighborhood and you have opinions about it. There's a bunch of different layers have also included, you know, connections to other municipalities and what their recommendations are kind of like making sure that what we're doing is going to match up with what they're doing. And it's kind of a mix between places. where I think it's possible to actually build infrastructure and and what you were guys, you know, the kind of concept of side streets that we're going to want to direct people down that could also be combined with traffic calming, but these categories like you could definitely some streets might move from category to category, depending on what the conditions are. So yeah anyway that's kind of a draft so far, I would love feedback.
[Emily O'Brien]: Are these are these color codes sorry i'm just trying to figure out how the color code situation and yes works.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Let me try to explain that a little bit, so I have a whole bunch of. layers and I've tried, if you look on the left panel, I've kind of organized it into the stuff in green is stuff that already exists. And I've tried to put in notes about what actually is there. Like a lot of it is like unpainted unprotected bike lanes, but it's, you know, some type of infrastructure. So it's on there. Then I've got a small category for stuff that is in process. stuff that has been like passed and it's going to get built but it's not it hasn't been built yet and then some of the proposed routes that have not passed the traffic commission. So there's a couple different and you can toggle layers on and off so it might be more helpful to sort of switch on and off certain layers as you're looking at it. And then I have like a whole layer that's like potential for infrastructure. And then another layer that's kind of like potentially low stress neighborhood streets, which I've tried to err on the side of keeping those short.
[Bruce Kulik]: Have you included sharrows on this map? It looks like in particular on Boston Avenue, you have something that's listed as, I'm not sure what pink means, but I know there are sharrows. Well, there are sharrows when the pavement is good. The pavement is pretty lousy, but similarly, I believe Placestad has sharrows as well. Am I mistaken there?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Great question. I have not included that as existing infrastructure, because I think we're at the point where we want to be able to do better than Sharrows. That said, I know Sharrows are a popular thing to have as just a baseline. So it doesn't mean that we aren't going to put in Sharrows if that's what people want. But in terms of do I consider that infrastructure for the map purposes, no, I did not include it.
[Emily O'Brien]: This looks really, really great. That looks like a lot of work went into that, and that looks really helpful. So thank you for doing that. Peter and Gaston both had hands up. Peter?
[Peter Calves]: I'm just going to just notice, looking at the map, Yeah, did you not include the kind of, is this just on street infrastructure, because I just noticed that the river paths aren't on there.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yes, this is just on street infrastructure. I actually ran out of layers. So I think I'm going to have to make a whole different map to deal with like the river paths but they are definitely important.
[Peter Calves]: I just want to make sure I mean, yeah, the Wellington circle and the river paths are kind of how you get anywhere.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: So, yep.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, this is awesome. So thank you so much for the map. I had a quick question. So when it says proposed, but not yet approved, I believe it says proposed by whom and then approved, I guess, by the traffic commission, is that correct?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, I think so. The way I understand it from what Amy told me is that it was proposed from within the traffic department at the city of Medford. Amy does have designs for it. She's going to have to, like, they're waiting to present them. I'm not sure exactly when, but that is my understanding.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: And then yeah, I just want to reiterate that no, you know, my I will be writing more of this and making sure I actually visit all of these streets because there are still some that I have not. Visited but you know feedback is really important. Some of the places I haven't gone to yet or like the Fulton Heights area which is just so challenging and it's really going to be, we're going to have to sort of think a little bit outside the box up there with so many private roads and steep hills.
[Bruce Kulik]: I'd like to propose that if this is actually an on street infrastructure map that you actually rename the map away from bike network map draft, because I think otherwise the question about the trails is a legitimate one, as I would expect that to be part of a bike network.
[Unidentified]: Sure, I can do that.
[Jared Powell]: A quick question, Lily, when you're asking for feedback, what is helpful for you to know from us? What would you like feedback on?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: That is great. What a nebulous question. I think it's basically like some streets that I've selected based on either my experience riding them or kind of looking at what they connect to. For example, I've tried to make some of the short streets go to destinations like parks, that kind of thing. But there are certain, I know that this, my experience giving feedback to the city of Somerville's map, you know, it's there's always people who are like, they know exactly what the problem is on the street that I can't see from either riding it once or twice, or just looking at it on the map, maybe something that like, it feels really tight here, it's actually a lot more narrow, or there's a lot of trucks on this route, it's really unpleasant, or like this one particular intersection has a lot of, you know, cars doing the wrong thing. really just anything that you can think of. Maybe you've found a really excellent way to get from point A to point B and it's not on the map, I'd love to hear about it. Or if something that I've put on here, you've written it and you're like, that actually isn't very good, I want to hear about it. Or if there's places that I've missed. There's a couple of spots on this map that I would love to be able to recommend something really good. For example, the I-93 rotary where Salem Street is basically not connected. That's still blank there because I'm not sure how we would approach that. But it's not because I don't want to find a connection.
[Emily O'Brien]: So do you want us to just send you a bunch of emails as we peruse your map?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, really anything. You guys are kind of the first line of feedback. And then I'm not really sure what the plan is for developing this and making a public process. what I think we should be doing, but I'll need to check with Todd and Amy and discuss what the timeline will be for that kind of thing. But you guys are really the best source of knowledge on this.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, well, this looks like a great starting point. And I definitely plan to spend some time with it.
[Gaston Fiore]: I just had already one quick comment. So Winthrop Street goes to the high school. So why is there a small portion that it's only one-way unprotected bike lane? And then the second comment also related to the high school is, so the Miller Drive, which is basically the road going uphill to the school, it's only one-way unprotected bike lane. This is one case where I think, you know, since there's a lot of students that potentially could bike to school, where, for example, we should push a little bit more to have on two lanes, if at all possible. But my specific question was, it looks like along Winthrop, most of it is bidirectional, except for a small portion that says one way. So I was just wondering, what was the constraint there?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Great questions. I believe in that case, the constraint was parking and potentially, I can't actually remember the details. This was from the August Traffic Commission meeting.
[Bruce Kulik]: I can offer some insights there, because I'm familiar with that street.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, was it also a turn lane?
[Bruce Kulik]: The street itself is just the driveway up to the high school. It's typically three lanes wide. The outbound heading towards Winthrop Street is two lanes to provide for a left and right turn lane separate. while the inbound heading up to the parking lots is a single lane going up to the parking lots. As a result, there was really only enough space to have a bike lane on the uphill side, which is generally the preferred place to have the bike lane as coming downhill, it's easier to stay with traffic. But also because of the two lanes, there's not a good way to have a safe bike lane for people making left turns on the wind through up and so on. So the best approach there is to remain with traffic when you make your left or right turns, or if you don't wish to remain with traffic, effectively dismount and pretend you're a pedestrian for the area, which of course is not ideal.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Right, thank you. Yes, I do remember that's the Steve Miller Drive portion where there's only Yeah, I remember that being an issue when this came up in the traffic commission meeting. And one of the comments was that there is potential, there could be potential to actually create, which would be a much bigger project, like an off street path along the side of the driveway. And that might be something to look into as well. In the case of Winthrop Street, I believe there was some mix of like parking, there's some parking being retained on it. So that might've been the reason that it's not fully bi-directional.
[Unidentified]: Ernie?
[Ernie Meunier]: Hi, I wonder, Lily, if you think that the reticence against taking away parking spaces, even if they're not used, is still intact in City Hall and in your deliberations. I'm obviously referring to my plan of two years ago to remove parking from one side of High Street from West Medford Square to Arlington and put a bike lane up there and have all parking just be on the commercial side. Very low hanging fruit involving only signage and paint. But when it was presented a couple of years ago, the problem was that theoretically 33 or so parking spaces would be removed. The reality is that almost none of those are used, but when they are, and there's parking of the vehicle on both sides, then trucks and buses can articulate a narrow 60 unit with a big traffic jam. So it's a very easy project, but I think it was thrown out, maybe by Tim, I don't know, because it would be too politically difficult. It'd be a hot potato because of removed parking. Do you sense that there's, less resistance to the removal of parking spaces as your time goes on. And that I should- That's a great question. And that I therefore should reposit this project.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: I feel like I haven't been in the city of Medford long enough to really know whether there's been any progression towards people being more willing to have parking removed. I know that it's a huge issue in a lot of the municipalities around here, I think what we are doing as a city or what I have observed since I've been here is we're trying to figure out, can we get data and evidence about the usage of these on street spaces. So, for example, last month, I did some parking counts. where we want to figure out how many on-street parking spaces are on a given street, and how are they utilized by checking at various different times of day. So I think there's a bit of a progression towards studying it and figuring out, are there places, like you said, kind of low-hanging fruit, where there isn't that high parking utilization, where it might be more palatable to remove some of it, being able to say.
[Ernie Meunier]: Let me then again, if I interrupt, put forward, you either look at it ride by or do a count or I'll do a count of High Street from West Medford Square to Mystic Valley Parkway. And you'll see less than a quarter of the spaces allotted for parking are in use. But if they're, again, used on both sides of the street, coincidentally, you have a blockage, especially to state required wider vehicles like buses and trucks. So it becomes a nightmare and very difficult for bicyclists. So very few bicyclists go West on route 60 from West Medford Square over to Arlington Center or Davis Square when that could be quite a significant thoroughfare if a bike lane was put on the Westbound side.
[Emily O'Brien]: I know this is important, but we are also running short on time and I wanna get to Jared.
[Jared Powell]: Great. I just had a quick response to, to Ernie's point there. I will say on the last couple of traffic commission meetings that I've been on, I've noticed a pretty, what I took to be a willingness to do the stuff that you're talking about, Ernie, from Tim and Todd. other folks as well who are on that commission. They seem very open to the idea of making the types of changes. They did not seem scared to do so. So that was really nice to see. It's good to hear.
[Emily O'Brien]: Lily, I have one other comment just quickly from glancing across your map. And this is, you know, the thing that people ask us about the most maybe is the Clippership Connector. And one issue with it when it eventually does get built is that there's not a great way to get from the end of the Clippership Connector in Medford Square to the river paths Um, on the other side of the square. So to where the footbridge is, um, to get along, uh, to go along the path, um, westbound. And that's, um, and that's something that I think there should be some thought given to a clear and designated and signed This is the way that you follow along the Clipper Ship Connector and continue along the river paths. I know that that gets really complicated through Medford Square, but I think that's a particularly important connection to keep in mind.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Thank you for mentioning that that is definitely on our radar. In fact, I was looking at the clipper ship connector kind of slides recently and I noticed that there's at least one map with he's like drawn on a path that actually doesn't exist and I mean that's not great but yes it's definitely on our radar, and just to briefly circle back to the parking. The designs and the ideas that we come up with that are potentially applicable for the citywide bike plan, like the way I'm approaching it is trying to come up with options, all of which are. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, she-her, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she- There simply isn't space to keep the status quo. So something will have to change. So we're designing with that in mind. We're not designing this with the idea that, oh, we can't ever take parking. Hopefully there will be a progression. And as people become more willing to do that, we can build better quality infrastructure.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.
[Emily O'Brien]: That's great.
[Adam Hurtubise]: That's amazing. Well said.
[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you for all that. Coming up to our time limit, but we have a really, really quick bike lights update.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I managed to, you know, the dream in the spring and summer by the invitation of the school principals and other leaders therein was to have me visit all the schools in the fall and do assemblies, tutorials, recess, colloquia, et cetera, and talk up the bike lights and distribute them and talk about bike safety. I haven't been able to do that. but I have managed in the last week or so to disseminate about 120 or so of the last batch of bike lights to the schools and a few to the police department in Brookline Bank, who was a co-sponsor. We have a couple of events coming up. Ellery wanted up to 30 lights for a what, bike to school, bike to work event she's doing. in October, et cetera. So I'm thinking that I would like to restock the schools maybe later. Well, in the next few weeks or by Halloween, we won't have enough lights to do so. As well to have some in reserve for later in the fall. Thanksgiving and kids to still go to school. In the darker hours and through the winter, maybe able to start the spring with some inventory. I mean, it's hard to It's hard to predict, but it also takes me five weeks to get a shipment from Singapore. So I want permission now to order the next 240 light kits so that they arrive in mid-November, and we'll be able to continue the supply throughout the fall. That's all. And I don't mind bagging them you know it's sort of easy work and getting out there. The hope in the future as with the email I sent to you all this afternoon is that now that I'm the poster child for survival of a helmet crash. I want to see that we get more serious about helmets, because in every case where I've talked about this at the schools, it always bridges to a conversation about how too many kids aren't wearing helmets, and the principals and vice principals don't know what to do about it. But at this point, I want an action to prove that I buy another batch of helmets. That's all. get them ordered this week and arrive mid November.
[Emily O'Brien]: So I think we, I assume that we still do have the budget for that. Can we quickly make a motion?
[Ernie Meunier]: Oh, let me, well, then let me, let me address that quickly. I am owed $1,079 from the city, but I've raised 750 against that. So only $300 in the rent. And I will continue to solicit co sponsors throughout the fall, as I want this program to run in the black and maybe even include much more expensive helmets. in the longer term, if we can get enough co-sponsors. So the hope is that this doesn't even impact the budget. But right now, all that's been done, and what is it nearly, blah, blah, blah, about 45, 750 or so kids have been outfitted for a total cost to our budget of only $300, because of the sponsors I've been able to help with.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, that's, that's all great. Thank you for doing.
[Ernie Meunier]: So I expect this to continue to be successful, especially liking, you know, if you can give me some ideas of who to hit up for money. A lot of the big players in town have long boilerplate. You apply a multi-page process to request funds with a six to eight month lead time, like Eastern Bank, et cetera. So it's been the smaller commercial entities who are more flexible and can act in a timely manner, like Brookline Bank instead of Eastern Bank, et cetera, et cetera.
[Emily O'Brien]: We're really running out of time. So if we are going to approve that you can buy more lights, do we have a motion to approve Ernie to buy more lights?
[MCM00001136_SPEAKER_03]: Motion for Ernie to buy more lights.
[Emily O'Brien]: All in favor?
[MCM00001136_SPEAKER_03]: Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: All opposed? Go ahead and buy some more lights, Ernie.
[MCM00001136_SPEAKER_03]: Ernie, who was your EMT, your ambulance company?
[Ernie Meunier]: I don't know, I wasn't there.
[MCM00001136_SPEAKER_03]: Find out and hit them up. Oh.
[Emily O'Brien]: That's a good idea. Not a bad idea.
[Ernie Meunier]: Oh, that's fun.
[Emily O'Brien]: We have one more thing before we go, which is that Ellery Klein is leading this bike to school day, and she would love some more company. And that's going to be October 12th. And I will post her email address via Walk Medford to the chat. And if you're interested in joining and or leading a convoy, to help kids bike to school on October 12th. You can contact her and I'm putting her contact information into the chat. Safewalkmedford at gmail.com. Anybody have anything else?
[Bruce Kulik]: Oh, yeah, really quickly. How do we get ahold of you and Lillian for the map?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Great, I will send an email to the listserv for the committee with another copy of the map and my contact details.
[Bruce Kulik]: I'll also drop it in the chat right now maybe.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, I'll drop it in the chat right now. Great.
[Jared Powell]: I'd request that, I don't think this requires a motion, but I'd request that we, on our Facebook page and stuff like that, we try to drum up interest in that bike to school day. I mean, just to kind of highlight it a little bit would be a nice thing. I feel like a lot of those activities just No one even knows about them. So yeah.
[Peter Calves]: Oh, yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: For that matter, I bet some of us could go get some blue bikes and ride blue bikes for the occasion. Good.
[Ernie Meunier]: I don't know if I can attend, but I'll be reserving for that use 20 or maybe a few more bike lights. Kids, because she asked for them.
[Emily O'Brien]: Great. All right, we are at 8.59. Any other business? We have a motion to adjourn.
[Gaston Fiore]: So really quickly, sorry. So for Harvest Urine Festival, should we contact someone if we want to go? Or I missed that part. I really apologize.
[Emily O'Brien]: Bike to school?
[Gaston Fiore]: No, the Harvest Urine Festival. So we email Pat.
[Emily O'Brien]: Contact Pat.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, let Pat know. Thank you. Sorry about that. Sorry.
[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you. Email Pat.
[Jared Powell]: It's a good event. People should go. They're pretty well attended.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I intend to be there.
[Jenny Graham]: Good.
[Jared Powell]: I will not be able to. I will be in Texas at my sister's wedding.
[Emily O'Brien]: Congratulations.
[Ernie Meunier]: I'll probably be there too.
[Emily O'Brien]: Do we have a motion to adjourn?
[Peter Calves]: I don't think he was invited. I motion to adjourn.
[Emily O'Brien]: Seconded. All in favor?
[Peter Calves]: Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: Meeting adjourned.
[Peter Calves]: Thanks everyone. Take care. See you all.
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