AI-generated transcript of Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission 12-07-22

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: 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 31, 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 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. Now we're legal.

[Emily O'Brien]: Great, thank you. So the December 7th meeting of the Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission will come to order. This stands in for our November and December meetings combined, since this time of year generally gets very complicated with holidays and so forth. Secretary, would you please call the roll?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yes. Jared Powell.

[Jared Powell]: Present, at least for now.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Now I'll do. Pat Bibbins, who has resigned. I'm sorry. Bruce Kulik.

[Unidentified]: Present.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Great. Emily O'Brien? Present. B. Dan Fairchild, who I do not see. Ernie Munier?

[Ernie Meunier]: All two present.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right. Doug Packer, who I believe is not here. Peter Cowles, who told me that he would not be able to make it. Gaston Fiore, who I do not see.

[Jared Powell]: He said he'd be late.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Oh, he did. Okay. So I guess I will modify this if he comes in. Daniel Moser-Muller, present. And Rebecca Wright.

[Emily O'Brien]: Here. Great. Remind me how many we currently have right now. And if this constitutes a quorum, sorry, I should know this.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: We have a total number of 10 and we have six. Yes, so we are a quorum.

[Emily O'Brien]: So in that case, a motion to approve the minutes from last meeting.

[Unidentified]: Is that a motion or a second?

[Emily O'Brien]: All in favor of approving the minutes. Minutes approved. Speaking of new members, I do need to put into place the procedure to start getting us some new members, but I haven't I haven't done that yet, but I will. We have a couple of announcements. I think there may be some other things so jump in one really quick one that wasn't on the list. But there was a quick, I had a little bit of a back and forth with Amy about. particularly bad pothole on Riverside Ave. But the upshot is that apparently just reporting it on C-Click Fix may or may not actually be enough for it to get flagged and dealt with if it's really urgent and dangerous. So if there are potholes that really are a question of urgent safety issues, we should be sure to write to Amy about those, too, and or Todd. And also, if you do report it on C-Click Fix, make sure to say specifically that it's a danger to cyclists. They're the ones that we all hate because they're just really annoying, and then they're the ones that really could get somebody hurt. sooner rather than later. And so I think for those it really is worth taking that extra step because see click fix might not get it dealt with quick enough.

[Ernie Meunier]: Ernie? Yeah, is there a distinction between ones on private lanes like I encountered or an official city streets with regard to what the city forces can do?

[Emily O'Brien]: I would say for right now, for purposes of this announcement, which I want to keep really brief. If it looks really bad and it looks really dangerous, report it on C-Click Fix, say that it's also dangerous to cyclists, and then also let Amy and Todd know about it. If it's something that really needs to get dealt with before somebody gets badly hurt, then then we should take those steps to do that. And there really is a distinction between the ones that are just annoying versus the ones that could really hurt or kill somebody in short order. So that is that.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: We had- Gaston Fiore has joined, so I'm going to note him as a positive in the attendance.

[Emily O'Brien]: Excellent, thank you. We also had, now this is, skipping my mind really quick, something that came up right after the agenda went out. What was it? Oh, yeah, this is it. Amy wrote and said that they are applying for more funding for the next round of blue bikes, hoping that we will sign a letter in support of more funding for four more stations in addition to the next batch that's coming this year. And I've got some sample letters that I can send out in favor of that. I assume that there isn't any argument with writing a letter in support of that grant. Bruce, you're muted.

[Unidentified]: I will move that we have you write that letter in support. Great.

[Emily O'Brien]: Do we have a second? Seconded. All in favor?

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[Jared Powell]: Aye.

[Emily O'Brien]: Aye.

[Jared Powell]: Emily, did you get the sample letter that I sent you?

[Emily O'Brien]: Yes, I did. I haven't had a chance to look at much of that yet, but thank you. That's helpful. Um, so thanks for that. Yeah. Thank you for that. We're, we're very excited. So, um, next up, do we have more announcements by the way? I guess we should also, yes, Jared.

[Jared Powell]: I do. Um, One, I have to jump off of this call soon because, uh, it's, it's chaos in my house right now with, with two little kids. So I have to. tame the maelstrom to the extent that I can. But before I go, one thing I wanted to mention, there are a couple of important meetings coming up. One of them is later on the agenda that I think is more informational and interesting but maybe less critical about the The underpass at at Wellington, but there is another set of Wellington related meetings that are coming up, so it's confusing because it. They could be mistaken for one another, but they're very different things. There is a meeting tomorrow. I think Todd is on that working group. Amy, perhaps you are as well, but so you know this far better than I do, but there's the Wellington Circle redesign process that the state is working on. The state apparently hates that horrible intersection. Everybody hates that horrible intersection. And they're talking about more or less raising it and coming up with something all new. So there's the working group meetings. This is the fifth such meeting, which I requested to be on it a while back and finally got approved to be on it. So we have a seat at that working group meeting tomorrow under my name. And then there's a public meeting I think the following week though both meetings are public, but the working group meeting, I think, is the one that maybe is particularly critical. Because it's key stakeholders who are who are involved in that process it's a long list of people. Um, so I'm signed up to attend that meeting. It's from one to 2 30 PM tomorrow. Um, someone could tag in and swap for me. Actually, that's a better way to say it. I would like to request that someone do that if possible, because while I can attend some of that meeting, there is no way that I can cover an hour and a half and actually be paying attention to it. Cause I'm home solo tomorrow with, with the baby. So. I can be there for part of it, but I know I'm going to end up missing a good chunk of it, which doesn't really do us any service. So is anyone available and interested in participating in that very important meeting about the redesign of Wellington Circle where we could have input into how awful it is and how we really don't want whatever they come up with to be even half as awful. It needs to be much, much better.

[Emily O'Brien]: I can make it if nobody else can. I can make it work.

[Jared Powell]: That would be amazing. I will try to attend as well, but there's just no way I'm going to be able to really focus on it.

[Emily O'Brien]: Daniel, were you about to speak up?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I was going to say, I have an interview from I could, I mean, like if people needed to switch it in, I could offer time between two and three if needed. But that's, yeah, I don't have a full block.

[Jared Powell]: The public is welcome to attend. So if you'd like to join for part of it, then that's fine. But I'd say if someone could, if Emily, you could cover the whole thing just for continuity sake, I think that would be wise. I can let them know that you'll be there because you may be able to use my Zoom link, but you may need a unique one. So thank you for that. It's a horrible intersection and it really needs some serious redesign. And at the end of the last meeting, It seemed like they were changing a lot, but it still seemed terrible. I mean, it was better, but a different level of Dante's Hell. Not quite so bad, but still on the rungs.

[Emily O'Brien]: Not all the way up to Purgatory yet.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, no, still on the rungs. Still way too many lanes and weird intersections.

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I'm glad you brought that up, Jared. I think this could be your decision, of course, but it could be an opportunity for you guys to write a letter to whether it's DCR, I guess DCR would be the correct one, or MassDOT. No, MassDOT, yeah. The project manager and everything. It doesn't necessarily have to be before tomorrow because of course we have the public meeting next week. But yeah, in my experience, I have been on the working group calls, not all of them. I think a couple happened before I started with the city, but I think I've been on three. They're proposing changes, but a lot of people seem to think, and I would agree, that they are suffering from a lack of creativity a little bit. and really not being the game changer type of situation that we are hoping for. So yeah, it'd be good to have you guys there and supporting that message if that's what you want to do.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, that would be great. And I would suggest that maybe we wait until after that public meeting and then maybe discuss that at our next meeting. Just in case we have more specific things to say about things that were presented or things that were discussed or things that have come up more than just We hate trying to bike through Wellington. But yeah, that's great. Amy, do you have specific contacts at MassDOT or a project manager that you could put me in touch with?

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I can send that.

[Emily O'Brien]: That'd be great.

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Thank you.

[Jared Powell]: Awesome. Thank you for your advocacy on that. Appreciate it. I had one other quick thing. This is kind of an announcement. Somerville is doing its Illuminations bike lights tour coming up on, I wanna say that's the 17th. I've done it before in the past, super fun, big family-friendly bike ride in the cold, escorted by police, lots of people through Somerville to look at all the holiday lights that people put up in some of the zany houses in Somerville. So encourage people to attend. It's a fun thing to do. Also just something we're not ready to, in any position to do that in Medford now, but maybe it's something that we could like anyone who's able to attend, pay attention, see like, oh, is there stuff in Medford? Is there sufficient kind of momentum to do something like that here? Maybe not at that scale, not as many houses, not as much interest, but something to think about for the future, you know, a couple of years out.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, thank you, Jared. I think that's great. I think that's another just a quick segue for things that we could be thinking about as, you know, as the next season of warmer weather starts coming around. We might want to think about what other kinds of events or rides Or activities we might want to host or we might want to put together. Of course, this is all depends on what we have the personnel for what we have the volunteer capacity for one thought that I had following the bike to school day. And related to that, I looked up the farthest away from Medford High School that you can possibly live and still attend Medford High School, which is about four miles. And it occurs to me that, you know, this is not news, but Medford is really not very big. And so it might be kind of cool to think about putting together a ride that goes to either some combination of all the four corners of Medford, or from the farthest points of Medford from one to the other, or from one area of Medford that we usually think of as being really far away from some other area in Medford. And of course, some of those ideas, when you actually look at a map, it becomes difficult to find appealing bike routes But I think some version of one of those things could make for a nice event and maybe also something we could do in coordination with WAC Medford because, again, we are talking about pretty short distances here, even if you take a circuitous route to avoid some of the worst traffic. So that's not a fully fleshed out plan, but something that I think we can roll around and think about, maybe think about other events that people have ideas for coming up in the next year. Do we have any more announcements?

[Jared Powell]: I need to run out, but thank you all. I appreciate it. Talk soon.

[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you, Jared. Next up, we have bike light kits and helmet distribution.

[Ernie Meunier]: Oh, thanks. I didn't know because I didn't receive the agenda for some reason, never got the email. I reported earlier to the group, but I guess I have to repeat for the public. I don't have it in front of me, but a couple of weeks ago, I distributed to the schools, the West Medford Community Center and the police department. 160 bike-like kits of the 240 that were received just about four weeks ago. So that leaves 80 left to cover miscellaneous needs through the winter. And then I will canvas the schools, I guess, in January or February and see what they've I think their projected needs are, given the fact that it takes five weeks from ordering to get the next shipment. At a memorial event, I forget the name of which, maybe Emily or Amy.

[Emily O'Brien]: We had the World Day of Remembrance event at City Hall.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yes, at that event, I met, we met an officer, I think it's Anthony Canova. who has been charged to the liaison with us and mentioned that he had found $1,500 of grant money to throw at us for miscellaneous use, not just for the bike-like kits, which I thought he had said at the beginning. He also said he's in possession of just under 100 or so youth helmets that he wants to distribute. I said I would work with him on that, but I can't figure out how to exactly do that informally. It's not the same as just me showing up at the principal's office and giving another box of bike lights and having a casual chat with the administrator and then moving onward. as we would want to be fitting, talking about safety, et cetera. So I want to pass that up to the group as well. He said that he might have access to larger funds so that we can do a serious quantity of helmets starting next year. I'm not sure there was anything else in that. Oh, yes. In terms of funding, two items. I finally got my next door neighbor Pompeo Insurance to cough up 250 bucks toward the bike lights kits. And I have some excitement at corporate waste management. And they sent me an application form, which is in the form of a spreadsheet that seemed to be for their use and not so much mine. I couldn't figure out how to fill it out and get it back to their person to proceed on this. But the hope there is that they would be a major sponsor and buy a full $1,000 bike by shipment instead of the normal $500 ask for the two, as we say the bronze $250. somewhat mentionable, small. On a third level, and I'll just deal with this, I think, privately, the city, I collect these checks that are made out to the city and give them to Dennis and Teresa, but have yet been reimbursed. So I would like to, by the end of the year, get, I think the balance due to me is a thousand forty seven dollars which i've given to them in checks over the summer but it's never i i'm sure it's just some kind of internal snafu um so i'll deal with that on my own but um i i want to work on how we can get you know i'm the poster child now for head injury wearing a helmet right i'm one of the 13 that crashed in medford last year so i feel it's upon me to work with uh, the police department, the traffic department, et cetera, and run around and do little, uh, tutorials and symposia with the kids at the schools and try to actually get children to wear helmets. Uh, that seemed to be an even bigger issue among the staff and administrators of this public schools, uh, then the bike light kits, which they're very appreciative of, but we know that helmets are, the real big issue. Officer Canova said that his source for helmets in bulk is at the under $10 level, which I kind of expected, but wasn't sure of anymore. So that means that for a paltry $8,000, we may be able to come up with a thousand helmets and do a serious dent in this public need. So this is just at the announcement level, I guess, in that I'm not sure how to proceed and I'm making no suggestions for approval, except I hope the city reimburses me someday. So I think that's it. I can't remember what else I had mentioned in the past, but thank you.

[Emily O'Brien]: Well, that sounds good. And thank you for doing all of that, Ernie. And I hope you are successful in getting reimbursed, certainly. Yeah. One thing that I thought was worth noting about Sergeant Canava having access to all of these helmets is that he also has a place to store them, which means that they don't have to end up in somebody's basement. And that's a particularly, I think that has been a little bit of a challenge for us regarding helmet distribution in the past because helmets are big and bulky and they take up a ton of space and somebody has to store them. But now the police department can store them, which is great.

[Ernie Meunier]: Right. But that was a snafu in that I mentioned to him, well, how many helmets can you put in your cruiser so we can run around and do this Johnny Appleseed activity? And he said, none. So there's an issue there with not just storage, but transportation to a venue.

[Emily O'Brien]: Well, transportation is a much more manageable Transportation is a one-time thing. Storage is ongoing. We can do what we need to do to arrange for transportation, but we should keep in mind that there are helmets to be distributed and there can be more. We also might want to think about whether we want to look at adult helmets at some point too. and where the distribution opportunities for those might be. And possibly at all of the same kinds of events as the kids ones, but we might also think a little outside that sphere, especially as more blue bikes go into more places. So we could look at larger employers or other kinds of events, Medford Housing Authority

[Ernie Meunier]: Does anyone have the knowledge that Patrick had about sourcing the helmets we had in the past, who their sponsor was, etc. as that might be a parallel or replacement inquiry, as those helmets seem to be a particularly nice quality.

[Emily O'Brien]: I don't remember. It's probably on the email list, but I think Patrick is also still around and would answer the question.

[Ernie Meunier]: But no one else in the commission may have that be in that loophole.

[Bruce Kulik]: Okay, and it was some insurance company, as I recall, or was it a lawyer's group or the other pair of lawyers? Yeah, I'm sure that Patrick would would yield the sources and connect us.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Okay. The next item on the list is the Wellington underpass meeting, which I think Jared already mentioned. But just to reiterate it, That's there's this is public hearing notice Medford shared use path connection at the route 28 Wellington underpass. This is a public meeting on Thursday next week at 7pm. I think this would be a great thing for as many of us as possible to attend. This is just one of those spots where every connection we can possibly get is a huge benefit there. It's just otherwise it's just becomes so complicated or treacherous to get across this area. So I think this is I think this is just, as Jared says, it looks like it's just an informational thing. But this would be a great thing for some of us.

[Bruce Kulik]: You said next week, but I think it's tomorrow.

[Emily O'Brien]: Oh, sorry. You're right. That's me thinking I have another week when I don't. It is tomorrow at 7.

[Bruce Kulik]: I've got it on my calendar. That's how I know it's tomorrow.

[Emily O'Brien]: Great. Thanks. Thanks for catching that. And here, I thought it couldn't possibly be December 7 already.

[Bruce Kulik]: By the way, it's pretty early tomorrow at 630, as opposed to 7.

[Emily O'Brien]: Really, this website that I'm looking at says it's at 7.

[Bruce Kulik]: I just registered and said, put it on my calendar, and that's what came up.

[Emily O'Brien]: Oh. The website at mass.gov says 7 o'clock. So I guess we'll find out which it is. But it seems like they couldn't start it at 630 if they announced it as being seven.

[Unidentified]: Yeah, it's probably just a calendar snafu then.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Next up is infrastructure updates.

[Jenny Graham]: Do you want to go to Somerville Bike Plan?

[Emily O'Brien]: Oh, did I skip that? Yes, I did. Somerville Bike Plan link. Thanks. Thank you. There's a link in the agenda to the draft of the Somerville bike network plan. This has a lot of things that are relevant to us since we all go to and from Somerville and that connects up with places in Medford that connect up to places in Somerville. So I would encourage everybody to look that up, read it over, see what comments you have, and also just keep in mind how it might affect connections that people might need to make going in and out of Medford from the network that they're discussing in this plan. So this is Somerville, but it certainly has a bearing on, for example, which streets we prioritize. as being parts of where people will already be on that network.

[Jenny Graham]: Main Street.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.

[Jenny Graham]: It looks like a protected bike lane on Main Street, and then it stops.

[Unidentified]: Right. For example. Yeah. Do you have other comments about that?

[Emily O'Brien]: Then moving on to infrastructure updates, I think that would be Amy. If there are some, but I think she's not here.

[Unidentified]: She disappeared. Oh wow, yeah. So.

[Emily O'Brien]: Our only final item is applications for new members. And I'm sorry that I haven't gotten as far as beginning that process. So there isn't really news on that front, except that if you have ideas of people whose arms could be twisted, please start twisting. And in particular, what is this?

[Unidentified]: Neighbor Ways, Gaston?

[Emily O'Brien]: We don't have any of those. Was this a comment on the Somerville plan?

[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, sorry, because I was looking what they call Neighbor Ways, because they're planning on building like a lot of them. It seems like pretty nice. I mean, some of them already exist, but I was just wondering whether there's any of this in there. I don't think so, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Emily O'Brien]: We don't have any right now. We have talked about planning some, and we've gotten, we've kind of gotten hung up on managing to get working groups assembled to actually sit down and do that. But it would be great to, it would be great to get, sorry, I saw something from Amy and I thought it might be relevant to immediately, but it's not. But it would be great to get a working group going to plan some of those things. And again, if anybody is interested in doing that, I think some of this is things where if we have two, three, four people who want to get together either in person or on Zoom in a couple hours, we could hammer out the beginnings of something useful. But we have to just sit down and do that. And that's certainly something we can coordinate on the email list if needed. But I think that would be a great project for us to be doing.

[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I tried to know the neighborhoods because I didn't know about that, but you know about the vision and stuff. And then I didn't get any kind of engagement. But if we could do something like what you're saying, it would be great.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, well, if nothing else, send me an email. I'm happy to sit down with somebody and do it. But I just know that if I don't have a date and we're going to sit down and do this at this time, then I'm not going to get around to it. I have some maps that I've tinkered with. But I think just getting together and hammering out some things makes a big difference. So where did I put my agenda? I think if Amy is not here to give us an infrastructure update.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Amy, apparently her computer just crashed. I'm going to respond to her and just let her know that we're still here. OK. So she might be back in momentarily. OK.

[Emily O'Brien]: Ernie?

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I just want to back up for a sec. So if anyone knows of possible corporate sponsors for any of our stuff, like the bike light kits and helmets, would you just forward me those ideas? I've been a little behind what I thought I would be in canvassing possible Medford businesses this fall, because I've been under the weather, but I think I can spend the winter trying to drum up some funding so that whatever we do in any of these avenues, we may be able to be perhaps running in the black, which is a little bit of a challenge. So whether it's so.

[Emily O'Brien]: So we do also have a budget from the city that can be spent on this too.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, but it's $1,200 a year, you know, it's one bike lights kit and leaves nothing else for anything. So really cognizant of that and trying to work within those meager parameters. Yeah. Yes.

[Emily O'Brien]: And that's, and it's great if we don't have to spend it. But, but at the same time, we might as well, we might as well expect to spend it and hope that we'll supplement it.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, to that event around miscellaneous expenses, are there any events in December or January that we're going to have a presence at as the commission?

[Emily O'Brien]: I don't know of any. I don't know. Generally, the kinds of things that we've done in the past don't happen in December and January.

[Unidentified]: Right.

[Emily O'Brien]: Actually, not January.

[Unidentified]: OK, thanks.

[Emily O'Brien]: While we're waiting for Amy, anybody read any good books lately?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I have a quick question. I'm sorry, I blanked out on what was said about the Somerville bike plan. Do you mind if I ask for a quick refresher?

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, just that that that link was in the agenda, and that that's a project they're doing and it would be beneficial for all of us to look it over, make comments, and just keep that in mind when we're thinking about the impacts of that network being adjacent to our own network and where that might mean that we should put our energy or look for, for example, neighborhoods that would connect up with the Somerville ones, things like that.

[Bruce Kulik]: Interestingly enough, I just took a look at it, there's really only nine places that their infrastructure would potentially link to ours. And of those, a few of them are already in place. For example, one of them shows the crossing going over to Wellington on the bridge. and basically that's just a state project that we've partnered with. So we connect on the bridge and then of course we have the whole Wellington project which is another long wax right. So that's one place. East Albion Street near the Columbus School which is a very lightly traveled road and there might even be a fence in the way there if I remember correctly. Maybe we could look at getting the fence removed for pedestrian bicycle access. Of course somebody mentioned Main Street, which makes sense. Nothing direct but off-Broadway leading into the neighborhood. There maybe is something that could augment something that they do on Broadway.

[Unidentified]: Bruce, you just muted yourself. HAB-Jacques Juilland I'm sorry, what was that? HAB-Juliette Boone You muted yourself, but now you're back.

[Bruce Kulik]: HAB-Jacques Juilland Okay, I'm yeah, I'm holding down a temporary mute and must go away after a little bit.

[Unidentified]: Packard Avenue? HAB-Juliette Boone You're muted again.

[Bruce Kulik]: I know what happens when I change focus. That's what happens. Packard Avenue, Curtis and North Street. North Street, of course, has been one of my favorites because that would make for a pretty good neighborhood, which is what they want to do as well. And yeah, just thought I would share that while we're waiting for Amy to possibly come back.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think another one that we maybe have mentioned Before is where is willow have connects up with, I think it's Bristol road Bristol road Avenue whatever Bristol something in Medford. where that's a one-way street, but that would be a good candidate for a contraflow because then you could stay on Willow and go straight across, and then go straight across Broadway and then keep going.

[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, that would be, I agree that that would be a very interesting thing to do and would be helpful. I would have some concern about the unexpected How should I phrase this? People coming out of, what street was it that you said?

[Emily O'Brien]: I think it's Bristol.

[Bruce Kulik]: Bristol. Well, anyhow, people coming out of there would be not expecting any traffic to be flowing into what they perceive as a one-way street. We'd need to be very careful about how that's implemented so that people coming out of Bristol are aware that potentially there'd be straight through traffic as opposed to left and right turning traffic.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think that I think it does need to be really well signed. But at the same time, Bristol has is really light traffic. I mean, it is it is really not very much.

[Bruce Kulik]: I just know I used to I used to come out Willow Avenue fairly frequently in my commute. And even making the left turn there, people making their left turn from Willow Street would be surprised by my presence. Yeah, a little bit, you know, even though I was well lit and whatever. Not that I ever felt like there was a problem. It was just I recognized that they would come out and be like, oh, there's somebody there. Yeah, they weren't expecting.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. I mean, I think to some extent, that's a little bit of a HAB-Juliette Boone, COB.: : inherent problem anytime we're trying to get a make a designated bike route that's on narrow side streets that have low traffic, you know we want to be on streets that have no traffic, but you're unexpected when you're coming out of a place that doesn't have much traffic. HAB-Juliette Boone, COB.: : So. HAB-Juliette Boone, COB.: : But there's but that's an example of something that I didn't really I didn't really think about in terms of. something Medford would do until I started looking at the Somerville map and realized, oh, well, that would actually be a useful connection. And there may be some other things like that that I haven't thought of yet. So I think it is worth looking at all the potential connections. And if there's something that Somerville designates as a neighbor way, then it would be nice to continue in some intuitive way into Medford so that you can keep going.

[Bruce Kulik]: Those are all good ideas.

[Unidentified]: I appreciate that. Is that Amy back?

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I'm back. I had to join on my phone. I don't know. My computer just isn't working. So fun stuff. But yeah, I do have some updates if now is a good time for that.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yes, please go for it.

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Okay. So Winthrop, I don't know if anyone's been over there recently, but slowly but surely, we're getting the Eversource people to actually do the things we've been asking them to do. So there's some very basic Striping in right now it's just like a center line the two yellow lines in the middle and then some of the lane lines, but not all of them be requested for them to do. The rest of the basic lane lines. we're not going to have them do the like the kind of like diagonal lines in the bike lane buffer yet because kind of where we are now is just that i'm. starting to get too cold for the epoxy permanent pavement markings to actually stick and so they're doing paint now so that we have something and it's not just a wide open crazy highway space and then when it gets warm again after in the spring they're going to come back and do the the epoxy and do all of the markings so yeah so right now so once they If they hopefully will do the thing that we're asking them to do is going to be the yellow lines and then the white lines to show where the lane is and and where the bike lane is, but just not like the hash marks of the buffer. There should be crosswalks as well. They did install the first of two speed tables on Tuesday, I think it was the one over by the cemetery and then the one by the high school is going in tomorrow. I just looked at the weather and it's going to be not raining anymore. So they should be able to do it. So yeah, I know it's been really slow and we apologize for that. It's just, they've been really hard to work with and yeah, we're doing the best we can.

[Emily O'Brien]: PB, Lisa Smith-Miyazaki, 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,

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: they're both gonna be the way they are now until the spring, and then they're gonna get the fancy, nice epoxy once, yeah, it's warm enough to do that again.

[Emily O'Brien]: We were sort of under the impression they were supposed to get the better paint this year, but I guess not until next year. Yeah, no, we were too.

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: We were too. Okay. Yeah. So sorry about that, but yeah, out of our control, unfortunately. Yeah. And then the other kind of thing is, I guess, yeah, infrastructure related, I can't pull up my notes, because my computer's not working. So hopefully, I'll remember everything. But I have done some research. You know, last meeting, we were talking about kind of how it was confusing about who's who has the right of way when you're when you have a stop sign, and you're coming approaching a street from a side street, there's no stop sign, there's no yield sign, there's nothing. So I started looking at doing some research on like what the various regulations are on that, not just state law, but also in the MUTCD, for example. And I looked in Medford code, which there wasn't anything there for the city of Medford. And I did find where I put the source of what I had said, what I thought, what the regulation, what I understood the regulation to be, which was that if there's nothing there, it's a yield. that's only for a private street that's intersecting a thoroughfare. I'm doing air quotes right now. Basically, yeah, what I have learned from my research is that it's very confusing and convoluted and like, how can anyone know if they're like, if the road they're on is a private road that's intersecting a quote unquote thoroughfare or not a thoroughfare. Yeah, so I've talked to Todd about this a couple of times, and we've been trying to figure out what we can reasonably do to make it less confusing for people and know what they're actually supposed to do. And so we're still figuring out exactly the way to approach it, but we do want to put some signs up in some of the probably, we'll have to do some kind of prioritization process to figure out which intersections need it the most based on a lot of different things. volumes and things like that, maybe even, you know, volumes comparatively, we have, we still have to figure that part out, because there's literally hundreds, maybe 1000, maybe 1000, I don't know, we haven't counted, lots and lots of intersections. And just the reality of like, trying to put stop signs at all of them at once is just not possible. So we want to figure out a way to prioritize first, and then do them as quickly as we as we can. So that's where we are.

[Emily O'Brien]: That's great. I mean, thank you for that. Sure. That's thanks for that attention. And I'm glad that you're working on getting getting improvements put in place so that those things are become more intuitive. when people are actually at them as opposed to people start hunting down regulations later. There's a couple of things in the chat asking about plans to connect bike to bike path along the green line. I think we're talking about maybe a couple of things. One is connections to the Somerville community path, but then that also leads me to ask if you have updates about the bike lane route that we discussed earlier that you had presented going from Medford Square to the new Green Line station.

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. Yeah, again, it's been It's difficult sometimes to get the public works folks in line with our priorities all the time, but it's on their radar. They have promised that it's going to happen this season to me. So I am basically just waiting for it to happen. I know are pulled in a lot of different directions. So sometimes it doesn't get done as quickly as we hope, Yeah, I actually was just in a meeting. I've started attending meetings where basically where the directions are given and kind of where the directions are given from people who are giving tasks to the folks that actually go out and install the stuff. So that way I can be there when that communication happens at least. And I'm hoping that'll help kind of make things a little more seamless. Um, and yeah, just, we had that meeting today and the, um, kind of superintendent of the, um, highway stuff, um, which would be markings and signs. He said that he is going to do the George street, um, kind of partial resurfacing. That's kind of the thing that's been hanging it up is doing that. Um, cause we don't want to put bike lane, um, one on like a really bumpy surface that won't even the paint won't take, right. If it's not good. a good surface, but then also it's like we don't want to make a bike lane that's like really horribly bumpy and dangerous for people to ride in. So the first things that needs to be done is actually doing that little bit of resurfacing on George Street. And he wants to do that this week if he can. That's what he said.

[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah. Speaking of bumpy roads, I've noticed that Boston Avenue between the Somerville line and High Street has really gotten pretty seriously chewed up with what seems like continuous gas main work in that area. Is there any plan at some point to be either having the utility repave those or Medford actually repaving them or rebuilding that section?

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: So that one, I believe, is National Grid, not Eversource. So they are under a different contract. And I believe, so the kind of standard contract is like you have to build, you have to resurface a trench basically like, I don't know exactly how many inches out from like what you actually disturbed, but not like from curb. You don't have to resurface from curb to curb. That's kind of like the standard way of doing things. have seen evidence of that. I believe that's what National Grid has held to in this situation. Whatever source is doing on Winthrop and has done already on South Street and Mystic, where they resurfaced from curb to curb was kind of a special contract, special situation.

[Bruce Kulik]: I may be mistaken, but I thought that a year or two ago, the city council actually voted that utilities needed to at least resurface the lane that they had impacted. I'll check on that.

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I'll check on that. I will check that. I'm not aware of that, but that could be, I could just be not aware. Yeah, so they definitely won't be doing curb-to-curb. They will, yeah, they are at least on the hook to resurface a trench area, if maybe, if more than that, maybe a lane, so half the street.

[Bruce Kulik]: So in any event, at this point in time, take a look at Boston Avenue, you'll see it just particularly on the inbound side is is unusable.

[Unidentified]: I do have anything else on this topic. Ernie.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, just a tiny question and maybe not too much in the weeds, but going back to striping epoxy paints in the winter. Am I assuming that that you use time temperature paints that need to be thermally fixed in order to cure rather than UV light curing epoxy, which you can apply at any temperature and just hit it with the light and it hardens. Is the problem depositing the paint or that needs a warm substrate to cure? I'm just curious.

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: I mean, I don't know exactly what type it is. It is what the contractors use. It's not what we use. It's what the contractors have on hand. And yeah. So that's it.

[Emily O'Brien]: If we don't have anything else on this, I also wanted to mention that Jared also forwarded to the email list a message about signing up for focus groups about the future of Medford Square. And this is an area that we have often discussed as being problematic to ride to and from and through, in particular with the clipper ship connector eventually, theoretically, maybe going out to bid and getting built someday. This is yet another way that we'll have all of these connections into the square and no great way of getting from the clipper ship connector to the paths that we already have. So I would encourage everybody to check into this sign up for it, RSVP, get involved in this. This is, this is a, you know, Medford Square is kind of Medford's downtown and All roads lead through it to some extent. So this is an important thing to just keep an eye on. This says, among other things, including underutilized city-owned parking lots. So we should be thinking about what kind of opportunities we might have in any future planning having to do with this. So that was... And Jared sent that to the email list. Since we don't have guests here, I guess there's not a reason to post it into the chat, but maybe Daniel, if you could add that to the minutes too.

[Unidentified]: Yes. Do we have anything else?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: We did have something on membership and applications, but I realize you touched on that point a little bit earlier on.

[Ernie Meunier]: I just wanted to ask, does anyone know of any jurisdiction where a bike share or Bluebites-like installation has a cache of helmets such that the local requirements require that you rent or use a helmet while following a blue bike. Does anyone know where that's successfully implemented that we might look at as a model?

[Emily O'Brien]: I've seen kind of some mentions of efforts on the along those lines are like helmet vending machines or something. I haven't seen anything that I thought was particularly convincing. And I don't know of anything that has that has come into particularly wide use.

[Ernie Meunier]: I could imagine that blue bikes if you rent the bike, you then get a code or an automatic unlocking of a storage adjacent bin where you can get one helmet out, you know, some mechanism.

[Emily O'Brien]: I mean, do you, would you, would you really want to wear that helmet that's been on how many heads today?

[Ernie Meunier]: Oh, God. Yeah. I think it has to be adjoining a Japanese self-disinfecting toilet installation. You're right.

[Jenny Graham]: I think in the early days of Hubway, when it was Hubway, there was some talk about creating a vending machine that would disinfect the helmets. But I don't know if it ever happened, other than a demo or a discussion. So I don't think it's hot.

[Bruce Kulik]: Thank you. I recall seeing something. It might have been an April Fool's joke related to inflatable helmets.

[Jenny Graham]: Because they're real. I don't remember. They're $400 out of anyone's budget.

[Ernie Meunier]: A lot of hot air.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: They're Swedish, though.

[Emily O'Brien]: I thought they were Dutch.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Oh, maybe they're Dutch. I thought they were Swedish. OK, my partner was the one who was like, these are Swedish. I was like, OK. And she's Swedish.

[Jenny Graham]: It sounds like it would be at IKEA or something like that.

[Emily O'Brien]: Um, yeah, I don't, I think our, I think helmet wise are best for, for blue bikes. Our best bet is to get helmets into the hands of people who need them. Um, which we're, which we're working on doing and do our best to provide safe places for people to ride them. Yeah. The last time I used a blue bike, I didn't plan in advance, and I didn't have a helmet with me. And we planned our ride so that we would be on bike paths as much as possible. And then, of course, that didn't work because we got back to the station. We wanted to dock the bikes, and it was full. And the next closest one was also full. And we ended up doing quite a lot of riding around without helmets. But that wasn't the plan. And ideally, that's not the way that it would happen next time.

[Ernie Meunier]: But if there were clean helmets in a bin somewhere, would you have grabbed one?

[Emily O'Brien]: I mean, yeah, probably. Yes. If there if there was if there was an easy to grab helmet, find me the system that makes that happen. I know.

[Ernie Meunier]: That's why I asked because they should be linked together.

[Emily O'Brien]: Well, it would be nice, but I'm not aware of any place that has made that.

[Bruce Kulik]: One idea would be to have disposable skull caps basically adjacent to the helmets. So you would put the skull cap on as a kind of like a bedroll that you might have in like a hostel or that kind of thing, right? And then you could wear a helmet more or less confidently.

[Unidentified]: Yeah. Then you're cleaning the skull caps.

[Bruce Kulik]: They would be reusable or disposable, I suppose, or quasi-disposable.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.

[Bruce Kulik]: Not the most environmentally friendly, of course.

[Emily O'Brien]: This is probably also not something that we're going to talk Bluebikes into doing with our three stations.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, but it flies a little bit in the face of trying to have a public campaign suggesting that people who ride in Medford, especially our citizens, wear helmets for safety. And then we have these bikes to rent that don't provide such opportunity. So a little bit of cross purposes. It's a catch-22, I realize.

[Emily O'Brien]: I don't think we necessarily are. I mean, you are, we are, Blue bikes are not for kids, and you are making your own adult choices when you decide to ride one. And if you plan your trip ahead and you leave from home, you can bring your helmet with you. And if you choose not to, you're an adult and you can make that choice. I mean, I absolutely think that it's great to promote helmet use and distribute helmets. I don't want to get hung up on helmets being the be all and end all of bike safety. I know that they absolutely do what they are supposed to do. And I have cracked a helmet myself more than once. And I wear one every day. But ultimately, we are they're not required by law. And I think our bigger priority should be in preventing crashes. The helmet is the is the last resort for mitigating the worst effects when everything else has already gone wrong. And I think we have enough to do with all of the other things that could possibly go wrong, but I don't think we need to split hairs about blue bikes and helmets. I'm all for distributing helmets, but I think this is a silly thing to get hung up on all things considered.

[Ernie Meunier]: Sounds a little New Hampshire like. All right.

[Emily O'Brien]: Well, I mean, we're, we're still only Medford and We can still only give people helmets and encourage them to wear them. We are not going to change state law to require them for everybody all the time.

[Ernie Meunier]: The last couple of times I saw people on blue bikes who clearly were not bike riders and using it for convenience, they seemed to be really nonchalant and not paying attention. granted they're on a 70 or 60 pound bike. It's a bit treating it almost like a taxi with a little bit of regard to safety. And I thought, wow, these people really need helmets because they're a little riper for a crash than a true bicyclist is.

[Emily O'Brien]: Maybe so. But for whatever it's worth, I think the the number of fatalities on bike share bikes nationwide is actually surprisingly low. Good.

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Very, very low. Do we have anything else? There actually was one more update that I almost forgot to tell you. So also, along with that same grant for more blue bike stations, we're also going to ask for some funding for some bike racks. I don't know how many yet. This round is a little bit different because MAPC isn't it's not going through MAPC and they're kind of like pre qualified stuff. They're not doing that now because I think because of a kind of supply chain reasons or whatnot. But yeah, we're going to get some bike racks. Just don't know how many yet. Or hopefully.

[Emily O'Brien]: That's great news. That's really great. I have another question along those lines, which just occurred to me recently. It's now that we're getting parking meters back instead of those parking kiosks. Some places use the ring type that bolt onto a parking meter stem.

[Unidentified]: Yeah.

[Emily O'Brien]: And I wonder if that's something we can look into. I don't particularly like that as much as the staple kind, but it still is better than nothing. And it's better than just locking straight to the parking meter, because in some cases, your U-lock might not fit all the way around. Or when you lock to only one thing, then the bike is more likely to rotate and fall or whatever and block somebody's access.

[Bruce Kulik]: Additionally, cable locks are totally ineffective on a parking meter.

[Ernie Meunier]: Right, right?

[MCM00001142_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I can. I can look into that. I was just thinking about that the other day actually. So yeah, we'll see.

[Unidentified]: Thanks, that's great. Any other business? Well, I think we had a thin agenda. So move to adjourn. Seconded. All in favor. Aye. Aye.

[Emily O'Brien]: All right, meeting adjourned.

[Unidentified]: Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Bye, everyone.

[Emily O'Brien]: I'd love to.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Sorry, I just would. let me make sure that I can can you send me your email and oh wait no I have your email should we try and confirm that you're on the Google Groups email list just so that we you know you get the emails in the future.

[Emily O'Brien]: Ernie are you getting any messages from the group or just not all of them?

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I'm getting not all of them. And when I send messages to the group, I have two addresses I use, which may mean that some of you are getting my messages twice, for which I'm sorry. But I have two addresses. One is spelled out. One is Medford Bikes or something. The other one's the advisory commission. And I get a copy of that, but I forget which address it comes in at. But yeah, I didn't get the agenda. And there was a little miscellaneous communication just before the meeting with Jared, et cetera.

[Bruce Kulik]: And the difference between those two mailing lists, Ernie, is that one is the commission members and the other is anybody who is interested in following the Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission. So one is a public, basically a public send and the other is to the members only.

[Ernie Meunier]: Which is to members only?

[Emily O'Brien]: The one that has commission in it.

[Ernie Meunier]: Commission, yeah. Okay, okay.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay, great. I'll make it a point to double check on that. Okay, thanks. Thank you.

[Unidentified]: Yep. All right. Thanks everyone. Bye everyone. Night. See you next year.