[Jared Powell]: I think we can call the September Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission meeting to order. Thank you all for joining. As I mentioned, Emily O'Brien, our chair, is out tonight, so she asked me to lead the meeting as vice chair, so I will gladly do that. I may have to step away momentarily later to help with putting kids to bed, but I'll be here as much as I can. We've got Daniel on who can step in in any interim. So Daniel, would you mind calling the roll and giving us a, we'll see if we can figure out about Orem as well.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right, so thanks. Jared Powell. Present. Bruce Kovac. Present. Emily O'Brien. Who we know is not to me? All right, B. Van Fairchild? Here. Bernie Muneer? Here. Doug Packer? Who I don't see. Daniel Nuzzo-Marler? Present. Noam Raveni? Present. Mary Kate Gustafson-Fayette. I can see. Leah Godsey. I also don't see. Rebecca Wright. I also don't see. Okay, one second. Let's see. With that, we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 out of 12, which is that correct? I counted 11. Sorry, 11. That's quorum then. Oh, yeah. Yep, you're right.
[SPEAKER_10]: Terrific. All right.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right. We have one.
[Jared Powell]: Just by the skin of our teeth.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah. Sorry, we have someone else on who I can put in as a guest if you'd like to introduce yourself, Sarah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hi, I'm Sarah. I'm glad to be here. I'm a biker in Medford and I don't know, what would you like to know about me? I'm excited about hearing more about what you guys are all up to and being part of things. I do a lot of biking recreationally, mountain biking and road biking, and I bike with my kids on cargo bike. I commute every day with them. And really hoping to see the Clippership Connector work continue and be part of that. There's one of my sons.
[Unidentified]: There he is.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll mute myself, but I'll be listening in the background here. Thanks for having the meeting open.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Thank you for joining us.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[Jared Powell]: Thank you very much for joining. You look like someone who rides like a long tail bike. I could imagine like a lime green long tail. Is that the kind of bike you ride?
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right. We just upgraded, though. We have a black. You have a spicy green now.
[Bruce Kulik]: That's what you call profiling, Jared.
[Jared Powell]: No, I'm, we, we've met before at like the Medford farmers market. So I don't forget it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
[Jared Powell]: I don't, I don't forget an unusual cargo bike. They, they stand out.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I'm going to say, this is just a cargo bike, uh, social.
[Jared Powell]: Well, thank you for joining.
[SPEAKER_04]: We appreciate it.
[Jared Powell]: All right. Let's see what it was. Anyone else on that's everybody. Okay, great. All right, well, announcements. What do we have? Does anybody have any announcements?
[Bruce Kulik]: Yes, I do, actually. Great. I just came off a meeting that started at 6 o'clock, hosted by Somerville for the Elm Beacon Street Connector, and they're basically kicking off the project to make improvements In the quarter that I think many of us use, or at least people who go from Medford from Western Medford to. Kendall square or downtown frequently go through that that intersection. Of moss land, Somerville Avenue, beacon street. So, it'll be interesting to see what they have and I have put into the chat. A, a link, which is on the Somerville website to get more information and to get the. The reporting of the current session that's still actually going on, I had to leave at 7 to join this meeting. But I'm looking forward to see what facilities they have in mind, a quick build, that sort of thing. I just wanted to alert everybody to that.
[Jared Powell]: That's great. Thanks, Bruce. Any other announcements that folks might have?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Uh, not an announcement, but, um, there are a couple of orders of business, uh, approval of previous minutes that we should take care of.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Oh, that's right. Yeah. You should have done those first actually, I guess. I missed that in the bullet.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I have a outstanding question. Did, um, I know I had to step out unexpectedly in the last meeting. Did anyone take a copy of the minutes from that meeting? Does any, can anyone fill me in on that?
[Jared Powell]: I believe that I have some notes. They're not in front of me. So I think we need to hold on approving those while we compile them. But sorry about that. Yeah, I do have some for you, though.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: OK. All right. No problem. In that case, I think we only need to approve the June 26.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Did we not do that last time?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Well, I don't know, actually. Were those minutes approved? Yes. Okay. Okay. Great. Sorry. Just needed to clear up that.
[Jared Powell]: All right. Well, in that case, we don't have minutes to approve right now. So I didn't all right. Job too much. Thank you, Daniel. Let's see. Could we do a recap of the EV showcase from last?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Are we finishing announcements?
[Jared Powell]: Well, that's kind of an announcement, I guess.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I guess.
[Jared Powell]: Halfway between an announcement and an event. Yeah, we can put it with the events. That's up next anyway. The only other announcement that I think I had was Todd sending around, well, two things maybe. Todd sent around that photo to the bike commission that was showing a new blue bike station going in at the Rotary Winthrop and High Street. So that's very exciting. Did you all see that?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I was on the email. I didn't see the photo.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I haven't seen the station, but I'm pleased to see that they're popping up literally all over the place. So that's really great that Mets has finally gotten really mainstream with blue bikes.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: The more density of stations we get, the better.
[Bruce Kulik]: Better, yeah.
[Ernie Meunier]: My computer rejected that email I found out this afternoon, and then I forgot to go back, so it stayed rejected.
[Jared Powell]: Gotcha. Yeah, it was just the station going in right at the corner. I'm not sure which corner it was, like northwest maybe? Is that right, or was I misreading that location?
[Bruce Kulik]: The northeast side has probably the most space. as opposed to the others, which are just sidewalk, just speculating.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, probably so. Well, it's very exciting. Yeah, I feel like I've been seeing a lot of them around lately, which is great. OK, let's see. Oh, and one other thing was Todd Blake also alerted me that they installed bike lanes on Rove Street, I want to say about a week and a half ago.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yes, I've actually used them. They're north of where I live, just north of the railroad bridge. And they go all the way to the Winchester Line.
[Ernie Meunier]: At which point, I was wondering if there was any continuity on the Winchester side, and there's absolutely nothing. And I thought, well, we should at least take the initiative to paint a nice big sharrow in the middle 20 feet ahead of the line to show that you must... That's actually done, Ernie.
[Bruce Kulik]: There's two places where sharrows have been put just before the bridge so that you see a sharrow as you cross the bridge.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yes, but not at the Winchester line. I drove it a few hours ago.
[Bruce Kulik]: Really? I thought I could have sworn. I saw one there.
[Ernie Meunier]: Maybe I'm our well, we have sharrows or something near the in the bike lane itself, but it abruptly ends with no indication that you have to, you know, wake up a bit, because the shoulder white stripe marking also drops to maybe a foot and a half or two feet wide, certainly not a bike lane. So I'm not mentioning this more than tongue in cheek, but it'd be kind of nice if we would rub it in their face. I said, you know, and as a safety consideration, one bicyclist that they no longer have a bike lane.
[Bruce Kulik]: I'll sit right up there and check, because I could have sworn I saw it there as well.
[Ernie Meunier]: Not northbound.
[Bruce Kulik]: Not northbound? OK.
[Ernie Meunier]: No. Well, there wouldn't be one southbound.
[Bruce Kulik]: No, no, it wouldn't be southbound. Right. Maybe I'm conflating what I saw at the bridge.
[Ernie Meunier]: I think so. Yeah.
[Jared Powell]: Well, I'm glad that those are going in. This is Remy. I did have some other notes that I jotted down for announcements that I forgot to compile. Let's see, the Grove Street bike lanes, also the speed tables. I don't know if you all have seen some of those go in around town, but I think they've been put in quite a few spots. There's two on George Street and I think a few others going in. I want to say Lawrence, maybe. I think Lawrence has.
[Bruce Kulik]: They've become so ubiquitous, I've lost count.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I saw the ripped up pavement on George Street before I moved, but didn't see the actual tables being put in.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, they have been part of the river street as well.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: My daughter part there.
[Jared Powell]: Great. Yeah, I was. I wasn't sure how they were going to be received like I live just off of George Street so I get to see them there's a, there's a large elementary school bus stop there that picks up in the morning so it's a pretty good spot to have people slowing down so the, the speed tables kind of bookend that stop. They're not right at the stop, but they bookend it a bit. People did not notice them at first and just continued over them as if they weren't there, and you didn't see any brake lights going over them. But now that they've been striped, I definitely have seen people slow down a bit more. They're not the really aggressive speed humps like you might see, obviously, on Powder House Boulevard and Somerville, so they don't have that kind of bucking bronco quality to them, as much as I kind of wish they would. But they're welcome, at least. They're taller than they could be. So I'll take that as the win. I think there's some on South Street, too. I want to say there might be one on South Street.
[Ernie Meunier]: The ones in Somerville are not rationally linked to the speed limit. the ones you're talking about result in bottoming out of many cars at anything over 10 miles an hour. And it's a 20 to 25 mile an hour speed limit. So anyone who is not frequently going through there can be rudely interrupted while trying to drive. It's really a safety issue, I think.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, they should lower the speed limit to 10 miles an hour, it's true.
[Jared Powell]: Right. The speed limit is, or the signs do have a 10 mile an hour sign on them, on those speed humps.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: So that's appropriate then.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, they do. I ride by them every day. Yeah, they have a, I don't know if they all do, but at least some of them say, say, 10 miles an hour.
[Bruce Kulik]: I think I think there's like, um, at least the 1 on Grove street is comfortable at 25 miles an hour, which is the speed limit.
[Jared Powell]: So, yes, no problem there. Yeah, I see your I see your hand there. Leah.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah, I also sorry I got in late, but I also just wanted to point out that, like, it's kind of. It's kind of hard to strike a balance sometimes because of the different size of cars and trucks. Your little car might bottom out because the car part is closer to the ground, but a big truck can zoom right over it still.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. And if we want the, if we want the trucks to slow down to 20 miles an hour, that means that some of those more cars might have to slow down to 10, but like, we can't slow down the trucks as much, you know, as we slow down the cars, the speed jumps.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah. I think I recall Todd kind of talking us through some of the distinctions between like the different levels of speed devices like that, like the speed bumps or humps, whichever one it is, where the ones that were. very aggressive, and short, and very quick, and really jarring. And then they can kind of go to the more gentle speed table type thing. And they're designed to bring you down to different speeds. Some are designed to bring you down to 10. Some are just designed to bring you down to the speed limit. And I think the speed tables they put in are designed to specifically bring you down to the speed limit and not below that. So I think that's what they've put in. But I appreciate the traffic calming around. In my experience, it seems like unless there's a threat of damage to the car, there seems to be very little else that actually gets people to slow down, frankly. Lee, I see you again.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, sorry 1 more thing about, like, speed and traffic calming is that they're not allowed to post a lower speed limit. Until those sorts of, like, traffic calming. Measures go in and you can actually observe cars going. At a lower speed, it's. It seems like it might be chicken or egg, but in traffic engineering, it's it's pretty. cut and dry a lot of the time that you have to have a speech study that shows, um, the, you know, that, that people are going to listen to the lower speed limit signs before you actually put them in. Otherwise you just end up pulling everyone over, which is impossible. So I think they have to do it this way.
[Jared Powell]: Gotcha. Well, I'm glad they're doing it. And yeah, you can't have police at every intersection. So it seems like it's a wise idea to try to install mechanisms that do more to slow vehicles down.
[Ernie Meunier]: On that point, without getting too far afield here in the announcements area, what about pinch points that are really dangerous for bicyclists who are going along near the shoulder, and all of a sudden there's perhaps a crosswalk, or for some other reason, the curb juts out in front of you. And it's not a speed bump, it's a six-inch tall piece of granite that will clearly destroy you unless you veer quickly to the left and perhaps get eaten by a car.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, so the only ones I know about of those are on, like, the Fellsway, where if you stick to the left side of the bike lane, you don't have to veer at all because the bike lane jogs half a width to account for the bump out.
[Ernie Meunier]: Not true on High Street, if I recall.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, the one at Woburn Street narrows down to maybe 10 or 11 feet worth of distance, so you're sharing the lane, which of course is not comfortable for some people.
[Ernie Meunier]: And I think it's probably a bit downhill too, so you're not apt to be slowing for it. Yeah, maybe that's something.
[Bruce Kulik]: Right, but that also means that you're typically running at about the same speed as traffic, so it's easier to manage.
[Ernie Meunier]: A lot of people go 30 down there, and if you're going 18 on a bike, no, you're not going to win that one.
[Bruce Kulik]: No, but frequently you'll hit 25 or 30 by the time you've hit that point. Your point's well taken.
[Ernie Meunier]: I think it's something that needs to be... At best, I think... A pinch point like that should have maybe a three foot ramp of tar going up to the level. And that is a jolting reminder that, oh, yes, you're about to, you know, cross a crosswalk. But you can be safe if you're careful.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: And oftentimes, like like in Somerville on College Ave, they have one of those where the the bike lane just continues up over solid crosswalk. It's a bus stop. Right. Um, we should, we should, yeah, this thing we should bring up with Todd. Obviously this is a, wait, that's, that's mass stop, right? Hi on high street. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty sure.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah. So I was thinking that might be something that we can talk to Todd.
[Ernie Meunier]: I'm waiting for that to be a problem in the rain, in the winter, you know, when someone just slams into that, not seeing the curb itself. Not seeing the pedestrian and therefore not seeing the curb. Yeah, I mean, that's one possibility.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I mean, I'm honestly, in those situations, I'd be more worried about attempting to merge and, you know, merging into traffic.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, if you know you need to merge. I'm saying the granite isn't easily seen. The curb cut out.
[Jared Powell]: I'll add this to the list of things that we need to kind of bring up with Todd and that we could probably solve with the addition of a traffic engineer that could be.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Well, I mean, we still have to get some of these things get mass dot to do something about it. Because they're the 1 to control that road.
[Jared Powell]: Okay, 1, 1 other announcement just something to think about. Sorry, was it today or yesterday? Yesterday maybe that a cyclist was killed in Cambridge. Yeah, it was Monday, I believe. Monday. Monday? OK. Yeah, sorry, I don't have the article in front of me right now. Does anyone who is generally aware want to fill us in just quickly on what happened?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, I mean, that was the one. So I mean, it was on MemDrive, and the driver of an SUV went off the road. and struck the cyclist on the bike path, which is kind of like, it's good to remember that even fully separated cycle tracks don't help when there's no controls on what cars are doing. There's also, as I say, there's a critical mass protest ride on Friday, starting from Copley Square at, well, meet at 5.30, roll at 6 p.m.
[Ernie Meunier]: Maybe it should be noted that it was a head-on collision, so the forces were very high.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: But that's why there was a fatality. Yeah, but I mean, like, but like, honestly, like, you know, if they'd been stopped, you know, against an SUV, doesn't make much of a difference.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, but the trauma is a function of the energy expended, which is the square root of the speed.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's partly true, but it's also that SUVs... How do you finish my sentence?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: And like SUVs, it's not just about the kinetic energy, it's about how they hit people and how they hit people as they run them over because they strike directly on the body. Their center of mass is so high that they run them over. It doesn't matter whether it's head on or tailing. If you get run over, the kinetic energy doesn't matter nearly as much because it's just the weight.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I think we can agree that, yeah. Are there any actions we need to take as a body?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: You know, that's why this is an announcement, because, like, the only announcement is the protest ride. You know, MemDrive isn't in Medford. We certainly have similar places. You know, something we should keep in mind when we're asking DCR to do things. and put in safety.
[Bruce Kulik]: Do you have a sense of what caused the motor vehicle to lose control?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: It doesn't say. Yeah, I didn't hear anything about that either.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: They ran. It was a hit and run. They didn't stay. So that's, I think, part of why we don't know. But I just wanted to point out that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the car was speeding.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. The car was speeding. Right there's also a road diet project that kind of hasn't gone anywhere for a while and road diets are. Can be effective and reducing. You know, operating speed, because cars don't have an extra lane to pass someone who they think is going too slow for them. I have to go behind that person.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, thanks. Thanks. I think my, my takeaway here is that. This is a useful announcement for us as a body, because it kind of contextualizes the work that we do. And as a reminder that what we're doing is not just, you know, well, while sometimes we can just talk in a fairly academic way and bicker about things that a lot of people don't really care about, there are like real implications to road design and the types of conversations that we're having. So it's a good reminder of why we're here and the effort with which we should be putting toward our our advocacy work, like lives are lost when this sort of stuff doesn't get improved. So it's a good reminder of why we're doing this and to take it seriously. On that cheery note, last thing, I know the traffic commission was looking for additional members. Did anyone on here throw their hat in the ring for that? Or I don't think I heard any chatter that anyone was, It's a good way to change things if you're interested in it and have the time for it on Tuesday afternoons. All right.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I wish I had the time.
[Jared Powell]: I know. I do. I do, too. OK. Events. Sorry. Any other announcements? Leah thought about it but don't have time. Fair enough. We would love to have you on there, Leah, if you do have time. All right, let's see, events. We've got a couple on the list here, though I'm not sure that these are all distinct. Let's see. I can speak to two as a reminder, just things that they have. Family Bike Ride is having an event October 6th. That's to the zoo. They're going from Cambridge to Franklin Park Zoo, which is fun. So it's always a good, I know that there are Medford folks who join those. those rides, so it's nice for us to promote them as well, because I know people do attend those. We can promote those on social media. So October 6, 9 AM, riding from MIT to the Franklin Park Zoo, I think to show off some infrastructure down there that we may not be aware of on the south side of the river in all cases. Another one. Jumping to the third on the list, but just because it's related and I'm already talking, uh, the Halloween bike ride, which I mentioned before Sunday, October 20th, 9 30 AM. Um, meeting at assembly row and writing up through Medford and, and going to mystic riverbend park and ending at the playground there for, uh, where kids can play and have candy and all that fun stuff and get to enjoy some of the paths along the mystic river. So. That's one that I will plan to attend. I would like others to attend as well. I know we brought this up on a previous call. I think it was the previous call, if I'm not mistaken. So folks had some questions about helmets and whatnot. And helmets are, I did follow up with Paul Morgan, who runs these events as part of the nonprofit that he works with, Family Bike Ride. And they do require helmets. It has been added to the public materials, maybe not all of them, but at least some of the ones that I've seen that's been added to them. He also went back, because there was a question of, to what extent is this a concern, right, that kids are riding around helmetless in these parades, which really can be thought of as parades. No one's riding at 20 miles an hour on these things. he actually went back and watched the footage that he had that people recorded with GoPros and things filing past that like some of their, the marshals had at various posts. And there was, there was no helmetless writing on the on the last one. So I think we can feel good about that and know that we are not promoting reckless endangerment. And because of us asking about that, like I said, he did add that language specifically to the materials about it, that helmets are required. So I strongly think we should support it. And, uh, I'm going to reach out to some of the elected officials and see if we can get some of them to be marshals and give a speech or something. The mayor's expressed that she was interested. Um, would anyone else on here like to be a Marshall or something like that to kind of funnel kids along past obstacles or, or challenging intersections or anything like that?
[Bruce Kulik]: If so, when is that again?
[Jared Powell]: It's October 20th, Sunday, 930 AM. I know they are looking for some people to serve in that kind of role to help people navigate around turns and stuff like that, or cross intersections, that sort of thing.
[Bruce Kulik]: Who do we contact about that?
[Jared Powell]: I can circulate contact information, but it's Paul Morgan who runs the community pedal power nonprofit that operates these family bike rides.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I would consider serving as a marshal for that.
[Jared Powell]: That would be great. Thank you, Bruce. Has anyone else attended any of those events before?
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I went to a previous Halloween one. Thought it was super fun.
[SPEAKER_10]: Oh, great.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: You got to think of a costume that works, uh, for your bike. I was a lack of tube from, from Mario cart. And I put a cloud on my bike.
[SPEAKER_04]: I went last year with our, with our family and it was very, very, very fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a good costume. That was a really, there were a lot of people. It was really fun.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I went to the one I went to the one last year, too. It was it was a lot of people and a very slow bike ride. Like it was, you know, only going a couple miles. I think I think it was to Belmont last year. And a playground at Belmont, you know, and it was it was great. Hundreds of people easily. I don't know how many hundreds, but hundreds for sure. A big group and a lot of fun. I think they did kind of trick or treating and people showing off their costumes. I've mentioned this before, but just for the sake of anybody who might have forgotten, one of the reasons that Paul runs these is that he's looking, obviously, to get more people out on bikes and riding with their families and normalizing biking through our area. And there's also the component of it that is designed to show people infrastructure, new-ish infrastructure, or lesser-known infrastructure that people might not know about, right? Like, there's a lot of paths in our area along the Mystic River and Malden River and Alewife Brook and any number of other places where people just may not really realize. Everybody thinks, like, oh, the Minuteman. Like, that's where everybody rides bikes. But that's really not true, and there's some lovely paths in our area. So this one is designed specifically to show, I think, there's another one that he has planned that he's talked to us about before that maybe for next year or year after or something like that, depending on when the Clippership Connector is open. And so there will be another ride in the future that shows that off as well. But for now, it's showing off kind of the path that exists. And this is the first one that will come into Medford. So we're pretty excited about it. I think there was talk of people peeling off and going to the Great American Beer Hall afterward. But I'm not sure if that is formalized as a part of these announcement materials or not. But thank you, Bruce. I'll be there as well.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I've got to check my calendar. I just remembered that we have a wedding one of these October weekends, and I need to confirm exactly when that is. But I'll look into it nonetheless.
[Jared Powell]: Great. Thank you. Anyone else? It's a fun time. Ernie, Dan, Noah, Leah. Anybody?
[SPEAKER_07]: Sadly, I'm... out of town for the next month. So, yeah, I won't be able to.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I fear I might be out of town as well and may show up spontaneously. Will we be announcing the event the day before as well?
[Bruce Kulik]: I'm free. Wedding is not that way.
[Ernie Meunier]: What do I have here? Harvest Energy, that's Saturday the 19th.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, that was, that was next on, on my list. I didn't realize that it was, uh, I hadn't put two and two together to see that that was the day before.
[Ernie Meunier]: Um, yeah.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah. We plan to go to that one. Bruce, is that one that you can attend? I know that's one that you've always had.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah. It looks like I'm free as well. Okay. I always enjoy going to that one.
[Jared Powell]: Okay, great.
[Bruce Kulik]: When is it Saturday? What time is it morning or afternoon?
[Jared Powell]: Harvest your energies noon to three. 1, 2, 3, I think, I think, let's see. When is Indigenous Peoples Day? Is that, is that that weekend? That's the weekend before. The weekend before, okay.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: The 14th.
[Jared Powell]: Okay, in that case, yeah, I'll be there that weekend, so I can, I'll plan to come to harvest your energy as well.
[Bruce Kulik]: Uh, if we want to get ambitious, um, in, in the past, we've actually sponsored a ride. Along some of the river paths, like to assembly row and back.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Um, the October bike ride, the Halloween bike ride is the next day, right? So.
[Jared Powell]: So yeah, on those pads, you mean? Yeah.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. I'm kind of doing two of them at the same time. I put it in the chat, Jared, but I'm happy to Marshall as well.
[Jared Powell]: Oh, awesome. Thank you. Sorry. I'm looking two different places. Uh, that would be great. Yeah, that would be, I know Paul would, would appreciate that. He likes to get kind of get the local folks in to get a little bit of skin in the game. Right. So thank you all. Okay. Yeah, those are, those are really fun. Um, really fun events. It's always awesome to see so many people writing around that you really didn't think we're, uh, we're writing in your area, but they are. Okay. So, uh, sorry, I heard something.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I would say if I don't know if there's anything I'll say about harvester energy, but if we wanted to do it as part of events, I can give her a report on the EV showcase.
[SPEAKER_10]: Oh yeah. That would be great.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: So that was a week and a half ago. And I went with my folding e-bike and Becca brought her cargo e-bike and the Camberville e-bike lending library brought a total of four bike cargo, well, three cargo e-bikes and one cargo e-trike. I think the, you know, a bunch of people came and a couple of other people also like showed up with like sort of off-road e-bikes. A bunch of people showed up and talked to us about various things. The mayor showed up and rode one of the e-bikes.
[Bruce Kulik]: I've actually got a picture of her holding her dog and sitting in the bucket with Chris. And sit in the bucket. I haven't distributed that because I wasn't sure what she wanted to do with it. I sent it to her, but I haven't seen it surface anymore yet.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Let's see. The one takeaway from our perspective and from the perspective of the e-bike lending library, it was that we had a lot of cargo e-bikes. My little folder was the closest thing to an ordinary bike, and maybe it would have helped to have a bit more representation on that end of things. Just a regular bike, but with a motor, because it was you know, my tiny folding bike, a bunch of cargo bikes, a couple of off-road bikes. There wasn't just like a normal full-size bike. That's an e-bike. Um, so maybe giving people a slightly skewed idea of what's available in the market, but still like definitely got people interested. Definitely got people, you know, thinking about their options.
[Ernie Meunier]: Well, I showed up late with my Ioniq 5 and was forced to park next to an incredibly large moon lander, I guess called the Cybertruck. So I understand how you feel, B-Dan.
[Bruce Kulik]: It was just... It was kind of a ridiculous vehicle, wasn't it?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I had a conversation with Ellery also about that while we were there.
[Jared Powell]: I think I've seen that vehicle around.
[Bruce Kulik]: The Ford pickup truck that people use for commercial use is probably about the same size. It just doesn't look as, I'm not quite sure what word I want to use, unusual.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yes. Well, the Ford at least probably has more room to put stuff in it.
[Bruce Kulik]: Well, that's a good point.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Hard to tell. The Cybertruck is more like an extremely poorly constructed El Camino. Except it has less cargo capacity than El Camino and much heavier.
[Bruce Kulik]: Anyway. Yeah, but it is aluminum or stainless steel or whatever it is.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, and it somehow weighs four tons. So I think the chat also, moving back to Harvester Energy, do we have people signed up? That's a good question. Or do I have people who want to attend?
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, how many people do we need? I mean, we can get two people to cover the whole time. I think that's fine, right? Yeah, and I'm free, so I'm willing to do it.
[Ernie Meunier]: Free is better.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, certainly.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I can cover. I might need to show up a little bit late, depending on a kid's activity, but I should be able to cover most of that time, too.
[Bruce Kulik]: So we actually need to get signed up then. I can cover a little bit of it as well.
[Jared Powell]: I just did it while we were on the call. So we are all set.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Oh, excellent.
[Jared Powell]: Thank you.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: And just to make sure it actually makes it into the minutes, that's 12 to 3 on Saturday the 19th.
[Jared Powell]: That's right. We'll publish it. It's always a pretty fun event. I find the title a little awkward to say for whatever reason, but it seems like it's well attended and people enjoy it. Well, great. That all sounds good. I'm glad we've got some folks signed up to join those things. And thanks for the update on the EV showcase. That was, I think, kind of an unfortunate situation where We were not plugged in with the right people at the city for some reason. And so we did not find out about this event until far too late when we could have been more helpful. And I'm extremely appreciative of Chris Schmidt at the at the Camberville Lending Library to kind of reorganize some loans that he had scheduled for that morning so that he could get a crew of folks.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: They apparently found out before we did.
[Jared Powell]: They, yeah, it was a similar timeline, I think, but it was through like a Facebook post or something like that, where someone posted on Facebook that, Hey, no one from Medford is coming to this, this event. And so I think we've rectified that problem, but it was just kind of a staffing thing where the specific person in charge of this event didn't know that we existed. So that's unfortunate and we should fix that. Okay. Um, Let's see, Clipper Ship Connector is the next thing on our list here, moving right along. I'm not sure there's really much to say other than we've now heard officially that it's not going to be open until fall of next year, August of 2025. I feel like that was the date that I saw written down.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Okay, well, I mean, that's kind of what we expected anyway.
[Bruce Kulik]: Any idea if there might be a soft open in that, you know, it's not officially open because the signs aren't in and that kind of thing, but is accessible.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I mean, they're never going to tell us that. Yeah, that's true. That is frequently the way paths get finished.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah. It's usually, usually it says trail closed and the fence is open.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Right. Exactly. So like, maybe that, you know, maybe that will happen in the spring or something, but who knows?
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I hope so, but I certainly know what the Somerville Community Greenway, Greenline Extension, whatever the official name is, that was one where it looked done for a long time, but it did have big fences up blocking off big chunks of it, and it was really not passable for a long time.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, that one, they really kept it closed off, but that was also alongside the tracks. maybe more of a safety concern. With the Cambridge Watertown Greenway, there was a long period when it was not officially open. But you could go past the signs and bike it. There were parts of the Northern Strand that were like that for quite a while, too. So yeah.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I certainly hope so. I'm not sure. I don't know if anybody has paid attention to the specific design. uh, more than I have, but my, my understanding was that there was a boardwalk component and it might be the existence of the boardwalk component that precludes kind of an early opening because it's not like it's just a path you can ride on. If they're like building, you know, decking and all that sort of stuff, then. Yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Well, right. But that also may not be the last thing that goes in. Like oftentimes the last thing that goes in is like landscaping. Yep, yep, that's true.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: I talked to Representative Garbally about this. That's how I got added to their mailing list. And there's like a barrier next to the Yacht Club that needs to be erected as well. And folks are kind of using the path as parking at the moment. And that barrier is critical too. So it looks like it's all paved when you go by it. So I'm sure an entrepreneurial member of the community would go explore it.
[Jared Powell]: So is it going around the yacht club? Is that right? Like it goes up to, was that Ship Avenue or something like that? Is that it? Like it goes around that parking lot?
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And then it has like a planting and it's like a foot of like height difference or something to try to differentiate the two areas.
[Jared Powell]: Gotcha. Well, I'm definitely disappointed that it's not going to be open for so long, but I'm glad it's happening. That is definitely something that we get asked about a lot, which I'm always a little surprised by, because I recognize how important it is. It's also, I'm surprised that people are plugged in enough, frankly, to even know that this really exists.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: So I'm glad that- I mean, it's been talked about by a lot of different people, not just us, for a while.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, yeah. It's hard to be plugged in sometimes. So it shows how much demand there is.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Yeah. It's frustrating that the DCR doesn't make the information more accessible. You know, they distribute a PDF. That's a printout. It's been scanned back in and you can't find anything on their website about the current updates. So it's sort of, there's definitely a communication breakdown there too. Yeah.
[Jared Powell]: Well, thank you. Thank you, Noam. I know you've been kind of dogged and figuring out some of this information, so we appreciate it. OK, let's see. Yeah, I put this one in the agenda, just an update on the road rage incident. Yeah, that was just kind of an unfortunate thing. Some of you may have seen it on social media. I'm not sure. But I was, for those who may not be familiar, I was riding to my child's bus stop, which is about a block and a half away. I was on my own street, 100, 200 feet from my own house. on a narrow residential street. It's two ways, but only wide enough for one lane and there's parking on both sides. Um, and I was rolling to the stop sign at George street and a pickup truck seemed very angry. A guy in a pickup truck seemed very angry about my, my existence and, uh, pulled up behind me and was revving his engine. very aggressively and yelling and screaming and very frustrated that I was, that I dared to be in the road. Um, I had my kid with me on my, on my bike, uh, safely buckled in and helmeted and following all rules of the road and all that sort of thing, um, approaching a stop sign. So it's not like it was really slowing anybody down, but still, uh, you know, harassed and screamed at and all the usual stuff about being a clown and getting out of the road and not paying taxes and all sorts of nonsense. It was very jarring is very frustrating as events like that, as events like that are. I did post about it in a couple of forums on on social media, writing a bit of a screed asking people to not behave that way or condone such behavior. And I was pleased by the amount of positive sounds like the wrong word, but positive traction, positive reaction and engagement, I suppose that Both of the posts got a couple hundred engagements and many, many, many, many comments about it of people expressing support and being frustrated that someone would do that in the community. I don't know if this person was a neighbor, I didn't recognize him, or just someone cutting through the neighborhood.
[Bruce Kulik]: Jared, would you mind sharing the street that this happened on? I'm sorry, say that again, Bruce. Would you mind sharing which street this occurred on? Brookings Street. It was on Brookings and you were heading south, northbound rather to George or the other way?
[SPEAKER_10]: That's correct, northbound to George. Okay. Northbound to George. Just wanted to check on that.
[Bruce Kulik]: I would like to ask us to do something formally, which would be to engage the representative of the police department. Maybe it's Carl Brooks, maybe it's somebody else, I'm not sure. But to really understand what we can do in those situations when somebody deliberately doesn't honor the forefoot passing, for example, or verbally harasses or intimidates using their vehicle. Because I feel it's the kind of thing which nobody does anything about it because it doesn't get taken seriously. And I'd like to have us somehow enter a dialogue. I don't know if we need the mayor involved, if it's something that Todd can help us with, but I guess I would like to make an official motion that we look into engaging the police in some fashion to understand what we would recommend to people, right? And maybe get some actual feedback from the police so that they know this does happen. And if you get a license number, you know, at a minimum, they'll make a phone call, for example. You know, that happened to me once in Belmont, I called the police and they actually tried to call the individual couldn't get through, but, you know, they at least gave good lip service to it.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. So something, so a few days ago I happened to run across a post, um, by someone who said that since adding in a very obvious camera to their biking setup, you know, it's like mounted on their shoulder. Like it's very clearly a camera. Uh, they get a lot more, you know, safe passing distance. Um, they, if someone starts. um harassing them they point to the camera and it very quickly stops and you know obviously this is not like a universal solution uh like we can't recommend that all cyclists wear cameras as a way to avoid these sorts of things but it does kind of speak to like the things that drivers pay attention to. Basically, you know, they'll do it if they think that there are no consequences, that there's, you know, that no one can report on them, that no one's observing them except for the cyclist they're harassing. But they stop, or at least most of them stop, if there's any chance of consequences.
[Ernie Meunier]: When I'm in similar situations, I might reach in my pocket and grab my phone and just smile at them and pretend to take a picture, because I just don't have the wherewithal to go through all that. And a couple of times, the person would laugh and take their camera out and take a picture of me. And we both go on our way realizing we're not going to do anything about it anyway. But there was at least some maybe useful, I'm not sure antagonistic, I don't know, but some disruptive quality to that gesture that changed the timber and reduce the fire of the possible exchange. So if it's a pickup truck of the guy with a loud muffler, they just speed away and you know, try to acoustically grind you into their path and into their dirt trail.
[Bruce Kulik]: There was an interesting article a few days ago, maybe last week, on I think it was WBZ TV, where they kind of did a poll about what What is permissible and what isn't by bicyclists and they were very. I thought evenly handed in basically, you know, describing the rights of cyclists. That people typically didn't know about, you know, things like. Oh, you have to ride in the bike lane, right? Well, no, right? I mean, things like that. So there was quite a bit of surprise by both the anchor who was doing it and, in general, the way they presented it. But it does feel like that's another layer of education that people need to learn. I have also seen on the back of buses now, I always wanted this, and I'm glad they're doing it, the four-foot passing law. Is actually now on the back of some buses as an advertisement. I don't know who's paying for it. But you might recall about a year ago, I looked into what it would take to get that advertising. And it was way too expensive for a group like ours to do.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: That might just be the state doing it because I hope so.
[Jared Powell]: But it was, um, hey, folks, sorry, sorry to interrupt. I need to step away for just a couple minutes. This is obviously a conversation I want to want to participate in, but I have to leave for about 5 minutes and I'll be, I'll be right back. So. continue as you were and fill me in in a minute.
[Bruce Kulik]: So I actually, I believe I have a motion on the table to put together some sort of response for us to look into working with the mayor and or the police department to at least clarify exactly how members of our community should handle such incidents with regard to reporting.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: That's a good question before we move on that. I remember Emily talking about setting up a meeting with the traffic officer. And obviously, Emily's not here to comment, but I don't know if anybody knows if that got moved ahead because maybe that. Is a stepping stone for the bigger initiative.
[Bruce Kulik]: We also, I guess I'm requesting that we put forth the resolution that we be more. assertive about this particular incident, and in particular, an understanding of who should we contact or what should we do, so it's not just something that ends up in a vacuum. Because it's obviously not going to change, and it happens to more people than some, but It's a very intimidating factor for many people who don't want to ride. In fact, I believe when people say they're worried about traffic, it's really a surrogate for not wanting to assert their right to the road because they're afraid of these kind of encounters.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. Well, legitimately so. Because, of course, there's always the worry that just being yelled at is uncomfortable, but a driver could equally well decide to take physical action, and they have a large vehicle. But I was going to add, though, to your motion, I'd like to include ways that we can be proactive. It's good to try to establish what people can do if this happens to them, but what can we do to educate drivers or to set things up so that these incidents are less likely to happen?
[Ernie Meunier]: Bruce, I wonder what's codified in other communities who've had to address this. I would specifically think that Cambridge and Somerville have established some norms for what's legal or reasonable, and responsible but not confrontational conduct.
[Bruce Kulik]: All of the legality is gonna be handled by the state. I mean, that's cut and dry in the regulations and mass general law. So it's really a question of the policies of the police department and any of the safety organizations as to what they're recommending. But you have a good idea there, I mean, we don't need to reinvent the wheel, right? If, if, uh, have come up with policies that are useful.
[Ernie Meunier]: Well, it would be nice for drivers to, to be aware that there isn't, you know, a great, uh, change when they cross lines from the town they live in to one that they're happened to be driving through. So, um,
[Bruce Kulik]: I mean, I'd like to I'd like to modify my resolution. We put together a working group to to proceed forward on this.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay, so hold on. I'm back. Okay, thank you. To clarify, this is a motion to put together a working group to discuss which police office sorry, with the police department that what we want to do in the case of aggressive driving.
[Bruce Kulik]: It's not even quite that far. This proposal is to put together a working group to try to figure out how we should address the problem. Maybe it's discussing with the police. Maybe it's figuring out how to do more. or we're working with the other cities and towns on getting information, but it's really the proposal I'm putting forth now is just that we put together a working group so that we can explore a handful of different options as opposed to discussing it just in this meeting.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Should we possibly check if we have anyone willing to do the working group before we make that proposal?
[Jared Powell]: Well, clearly, I'm willing to do it.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I am as well.
[Ernie Meunier]: I second the motion.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah. Thank you, Ernie. Well, in that case, we've got a second. All in favor of the motion to start a working group to consider steps that we might take toward dealing with this issue? Say aye.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: Aye. Aye.
[Jared Powell]: All right. The ayes have it. I'm happy and very willing to participate in that, Bruce. And I think having this particular incident fairly fresh in my mind is probably useful for that as well. So we've got, excuse me, a very specific incident that we can point to, which is always helpful for change. I did reach out to different city councilors and actually the chief of police and the mayor and described to them what happened as well and heard back from some of them, not the chief of police, unfortunately. So I think this is a good idea. And definitely reading some of the responses that people made to my initial posts is something that I'm not alone in having experienced, unfortunately, too often in our area and something that I think keeps people off of bikes Would anyone else like to join this? I'd say maybe it's just Scott.
[Bruce Kulik]: I'll put together, whoever's involved, I'll put together an email and see if we can, you know, put together a working group of some kind in the next several weeks.
[Jared Powell]: That would be great. Thank you, Bruce. Is anyone on this call particularly interested in doing that? I know we'd be happy to have some other voices there.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I'm a baby.
[Jared Powell]: Not sure. Maybe we can talk about it while we assemble light kits. Would that work? Two birds with one stone? OK, well, thank you all. That sounds good to me. An unacceptable behavior, and I would like to see something done about it and not not simply because it happened to me it's happened to me before this was just a particularly egregious incident and on your own street, even though your own street is no different than any other street pitches.
[Bruce Kulik]: Very clearly, particularly it's a very slow residential street that nobody has any business going more than about 15 miles an hour on anyway.
[Jared Powell]: No, it's 1 of those. You've got to pull over if there's any oncoming traffic.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, it's just, it's a. Particularly outrageous, it's not like you're on, I don't know, mystic Avenue. Right and not that that's an excuse, but I'm just saying it's a different situation.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: And it's one block long, like there's only so much you can be delayed.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, exactly.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah.
[Ernie Meunier]: Stop sign, you know, what are you gonna do? I have a great fear that the frequency of such incidents may tremendously increase after November 5th. So I think this is a good idea, Bruce, to somehow it codified what the limits of our responses should be.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, absolutely. Lots of conversations that can be had there. Let's see. Next on the list here, we're getting closer to the end of our agenda, which I think is fine. Infrastructure updates. I don't know that we really have anyone on who can speak to those in any real detail, which is unfortunate. Another problem of the city's staffing right now.
[Bruce Kulik]: Um, what's going on with South and nevermind. Sorry, South and I was thinking South Street is going to say, I just was on South Street recently and it looks fine, but it sounds like you got it.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, sounds to me. I don't I don't know that we have an update here.
[Bruce Kulik]: The, no, that was, I think that was a meeting that they had, which was sort of the kickoff and getting initial feedback. And then they're going to go stew on it and then they'll eventually come back and Leah, maybe, you know, more about it. Because I know you're involved directly in that. Project correct no, you are not. Okay. Not correct. All right. Sorry. I thought somebody was in any event. I believe that once they've stood on it and come back with their next plan, there'll be another similar meeting that we need to keep our ear to.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: At some point, there'll be a 25 percent design meeting.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, typically.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: That will be It'll take a while, right? Like probably a year or something, at least. But I thought, has anyone heard back of if they were going to meet with us still?
[Bruce Kulik]: I've heard nothing. Emily might be looking into that, or that's what the request was, and I've not heard anything.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Emily was looking into that. Did she give an update about it last meeting? I don't remember.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: I think the last update I heard was that they said, yep, we can meet with you. Okay. Um, and then Emily said, you know, what time anytimes good will conform to your schedule and then we never heard back.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Okay. So. Sounds like we probably need to reach out again to. Follow up.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, I can I can read what Emily sent me. It was regarding the project that's happening. The last I've gotten from them is we're reviewing alternatives. We'll get back to you when we have more. This was after a certain amount of pestering for meetings.
[Jared Powell]: That's right, so I think I think it was me that triggered this going on the agenda. Daniel, correct me if I'm wrong, but. There's been so much brouhaha lately about these overrides in Medford, which for anyone who's moderately plugged into the political scene in Medford, which I suspect those of us on this call are more than others. The reason this kind of came to my mind for this meeting was in the I'm not sure what you want to call that, bickering back and forth conversation about the fire department related override. I saw in one of the discussions, and now I'm having a tough time citing it, which forgive me for, I'll see if I can find it later. There was some reference to the design of the new fire station was tied to the update on South and Main. which makes sense because when they gave that presentation about South and Main, they talked about how they were considering various kind of rotary or roundabout configurations that they very quickly ruled out because it would require infringing on, I think, the fire department's property in a way that was problematic. And just in some of those discussions that came up in talking about the design, there was an issue with that design, and they were taking that into account. So it sounded simply like they are looking at this issue, but I have heard nothing about it. So I was hoping we could get an update, but Todd wasn't able to join us today. Yeah, so I'd say we should pester again, frankly, and see what we can do there. Yeah, has anyone else noticed any other infrastructure or anything that we want to follow up with Todd about specifically?
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: He emailed us about another blue bike station going in.
[Jared Powell]: Yep. Yeah, sorry. I mentioned that when I pinned the announcements section, Leah. No, that was my fault for not seeing you in the waiting room there. So apologies for that. But it's exciting. We were all excited. So you missed our excitement about it, Leah. We were excited about it. It's great.
[Bruce Kulik]: I'd like to at some point suggest to Todd that we get Sheroes on city hall mall. Which right now is a bit of a. A bit of a bottleneck as you're coming through Medford square from the East. You know, there's three lanes there, one which turns right and two which turn left. And then you have people coming eastbound on Riverside that have to merge through that. Typically, those people are going towards Malden. So you have a lot of cross-traffic through that area. And at a minimum, it would be good, I think, to have Sharrows there and Bicycles Meashere full lane and perhaps even a four-foot sign or something. in those areas. Is that something we could request Todd to do?
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I think so. I ride that same area and I agree with you, Bruce. That's a tough one to figure out where you're supposed to be sometimes and people certainly, wherever you think you're supposed to be, I'm sure the drivers around you disagree.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah. I mean, if you're going straight from the right turn lane, people who are going to Malden get on your case. If you're sticking far to the left because you want to stay left on Salem Street so you can continue south on Main Street, for example, then you get another set of people who worry about you being there and in the center, you're in the center.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. We've already got Sharrows on all three lanes of Salem Street. Yeah. That would just be bringing the other streets in Medford Square up to the same standard.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, that's true. That would be useful.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I'm not opposed to having kind of an occasional digest of things that we happen to notice that, or maybe low effort that we could pester Todd about. I know he's got plenty to do, but it's never a bad idea to do a little light pestering for safety's sake, right? Yep. Well, on that note then, Is there anything else that anyone has noticed that they would like to mention while we're at it? Ernie?
[Ernie Meunier]: Not about infrastructure. Are you closing that as an agenda item and moving on?
[Jared Powell]: No. No, I mean, I was going to see if anybody else had any minor infrastructure updates before thinking about moving on. Nope. Anything else they wanted to talk to Todd about?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I think we got a lot of the updates regarding that done in the beginning, like, with the bikes and other.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I was, I was thinking kind of specifically if if I was going to be reaching out to Todd about the, the shares on city hall mall, if there was. Maybe anything else that was kind of a light lift that we wanted to ask for at the same time.
[Ernie Meunier]: Well, I'd like to bring up continuing the work from West Medford Square to the Arlington line on High Street. But you know, the distaste for removing parking spaces has always been the big bugaboo. Although I realized that that is falling as a huge brick wall against these modernizations as time goes by. But, you know, it'd be nice to see it happen in my lifetime. You know, it's been on this desk for three years. But the dissolution of 40 unused parking spaces is an argument that they perhaps just don't have the bandwidth nor courage to argue. But it's, you know, I'd like to bring it up at least once a year.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, no, I mean, like, yeah, I mean, we saw we saw what happened with like Winthrop Street. Right. So, you know, it's going to be an uphill battle with removal of any parking, because there's always someone who uses it occasionally. Yeah, of course. But but, you know, like, We got some of them removed on Winthrop Street, and maybe we'll get the next batch removed eventually. So, you know, if we can get a few more blocks on High Street, that'll be something.
[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, it's a great discontinuity to have part of it done and then have nothing happen. And then all of a sudden, you've hit the rotaries and are entering Arlington. So anyway.
[Bruce Kulik]: On the other end as well, to continue from the Brooks War to the Winthrop Street Rotary would be useful as well. But the better thing would be to get that part repaved, because that's in pretty rough shape.
[Ernie Meunier]: Right.
[Jared Powell]: Well, it seems like we've got like a couple of things like one is to make some of these light asks that are easy to happen casually and hopefully don't add too much to their to their docket. But then there's kind of the broader question of. What are the city's priorities right now? What's in the queue? Which is a slightly different question.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Exactly what I was going to request is that we get the list of streets that are going to be repaved and the limits of those streets this upcoming construction season. Because we can take a look at them over the winter and see if we have any recommendations for those streets that they can do while they're repaving them.
[Jared Powell]: I, I love that. I like that. I had kind of a general hand wavy thought and you were able to define it clearly and explicitly, Leah, that's perfect. Yeah.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. This is very naughty. I'm so sorry to be down, but Medford has not put out like a. a CIP in a bit, like a plan of how they're going to spend their money.
[Jared Powell]: Sorry, point of information. Can you define that for us?
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: A capital investment plan. Okay. Says where they're going to spend their money. I haven't seen one in a bit, and I don't necessarily like to assume that the old one is accurate or that old list of Like, they had an old list of streets that they were going to repave and it went a couple of years, but. You know, I don't necessarily know if things have changed priority or if. You know, they didn't get to everything. So stuff's been bumped back. So a new list would be very helpful.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, I'm just going to add that, like, I know that Todd. Looks at the bicycle master plan. when repaving things, you know, to see if there's something they can throw in while they're doing that. But of course, the master plan is still, you know, sort of paused on updates. So it would be good to get that list so that we can look at it and look at the master plan and say, is there something missing that we think should be added, you know, right away before they repave these?
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I think that's a that's a really good a really good ask and frankly would give us plenty to do over the fall and winter, right? So that we can be ready with some good suggestions when this stuff is shovel ready.
[Ernie Meunier]: And Jared Todd should be reminded that the cost of doing high street is extraordinarily low, especially per linear Todd. It's really, it's really just signage and paint is high street.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Isn't anything that Todd has anything over any control over this mass dot. Really? Isn't High Street Route 60? Yeah.
[Bruce Kulik]: It is, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's owned by the state.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I thought it was.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Okay. Yeah, I think I could be wrong on that. I mean, I thought that like the Brooks project was done by the state because of that.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: It may have been funded by the state, but that was a safe routes to school funding.
[Bruce Kulik]: So that's where the state got involved.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Okay. Interesting. Yeah, I thought High Street was owned by the state as well. I could be wrong about that. I'll do a little check real quick.
[Jared Powell]: I don't remember the details. I feel like this, whether it was owned by it or not, I feel like there was some reason that the city had purview over the markets and things on it. So it would be good to clarify.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: I think sometimes people like use the fact that something's a state numbered route, even if they own it, to try to not make any improvements, because they're like, oh, it's.
[Ernie Meunier]: Well, maybe those.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: We need to talk to MassDOT, but it would be fine.
[Ernie Meunier]: Maybe there's a distinction between changing infrastructure versus something as simple as signage and paint, where we have no way of knowing. I mean, it's fantastic. I mean, we've heard of stones or changing lanes, but I don't know.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: I mean, look, from my perspective, I would be happy if the city would maintain something that they own, because it's really hard to maintain something you don't own. And so if they don't maintain it, nothing gets maintained.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yep. That's why we have so many sidewalks that don't get shoveled in the winter.
[Jared Powell]: Well, let's ask for that list. And I don't think we have to officially convene a working group yet, but I think we can probably expect that that's kind of one of the things that we'll do in the next meeting or two. Assuming such a list exists, which I hope it does. But I think that over the past couple of years, I think we've been very pleased with the extent to which the city has brought us into its decision-making process where it felt like we used to be chasing things a little bit and finding out about things a little bit too late. I don't want to say we're back to that situation because I think we are brought in, but I think the staffing issues at the city have made it such that it's harder for us to be as involved as we might like or even as Todd might like.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. So I'd like to officially motion that we write to Todd to ask for that list, for the list of upcoming repaving projects. I'll second that.
[Jared Powell]: OK, we've got a motion to request from Todd the city's repaving projects in the upcoming season. All in favor? Aye. The ayes have it. We'll do it.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Does someone want to do that?
[Jared Powell]: I'm happy to. Great. Thank you. Absolutely. Todd's a lovely person. Happy to address to him. We need more Todd's at the city.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: We need at least one more time.
[Jared Powell]: That is true. That is true. Leah, you had a question here in the chat. I think I know the answer, but I'll make sure Bruce weighs in here about us weighing in as a commission on the overrides?
[Bruce Kulik]: So that's a good question. And I can only tell you what I read in the general laws. And I think this is the kind of thing which if we really want to know, we should check with the city solicitor, who may or may not be as responsive as the previous city solicitor was. I do recall that we were told that commissions can weigh in on items that are germane to their, what's it, where their function. So, you know, that could mean that, for example, the streets might be something that we'd be able to weigh in on, but it's not clear that it'd be a stretch for like the fire department one. And I forget the exact order of these. I know there's another that has to do with schools. Schools, yeah.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I was thinking if we weighed in on anything, it would be the one to give more funding to the DPW. I think we could make an argument that that would be directly benefiting us and helping us in our mission.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah. The only problem is that I don't see how we're going to get a decision, a definitive decision between now and when we'd be able to do anything for the election. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe we'd be able to in our next meeting.
[Jared Powell]: Well, Bruce, do we even have a city solicitor? I don't know. I don't think we do.
[Bruce Kulik]: Well, the city's got to have a city solicitor in some fashion.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: This seems to be a hot topic, I think.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, I thought we had one that we had asked questions. To in the previously about other things.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, we did. We used to ask directly to, and he was quite responsive about clarifying these things. And I don't know who the current city solicitor even is.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: At this point, I'm pretty sure it's outsourced to all right now. Yeah, I thought it was.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I think we've got an outside council serving in that in that role.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: So, I'm going to have to reach out to the mayor's office to get access to that.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, so this is like an interesting question too, because there's that question of like, what are we legally allowed to do? And then there's also the idea that we're a city commission that exists at the pleasure of the mayor. So it seems like if the mayor is for it, then it is probably within our purview to be for it as well. Right? If it's related to our function and in line with the mayor's. Thoughts if, if we were to disagree with the mayor's push on that particular thing, that could get, that could get touchy, but it's a very good point. If you do, if you, if we do agree with the mayor and it is within our purview, then logically it seems separately from legally, logically, it seems like it would probably be okay for us to, to advocate for it. Um, so I'm not sure how we get that answer. Just a question of the mayor. Is that I guess that's where you would start, right? Yeah.
[Ernie Meunier]: That's what I see, too. I mean, ask her if she wants more mass in the foundation of the support she needs for this.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_02]: This didn't come up on the school committee this week, and the mayor had to recuse herself from endorsing one of the questions, but the school committee did issue a Proclamation in support of it today.
[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, that would be within their purview for sure.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: They're elected not a body of the city.
[Bruce Kulik]: Well, they are, but in a different way than we are. I think we should try to get a clarification from the mayor. And if she needs to talk to the council, that'd be good. If she recused herself at the school committee meeting, it might be because she thought there was a conflict of interest for herself. I don't know. Why don't we just get it resolved somehow?
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I'll reach out to the mayor. Sorry, B-10, does this have a...
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: A city solicitor. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to figure out. Okay. City solicitor and public records access officer is vacant. There is staff who is Janice Spencer, the office manager and confidential secretary. So I'm not quite clear there, but it's possible that she would have the information on who to talk to in the absence of. a current solicitor.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, we've got a couple of people. I'll reach out to the mayor and someone at the department there and see if we can't get that answered. But if we can get it answered, let's assume for the moment that we are allowed to advocate one way or the other for something that is directly related to us.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: I mean, maybe we should wait because this is also a public meeting. not allowed to weigh in on it. They might not want to.
[Jared Powell]: You are. Indeed. You are right. OK. Oh, boy.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: So do we put this down as a motion to request clarification from the mayor's office?
[Jared Powell]: That sounds right to me. I think so, too. In terms of timing, though, the election is early November. If we can't get a decision until you know, our next, until before our next meeting, say we can, then we're looking at the end of October before we would even be in a position to weigh in about it.
[Bruce Kulik]: We could call a special meeting if need be to specifically vote on which, if any of the proposals we support. Okay.
[Jared Powell]: Great, great point, Bruce. I like that. Right. That sounds like a good plan then. All right. So I'll, did someone want to make a motion that we reach out to them? So moved. Okay.
[SPEAKER_10]: Seconded.
[Jared Powell]: All right. All in favor.
[Jared Powell]: Aye. All right. We're just adding things to my plate left and right here, aren't we? All right. No problem. These are important ones. Happy to do it. Okay. I'll reach out to the mayor. Let's see. I don't think we have anything else on infrastructure. Ernie, I think you had.
[Ernie Meunier]: uh you wanted to add uh yeah just yeah just to say that uh this past week i stocked the schools of uh i think 157 bike light kits the five schools uh 10 for chief buckley i don't know what he ever does with them he's supposed to throw them in the cruisers and uh west medford uh center as well. And I guess I'll pack up some more for our October 19th event. I hadn't thought of that. And by digging into next year's supply. So and that's just fine. There is any other need for bike light kits this fall, then certainly let me know.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: I had a question about this, like, I passed someone just, you know, in my building. Who was, you know, going out for a bike ride with her bike and she didn't seem to have a light on it and it was kind of dark out already. And I was wondering is. Is that something where, like, it would be useful for other members of the commission to just. carry one or two around with us for when we bike?
[Ernie Meunier]: That has been suggested over the years, I hope. And at the beginning, I think I even distributed to members front porches a box each of six or 10 lights. And I don't think too many people took it upon themselves. I think it's a good idea when you're out on a bike to carry one or two, and especially if you run into a a child who is unlit. You know, you can strap it on them, talk to them about it, show them the booklet, etc.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: I'd be happy to, to, you know, take a couple from you at the harvest your energy festival and do the transfer that way, since I do not have a front porch, especially as we get into the fall and the, you know, kind of the commute home is in the dark.
[Ernie Meunier]: I'm happy to carry really leave 10 or 20 in my front hall for anyone to pick up, but that hasn't really happened over the year. But I can continue to do that so that you can see my front closed foyer as a little warehouse to pick them up as needed.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Oh, um, yeah, I don't really know where your house is. But if we're both going to be at the harvest your energy festival, I think it would be easier to take what's left over.
[Ernie Meunier]: It's recommended anyway. Sounds good. Yep.
[Jared Powell]: Um, that is great. Thank you all so much. And Ernie, thank you for, thank you for doing that. That's, uh, I know you put a lot of time and effort into getting the finances together to do that and the effort and putting the kits together and distributing them. And I know how much time that takes and it's kind of invisible labor maybe at times, but, but we appreciate it.
[Ernie Meunier]: Thanks. My pleasure.
[Jared Powell]: Um, one. You all reminded me of something. Um, my, I have a, I have a kid in the public school system now, which I'm very excited about. And I will be, I signed up to volunteer with their. Sorry for the, the name is escaping the, the walk and roll bike to school thing that they, that we do, um, every once in a while leading kind of convoys or whatever. those have not been planned yet. And I don't know if there's anybody else at the Misitech school where my child is who plans those or if by volunteering to be involved that now is me who's planning them. I'm not really sure. But I'll just something to know that now we've got an in in that school in terms of uh, biking and whatnot, which I know you, you brought up before Ernie has not really having that person. So I can, I can do my best to, to plug us into that school and I'll publicize and let us know about any walk and bike to school events that are, that are coming up in case others are interested in helping out with that. Well, I think that's everything that was on our agenda. Is there anything else anyone would like to chat about?
[Bruce Kulik]: We would do adjourn.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Seconded.
[Jared Powell]: All right. All in favor?
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Jared Powell]: Aye. Aye. Well, thank you all very much. We'll see you at some events. And keep doing the good work.
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