AI-generated transcript of Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission 09-03-25

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Uh, at this point, we have quorum. So please, um, uh, I'm not sure if we should officially start the meeting, but feel free to just go ahead. I think this will be part of Joel recording. Okay.

[Theresa Dupont]: I'll try to make it very brief. The city right now has, um, if you're not aware to survey opportunities, I'll talk about wayfinding first. Um, we did a pilot here in the city the past couple of years, and now we're looking to really roll it out aggressively as a permanent program. So there is a survey for wayfinding directionals throughout the city that we'd love to get some feedback, especially from this group in particular, certainly. So I'll share that and I'll dump all the links into the chat here before I hop out. So wayfinding, great. We're also in the middle of our open space and recreation plan update. This is a required document from the state that every municipality needs to update on a, I think it's a seven year basis. we're looking at our three-year extension right now. So this will be anything that has to do with our park lands as well as recreation, how we're using our bike paths, all of that good stuff. So we really want a lot of participation hopefully from our residents and again, captive audience, I would love to hear from this group. So there's an ongoing survey for that. There's also a workshop that will be next Wednesday, September 10th at the Medford Arts Collaborative Building on Mystic Ave. that starts at six. Um, that'll just be some small group discussions. Um, so again, I'll put that information into the chat so everybody can see that. Um, but just trying to get some, some feedback from this, this wonderful group, if possible.

[Bruce Kulik]: With the record, could you identify yourself so we have that?

[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, that's, that's an important piece. Thank you. Um, my name is Teresa Dupont. I'm the community preservation act, manager for the city, CPA manager for the city, Teresa Dupont. And I'm in the planning department.

[Bruce Kulik]: All right. That's great. Got to make sure we haven't started the meeting officially yet. I wanted to add it as a preamble to the minutes.

[Theresa Dupont]: Thank you. All right. Dropping the information in the chat now.

[Ernie Meunier]: Thank you. It was nice to see you, Ernie.

[Theresa Dupont]: I haven't seen a while.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah. All right.

[Theresa Dupont]: Be good. Thank you, everybody. Recording stopped.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right, let me take care of that cord to the recording in progress. Okay. Well, with that, it looks like we have enough people to start. So as the chair, I hereby call the August 2025 Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission meeting to order. Secretary, will you please call the roll?

[Bruce Kulik]: Daniel Nuzzo-Muller. Present. Emily O'Brien, vice chair.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Here.

[Bruce Kulik]: Bruce Kulik, secretary, here. Jared Powell here, Emily manure.

[Ernie Meunier]: Did you say Emily?

[Bruce Kulik]: I did, but that's because Emily is right above your name. And I just did one of those, you know, whatever.

[Ernie Meunier]: Well, thank you.

[Bruce Kulik]: No.

[SPEAKER_02]: Present.

[Bruce Kulik]: Mary Kate Gustafson present. Thea Gronstein, not present. And Rebecca Wright, not present. Adam Shire, not present. Chris Stivers, Stivers? Stivers. Stivers. What is it?

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah.

[Bruce Kulik]: Say again? Stivers. Stivers, sorry. Present. Yep. And Anna Rankert. Excellent. So let me mark the ones who are not present. All right, we have a quorum and we may proceed. We have a guest tonight.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I do not see any guests tonight. All right, is there a call for the approval of the minutes for July 31st, 2025? So moved.

[Bruce Kulik]: Seconded.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right, hearing a second, all in favor?

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Aye. All opposed? Aye. All right, hearing none, the motion passes. Minutes are approved. Okay, all right, in that case, moving on to announcements. One thing I wanted to bring up during the announcements, or at least raise for a future discussion point was the Route 60 repainting of the Mystic Valley Parkway. Um, I think it's something that we should address as a commission and possibly raise to the necessary entities that. Currently, I'm not sure if everyone was aware of this, but the so. The bridge passing between Medford and Arlington has recently been repainted as part of a future iteration of the improvements, and right now there are possibly a few items that should be addressed if this is entirely repaved in the future. I would like to raise that as a discussion point. I realize that I did not, I only became aware of it in the last few days and didn't have the time to raise this as an official meeting point before the agenda was published. So I would like to have that raised at some point later in the meeting. I'm happy to discuss this now, or we can discuss this later on when, I think.

[Bruce Kulik]: Put that in the infrastructure section.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Oh, OK, yeah.

[Bruce Kulik]: Hopefully Todd will be with us if he's joining us.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right, sounds good. So that is the primary thing that I would like to address today. And I'm sorry, does anyone else have any announcements that they would like to make? Go ahead, Emily.

[Emily O'Brien]: A couple of quick things. One is you may have noticed that there are now plastic wayfinding signs to help people get across the square from the Clipper Ship Connector to the other parts of the Mystic River Path. You probably didn't realize that the Clipper Ship Connector is actually just the project name, and the path is just called the Mystic River Path, like everything else. So Myra got a, I think got a grant to do this. It still is like the quick and dirty version, but I went and helped put them up. There are now at least signs telling you like the least bad way to get across Medford Square. They do ask you to get off and walk in the business district. I know that it's not what we really want. Hopefully once MassDOT does their project that's coming down the pike, there will eventually be a crosswalk to actually get people across Main Street somewhat more reasonably. But in the meantime, at least somebody who doesn't know where they're going has enough signage to actually help them figure it out. So that's a good step. I really wish that that had been part of the planning for the Clippership Connector in the first place, because we only had 10 years to figure out that this would be a problem and not have to do this this way at the end, but I'm glad that we did it one way or another. So I want to say thank you to Carla, Alexander, Myra for doing this and making this happen and also to Todd for coming out. It's, you know, it's great that it went up and it's there. I was going to also add.

[Bruce Kulik]: Before we move on, we have actually a clipper ship connector access that I had asked Todd to help us with later. We should keep any other further comments for that section.

[Emily O'Brien]: Okay, sure. I was going to say one other possible addition for either the. police working group topic or for the infrastructure topic when we get there, um, is, um, is I would like to talk about maybe approaches or our thoughts about door zone bike lanes moving forward. Um, so maybe that's something we should add to one of those topics later in the meeting. And I would like to hear what Todd has to say about it too, if we, um, if we are fortunate enough to have him attend. So. That's that.

[Bruce Kulik]: Okay. So you want to add a, I thought we, I thought I saw an email about that as well.

[Emily O'Brien]: I did, I did email about it, but I wasn't, I sort of, I was sort of asking, well, should this be just, should this be a infrastructure discussion or should this be a bike safety meeting topic?

[Bruce Kulik]: I've noted that you want an agenda item for next meeting.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's fine.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Sorry, just following up on that really quickly. That actually also raises an announcement I would like to make on, or at least separate announcement. The Hills Hill pump track is also officially opening in Arlington on the 6th. So while that is not within Medford and is not our jurisdiction, I would like to at least make that part of the public record that that is opening and It is a wonderful community resource for people of all ages to go and have an opportunity to experiment with mountain biking skills. Sorry, go ahead, Emily.

[Emily O'Brien]: Oh, I was just going to say about that. I saw a post about that on Facebook today. And what I thought was especially hilarious was the directions that they were telling people to use on the post to get to it were giving GPS coordinates, because there aren't actually signs at the places that you need to get off of the Minuteman. This is why I keep harping on about signage for these things. Like, we have all these paths that have no names because they have no signs and they have no labels. Anyway, that's my axe to grind. But I just saw this Facebook post about that pump track, and it was giving you GPS direct coordinates to figure out where to leave the Minuteman to get to it. And I just thought that that was sort of hilarious.

[Bruce Kulik]: Daniel, what is this? You call it the Hills Hill contract? Yes, playground by the ice rink. That's the official name of the playground.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: It is called. I can if you would like, I can probably hold on. I have the.

[Bruce Kulik]: This is a mountain bike track path. What is it?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yes, it's officially a. skills track designed to be both a pump track and a jump track. I think they might also have a small-scale mountain bike course, like a short course track on it as well. But it was something that was originally, I believe, I am not aware of the entire history of Hills Hill being developed. But it was something that Arlington ended up pushing for after several, I guess, youths ended up developing like their own mountain bike course in the woods near that prison.

[Unidentified]: Okay.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: So ultimately it got taken on by the town of Arlington. They ended up officially sanctioning a, I guess, fully built skills park there. And it has finally come to fruition and will be opened on the 6th, so Saturday. So it's something that is, I think, a wonderful addition to the local community. Even though it is outside of our jurisdiction, I think it is worthwhile.

[Bruce Kulik]: It is apropos to the next agenda item, which, unfortunately, Scott emailed me about an hour ago and said that he will not be able to make it tonight, which is too bad, because I was looking forward to hear more about what his ideas were. And he's asked to reschedule. For next week's, I'll have to go back and be in touch with him to find out if he can make it to the next meeting instead. So I just wanted to relay that. But it is interesting that maybe several of us on our own might want to just go over there and see what it's all about so we have a sense of what Scott's talking about.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yes, I entirely agree. I can't speak to the car park. pump track at all, but if any, again, if anyone is able to go to Hills Hill, you might be able to get some ideas to like what it is, what that design looks like. But thanks for the update there. Let's see. I will also have to look up some information on the car part pump track. All right. I guess, uh, with that, are there any other announcements that anyone would like to bring up? I will admit that the Hills Hill announcement sort of came spur of the moment when I saw the car park pump track update coming up and I realized that that was, uh, yep, sorry, go ahead, Chris.

[SPEAKER_09]: Just a couple of things. I was actually going to mention that in West Medford, there's been a few years where there's been some new bike lanes painted, which has been pretty exciting for me. So the Rotary, as you mentioned, but then also along, was it Arlington Road? From the Rotary, Arlington Street, all the way up to Duggar Park, now has a bike lane, a contraflow, well, it turns into a contraflow. And then at the tail end of Harvard street, going up to where it hits, um, uh, mystic Valley Parkway. So it's been nice to see some progress. Um. The other thing, and this is maybe an agenda topic for possibly next meeting, but I spent a while a few weeks ago looking at the Medford bike master plan document, which I believe was updated in 2016 and a lot of it's now. out of date with all the things that have been happening. I think it's worth a discussion over whether we try to refresh that, maybe like a 2026 version of that plan that's been updated with the current state of the art.

[Bruce Kulik]: That's a request for an agenda item, so that's now in the minutes.

[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you. Just one comment about that is there supposedly was, Um, and I, uh, there was some effort in the city to work on an updated version of it. Um, and there was a, a graduate intern who was working on it and there was, um, there used to be a DPW employee who was working on it. Um, but that person left to work for the town of Brookline and the internship ended and it was never finished. And that position has not been filled. And so this is this is kind of one of our ongoing things, but maybe maybe this is. The agenda item could be that we either talk about do we need to just do this again ourselves because the city isn't doing it, or we need to push for the things that make. put more pressure on the city to finish whatever they were, however far they got, which I don't think we even really had an update. So we don't really even know what the status of it was.

[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, why don't we keep that thought for the next meeting when we have the agenda that'll just talk in general about the master plan and we can figure out what that means.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Um, one thing I would like to, or I guess at least ask, um, for, uh, people like Emily and Bruce who've and Jared, who've been on the commission longer than I, is this something that we can offer assistance in, or is this something that needs to be undertaken by a city engineer?

[Emily O'Brien]: The original one was just the bike commission just did it.

[Bruce Kulik]: I think it was mostly Pat who put it together, right?

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think so. And a couple of other people that aren't here anymore. And I think it was sort of... embraced, but it was it was just a it was it was it came entirely from the bike commission. And I think that when Amy was here, there was more of an idea like, hey, there's a person actually whose job it is to deal with these kinds of things. And then that was kind of one of her projects. But her position hasn't been So that's, so we could either, we could either decide that we just have to do it ourselves again, or we need to put more pressure on them to, you know, find a point person whose actual job it is to do it.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Thank you. I appreciate that insight. I agree with you. I do want to be able to recognize Noam and Leah. I see your hands. I guess my question is more veered towards whether we can help with this or if we can't. And it sounds like we can. So that's something that we should keep in mind there. Sorry, go ahead, Noam.

[SPEAKER_02]: I just wanted to go back to the infrastructure point about the stuff that got added in West Medford around Mystic River Road and Route 60 and I guess make a comment or ask a question for the notes and maybe for when Todd hops on. But do we have clarity who owns like enforcement in that area? Because it does appear there's some change management that needs to happen. where people park their cars and stuff because they've got lanes striped and all that but if you go through the area you'll notice anyone using Duggar Park still has their car parked on this bike lane even though they have like parking spaces all painted out for them and I recall from past discussions that might be like state police territory and not something the city is able to ticket on. So I don't know if that's up for discussion now or something we have to table until perhaps time.

[Emily O'Brien]: It would be worth, at least if nothing else, put it on our list to ask the police department if that's actually in their jurisdiction.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I would raise both of those. I have outstanding items with the police department. Let's put it on the list for us to Emily, for me and you to raise with them. But also, we can have a further discussion about that once we get to the infrastructure updates. I see Leah, and then after that, Ernie.

[SPEAKER_04]: Not related to what I was going to say, but I was, for now, is it like parking violations or moving violations that are happening?

[SPEAKER_02]: It's parking. You have like a bunch of no parking signs and no stopping signs, but old habits seem to be kind of consistent here, where people just park where they would be accustomed to parking.

[SPEAKER_04]: Probably worth mentioning when you bring it up to the police department, because I think it's the enforcement ability is slightly different for those. But I had a comment on the bike master plan discussion. One is it might be a good idea to ask for someone from the city to give us an update on this. I appreciate that we want to add it to the agenda and talk about it for next meeting, but it would be good if next meeting also we could hear about where they left off. So we know how much work there is left to do and what they were aiming for with the update. I think that will be a vital piece of information and deciding if we want to take it on or not. Then I'll also add that in terms of a planning document, The way that other places are doing their, their bike network plans or master plans typically involve. I would say the level of outreach at least that, like. The Medford, what is that called? Like the community plan or whatever they just did with the Medford master plan. It's like CDB.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: The community development board, is that where you're referring?

[SPEAKER_04]: Not the development board, not like the zoning stuff, but whatever they just did with updated a master plan or whatever.

[SPEAKER_09]: A lot of outreach.

[Jared Powell]: Medford comprehensive plan. Yeah.

[SPEAKER_09]: To do it well, do it right.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think Medford's city outreach is shockingly good to start with, but just another. thing to think about about what we want our goals to be with that and what we really want it to reflect like our opinion or the city's opinion or the residents opinion or some of both.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Awesome. Thanks, Leah. Yep.

[Ernie Meunier]: Sorry. Go ahead, Ernie. Yeah. Thanks, Emily, for the for the history report. That's how I see it, too. And to double down and say that the development of the master plan around biking infrastructure is very much in our wheelhouse, our bailiwick. I don't know Leah, if there is a there there who we consult with or ask for tutelage on this, we have to take the bull by the horns here for next year and reorganize and reprioritize the master plan, I think. A tiny note on jurisdiction, I believe Duggar Park and its access is the city, but, shit, what's their name now? Sorry. Mystic Valley Parkway is the jurisdiction of DCR and therefore the state police. And not local. So that's why it all gets confusing as to how things are painted, who gets ticketed, who you call when there's an issue. But that's just my understanding. Maybe Duggar Park somehow and its access falls within DCR, but I doubt it.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Thank you very much, Ernie. I think we've diverged a bit. So if you all don't mind, I guess in this case, I'm looking down the agenda. Scott is not here, neither is Dennis. Sorry, Emily, can you give a quick update on the bike racks purchase?

[Emily O'Brien]: So my most recent approach about getting the city to install bike racks is I've been pestering the mayor and the city council about making a specific budget item for it. Of course, they want to know how much they cost. I have now asked Todd three or four times how much it costs to install per bike rack. I can find out how much they cost to buy. That part's easy. But Todd has always said that the hard part is not necessarily the purchase price. It's having the staff and the resources to install them. I have asked him several times, and I haven't gotten an answer to a single one of those emails. I'm hoping that he comes tonight, and I will ask him again. Otherwise, if I don't hear anything, I'll go back and say, I haven't heard anything, I've been asking, but when push comes to shove, you stick a hole in the ground and you stick a metal pole in it with some concrete. So it can't be that different from the cost to install a signpost or a parking meter. So if we can figure out how much it costs to install a signpost or a parking meter, that should at least get us into the right ballpark and we can figure out how much money we need to ask for. For the installation of some number of bike racks per year, my suggestion would be to ask for something like 40 the first year and then 20 or 30 every year after that. This is something that's not, this isn't a one-time thing. It has to be done on an ongoing basis, partly because there's always attrition. They always get broken eventually. Nothing lasts forever. And partly because at the rate of 40 per year, it would still take us a number of years to actually have a bike rack in easy reach from every place you want to go. So this is, you know, we have the map that we've sent in, which supposedly will be used to install something like 40 bike racks when this grant comes through, which we've been told about for, what, two years now, almost a year and a half. Um, but we haven't managed to get any updates on that from Todd either. Um, but if it's like 40 bike racks every however many years, um, I think, I think we got something like 25 or 30 across the city in like 2018 maybe. Um, so we're talking seven, every seven years we get a couple dozen. That's not. that doesn't, that's not gonna make it enough to be able to like ride your bike to a business and be able to park there. So that's where that is. I'm fairly frustrated that I haven't actually been able to, you know, I have, and in this case, maybe he's just busy. I'm fairly frustrated that I've emailed a bunch of times and I haven't even gotten, I'll get back to you on that kind of an answer, but that's where it is.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Before I recognize you there, Ernie, Emily, would you like to loop me in? I'm happy to try and set up a meeting between me, you, Todd, and Tim, and see what I can do there. I realize that, not that I have necessarily any more clout than you, but I'm happy to help attempt to move this along as well. So thank you. Yeah, hold on. Let me recognize Ernie on that.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, just if you want to do a little tail wagging the dog on this. I know that if you want to talk to the people, I can't remember his name, who runs the DPW squads that actually do the work. Owen Cortala. Sorry, Owen. Are you talking about Owen? No, I'm talking people who fix the potholes and do the curbs and do all that stuff and would be doing this stuff. I've approached him once around the painting the potholes thing years ago. He, of course, gets the directives from the city from Todd and Tim as to what to do that week and gets it done. He is has told me he's always available at 7 a.m sharp at his office down at the Public Works site to describe what he's going to be doing then, and then and I'm sure can tell you how many hours it's going to take to put in a bike rack. So it may not be a bad idea to know what's actually going on as well as inquiring from the head and co-heads that we know well but have been unresponsive. So you can actually go see this guy who has the shovel in his hand for his people, but only at 7 a.m. at the DPW office, where he gets his crews out for the day and is then non-reachable for the rest of the workday. So just a little hint.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Thank you. If you end up coming up with a name, let us know just so that if one of us end up deciding to show up to the DPW unannounced, we know who to bang on the door of. But that is appreciated. Thank you, Ernie. Any other updates in that vein?

[Emily O'Brien]: I was hoping that there would be a little bit more of an update and eventually I would like to have an item to a motion to approve a request that we're asking for such and such an amount of money, but don't have that yet.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I do understand that. All right. I guess. There is nothing else. I'm happy to move on to the police working group. At the moment, not exactly any movement there. That's on me. I have discussed with Emily possible items to bring up with the police department. I feel that our next meeting should be strategic and that we shouldn't, just due to the constraints of scheduling and perhaps, a somewhat cold reception, for lack of a better word, that we had last time. I would like to make the next meeting that we have with them somewhat strategic in our asks. I do know that Bruce has offered to, or perhaps has offered, if my memory recalls correctly, to run a League of American Bicyclists safety training for them if they would so request that. So that's something, Bruce, if you're still willing to run that, it's something that I would possibly bring to them. But I would like to just make sure that I'm not overstepping my bounds in offering your time. So no particular updates there. I will take, if anyone would like to, send specific requests to me to consider for the discussion with the working group. I'm happy to evaluate those. Things regarding helmets, I think should be held until updates there. I do have updates, maybe not the best updates, but I would like to hold any discussion around helmets until then. So I open the floor to anyone who would like to make particular requests when I'm constructing the agenda for the police discussion.

[Bruce Kulik]: Can we just email these to you?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yes, feel free to either email them to me or bring them up with me directly here.

[Emily O'Brien]: Just for, um, the, some of the things that we have mentioned before, and that I think we are hoping to discuss with them are, um, things about, for example, parking enforcement, um, and parking next to bike lanes. Um, and this would include like the parking by Duggar park. Um, and then. generally aggressive driving and passing and harassment and the possibility of eventually getting a officer on a bike. Um, which there's, which is probably a longer term goal, but as far as we can tell, there isn't anybody on the force who rides a bike in Medford right now. And that should, and that's really a shame. Um, so those are, I think those are some of our, our top concerns for the moment. Um, and those are the things that we've talked about already. So.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, sorry, go ahead, Leah.

[SPEAKER_04]: I was just about to ask what has already been talked about and or rejected. So thank you, Emily. One thing I didn't hear in that list is a discussion about data for bike crashes. You know, if they have it, what kind they have, if it's somewhere easily accessible, if it's Not that great what can we, you know, what sort of feasible to make it a little bit better. Also, what kind of training they've had on like. What they should do when there was a bike crash. I remember a couple of years ago that Ernie had a little bit of a tough time with his own bike crash and getting reported in a. not favorable or truthful way.

[Emily O'Brien]: I think we did ask them before about what training they had for some of these things, and they were sort of vague and didn't really give us much of an answer to that. But I think that's a good point that we should bring up, and also data. We've mentioned before, but we should be sure to make sure that that's on our list this time.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they kind of go, you know, hand in hand, I guess. And I think there's also sort of an offering that we can make there if their data is not very good, like of sort of making our own little Google form or whatever of sort of places that people can

[Emily O'Brien]: Well, I think the thing that we have talked about that we can ask for is to ask for a field to be added to see click fix for people to describe harassment incidents. At the moment, there's nobody interested in receiving those reports except for us. And so the one concern I have with doing that is if there are incidents that really should involve the police and people report them that way and think that they have reported it to somebody who can do something about it. And it really is only going to us so that we can then come back and say, hey, look at all of these reports we have. We need to be just really careful about how we present that and how we describe it to make sure that people understand that it really is only for informational purposes and that nobody with the ability to take any action on this particular event is going to be reading it in any kind of timely manner.

[SPEAKER_04]: Agreed.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Although that is a good call out for me to follow up on getting that section added to see click fix if nothing else other than for historical reporting. Bruce, do you mind?

[Emily O'Brien]: Should we make a motion to direct you to do that?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Oh, I am happy to take a, I am happy to accept that motion. Do I hear a motion to have me as the chair officially follow up with the city to have that, I guess, category added to see click fix.

[Emily O'Brien]: I would make that motion and I would also add to it that in the interests of expediency, we empower you to tell them how it should be configured and what kind of dropdowns it should have and what kind of details it needs to say what we need it to say, just because otherwise it'll take us three more meetings to approve all of those things.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I understand that. Do I hear a second?

[Emily O'Brien]: So that is my motion. I'll second that.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay, all in favor.

[Bruce Kulik]: Who seconded?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Uh, yeah.

[Bruce Kulik]: Please raise your hand. I didn't hear it was Leah. Thank you.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right. Sorry, before holding. Yep.

[Jared Powell]: Sorry. Before voting. Can I make an amendment that you also have the executive action to increase the scope of the request to other things that should also be added to see click fix that are related to our purview, such as a request for bike racks.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I, this, yes, I think that if it makes sense with how other towns have possibly done this in the future, I'm not sure if that's something that, I'm not sure if CClickFix is necessarily the place to go and put requests in, but I'm happy to support that. Emily?

[Emily O'Brien]: Just on that, I think that might be a separate agenda item just because that request, we really do want that to go to the DPW and not just to us, or it should be a separate category at the very least if the DPW just doesn't want to know about it. Somerville did recently add a bike rack request option to their 311 system. which is what they use instead of, it's basically the same as C-Click Fix, but it's a different provider. So Somerville is doing it that way.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Can I raise that this could be two separate actions for two separate things with C-Click Fix? I am happy to take both of those on if both of those want to be raised.

[Emily O'Brien]: I would suggest that they'd be two separate actions for two separate things.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay.

[Jared Powell]: I'm agnostic on that particular point, but they do have bike-related things in C-Click Fix in Medford already. Presumably they are not only sending them to us, because I certainly don't see them.

[Emily O'Brien]: No, no, no. The incident report thing would be basically there's nobody in Medford currently who wants to hear about it. And the only way to add that to C-Click Fix is to have it come to us. And maybe that's true of bike racks as well. I don't know. But it's a slightly different situation in that the police department is not isn't currently going to take much action on the basis of people saying they were harassed, but the DPW is the one that would be putting in the bike racks and that is the thing that they have the power to do if they have the funding and the directive to do it. If they don't want to hear it, then we can ask the city to put in that request and say that it only goes to us because nobody at the city is actually interested in it currently.

[SPEAKER_09]: To me, it makes sense to have that on cclickfix because we're essentially crowdsourcing recommendations for bike rack locations, and then we would filter those requests and put in the formal request to the DPW based off of public input.

[Jared Powell]: I'm, I'm personal, I think that that makes sense, Chris, although I'm, I'm personally less interested in having any such requests come to us because I think they already know that we're interested in more bike racks. I would much rather such requests come from citizens who are not on the bike commission just because it's, I don't know, sometimes they, they know what we're going to say already. And I'd, I'd rather it come from another source.

[Emily O'Brien]: Well, I think the difference there is, or the point there is, if the DPW doesn't want that information, then we might as well have them, have those requests come to us so that we can pass them along and say, here, look is all the bike rack requests that the DPW doesn't want to hear about because they don't have the resources to do anything about it. But we do actually at least have you know, we have more than our own opinion in that we have this pile of C-click fix requests. Um, it's still, it's not ideal, but it's better than nothing. Um, and the, and the like harassment incident reporting is kind of the same thing. This is, this is to give us, to give more weight to us when we go to the city and ask for things. Um, since the city is not currently doing anything with this information.

[Bruce Kulik]: Um, just summarize at this point, the motion that's on the table, which is to, um, empower Daniel to provide a C click fix agenda items, basically at his discretion to figure out, um, who should get them and lobby the city to have that happen. Do I have that recorded correctly?

[Jared Powell]: Sounds right.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yes. I'm happy to take that on. So in that case with the amendment there, do I hear a motion? So moved. Okay, do I hear a second? Aye. Okay, I see Ernie as the second. In that case, all in favor?

[Bruce Kulik]: Aye.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay, all opposed? Hearing none, the ayes have it. I will take my ultimate powers of CClickFix to the city. All right.

[SPEAKER_09]: One final note on that, Noam. There is something in CClickFix for, like, parking issue. So I don't know where that goes.

[Emily O'Brien]: It goes to parking enforcement.

[Unidentified]: Tough.

[Emily O'Brien]: I've used that to like report things, report people parked in bike lanes basically. In case anybody needs to know this, if you click on parking issue, it will ask you for the make and model and plates and everything of the vehicle, which takes a really long time to enter in on your phone. And if you click on parking related issue, you can just put a picture and describe what's going on and be done with it. And I think it goes to the same place.

[Theresa Dupont]: Probably, yeah.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: G-I-L. OK, that's useful. Cool. Awesome. Little C-Click fix hacks. That can be used. Not sure if that should be part of official record, but there it is. Um, okay. Uh, I guess if we can moving on to events, um, family bike ride, Jared.

[Jared Powell]: Yes. Okay. I have this open. So on the theme of non-responsive people, Paul Morgan, who we've spoken with from Family Bike Ride, has had to change the kind of starting point and ending point based on some challenges I think you talked about last time in Arlington. The plan now is to, I think, start at the Condon Show and bike to Assembly. Start in Medford, go through Medford Square, go through the Clippership Connector, and go along the nice path system that they used for the Halloween ride last time to end up at Assembly. um so that is sunday october 26 i believe so they've had to read they've had to change the the dates a little bit um he talked to the medford police because the medford police had to write a letter of support to mastat in order to put up some cones or something, I think, on the Craddock bridge just for safety reasons. So like he wanted to put cones on the Craddock bridge so that people would be safe. Mastod says, okay, you need the police's permission. The police wrote a letter saying we're cool with that. And apparently they did it very quickly, which was very nice. And so they've got approval to do that. He submitted his He found out that it's the mayor's office, apparently, that controls permits for special events, which is maybe a little counterintuitive. But they've gone radio silent on him and have not responded to a bunch of requests from him, from the mayor and Alicia as well, specifically. So he has asked for some support from us, and also the director of community affairs, too, apparently have all kind of stopped responding to his emails and voicemails, which is frustrating, certainly. So I don't know if I'm happy or others I'm sure would be happy to send some more emails, but I'm not really sure exactly. It feels like kind of a scattershot approach and you just kind of hope that the right person is either on the email thread or responds because their supervisor is on the email thread, you know, something to that effect. But I don't know if anyone has any particularly close personal contacts that they certainly should not need to leverage in order to get a response here, but we might want to do so anyway. That's where that is. He basically needs some levers pulled to get people to wake up and pay attention to this very reasonable request to showcase a really nice new amenity in Medford.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Ultimately, the request here is to have one of us reach out to the mayor's office,

[Jared Powell]: Well, the mayor's office or any kind of, you know, sub office within the executive branch under the mayor, right. Um, whichever we believe is the most likely to actually move this forward. I think the, you know, community affairs office or something should be a good option, but yeah, basically.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Jared, will you just loop me into the email with him really quickly? That way I can take that on just as the chair to, I'm not sure if we actually need a motion for this as this is something that is being driven externally and I'm just acting as a liaison, but I would be happy to see what I can do there. Cool.

[Jared Powell]: Um, yeah, I mean, I'm, that would be great. Thank you. Um, I don't know, maybe it takes a, uh, emotion if we want to have you kind of write a blurb or something about how awesome this sort of thing is and why we really need to pay attention to it. Um, which we've done before. Um, I think I've written something like that in the past that you could repurpose here if you want, but.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Uh, I, I'm, I am entirely open to it. Um, Emily.

[Emily O'Brien]: Um, I was just going to say, Jared, if you, since you've been the point of contact with Paul, you could, you might suggest that he, um, ask Carl Alexander to pass to the male's office as well. Um, the that. Carl might be able, I think Carl would be interested and motivated to make this work and make this happen and might be more likely to get a response. That's all.

[Jared Powell]: He's with the Mystic.

[Emily O'Brien]: Mystic River Watershed Association.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah. Okay. Cool. All right. Uh, sounds good. All right, Daniel, then action items you're following up and I can also, um, see if Carl wants to separately advocate. Is that fair?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, that would be wonderful. I have a few items on my agenda and I wish I had more time for everything bike related right now in my life, but sadly, life can, we all know how that can happen. But yes, I am happy to be a contact there.

[Jared Powell]: Cool, thank you.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Um, so, uh, I guess just, uh, sorry, uh, any other comments on that or Jared, did you have anything you want to follow up with? I'll take that as a no, if you remain off camera and muted.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, no, I'm good. I need to step away for just a moment for the kiddos. But thank you.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right. Okay, so with that Harvester Energy Festival, that is coming up on October 18. I have already tentatively accepted that with the Medford office of uh sorry uh i believe preservation and development uh i might have gotten that wrong um so i have tentatively said yes i believe we will have enough people that is october 18th um unless i'm incorrect We've shown up to this multiple times across the years. It's a great time. I know I have attended it. I am not sure if I will be able to attend this year. One thing that was requested was that we show up with, and Ernie, this is like your time to shine, it was requested that we show up with bike lights. This was something that they were, very energetic about. So if we're able to show up and be able to distribute any bike light kits or other paraphernalia, I think there would be a very positive reception there. So it's something that I believe that we should be doing. I have already effectively bookmarked our space. But if anyone is able to go and attend that, that would be wonderful. It is 12 to 3 p.m. It is at the infamous wind turbine. I forget which school that is right on the back of. I'm sure someone can correct me faster than I can figure it out. Sorry, but at Riverbend Park. So yes, that is the update I have there. We are being requested.

[Bruce Kulik]: In the past, we have said that we would assign an individual who would be responsible for making sure that everything's coordinated so that we don't have repeat of the circle square where either nobody shows up or the tent's not there. Do we have somebody on this? Is that you? Is that somebody else?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I will need to defer to someone else as I have a lot of other things going on through September and October, along with other things that I need to follow up on. So I would raise if anyone is willing to step up and take a position on driving our Harvester Energy Festival participation.

[Emily O'Brien]: I'm also really scattered in October, but I just wanted to say that even if you can't make it on that day, that's OK if you want to just be the person who makes sure everybody knows where they're going to be when. So you don't have to be able to be there on that day just to be the person to coordinate and make sure that somebody is there.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: That is fair.

[Bruce Kulik]: I would like to suggest that maybe some of the newer people think about this.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I see. Let me recognize Ernie.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, just to follow up our emails. Yes, I will be there in the early side of that time with 30 or more bike-like kits, I think. But I can't commit to being there nor to setting up the table. But I'll certainly be part of the crew with the lights.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Anyone? Anyone? I can, if push comes to shove, I can try to coordinate it as best as I can. I'm away that weekend.

[Emily O'Brien]: I'll put you on that if needed.

[SPEAKER_02]: The stuff from the farmer's market at my house still, so the table and the sign thing, and maybe there's like five light kits, so I can coordinate with whoever's coordinating, I guess, to hand that off and take it to wherever it needs to be before the event.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I just heard and saw in the chat a lot of people say they're not going to be there. I'm not going to be there. Do we know that we have enough people to staff it?

[Ernie Meunier]: Well, we just really need three.

[Bruce Kulik]: I'm willing to staff it and be at the table, but I was being reluctant to coordinate it because we also have another event which I'm planning on coordinating, which we haven't talked about yet. I would certainly be available to be at the, at the booth.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay. Just wanted to make sure that not the entire bike commission is gone the, on October 18th.

[Emily O'Brien]: I may be able to be there. I just, there's a whole bunch of moving parts in October and I'm not, um, I'm hesitant to come in.

[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, I can say, I, I cannot either. I have a medical procedure. I will be out of commission that weekend.

[SPEAKER_09]: What do we got, Bruce?

[Bruce Kulik]: Hang on one second before I get too committed about that. Oh, no, I'm good. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_09]: So who's our three? Sorry, what was that, Chris? I missed that. Who's our three? I think Ernie said we need three to be there. Well, it's a good idea.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I guess there are tentatives from Emily and possibly me. I need to double check on that.

[Emily O'Brien]: I kind of had it in my head that there were other people who had said that they were available and it might be people who aren't here now.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Possible.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I mean, there's other folks who aren't here.

[Ernie Meunier]: Anna, did you have your hand up?

[SPEAKER_01]: no i'm gonna i'm also i'm also out of town that week okay

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: In that case, I can offer to coordinate. I can't offer to be present, though, if I am around that weekend. October is going to be a bit of a chaotic month for me. So I will do what I can, but I cannot promise my presence. Regardless, I can coordinate that. remotely in lack of anything else.

[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you Daniel.

[SPEAKER_09]: Quick aside guys, do we have like a events calendar for the year? Because it'd be kind of nice to know about events further in advance. It'd be helpful to put them on the calendar and block block other stuff before things get busy, but.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: It's a good call out. I think normally things are brought up as we hear about them or are invited to them. I am not sure if every... Our next meeting says our meeting is in March, if that helps. Let me take a look at that in a bit, Leah. I think some of these, until they are officially scheduled by whatever entity is putting them on, it's hard to know, but we can possibly come up with a recurring calendar of events. That is something that we could try and do, at least for things that are consistent. which Harvester Energy, I believe, generally is. I'm not sure if it's always on the same weekend in every October. Does anyone recall? Okay, go ahead, Chris. Sorry.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I mean, it could be. Yeah, it's always nice having the, like, Google bike commission, Google calendar, where it just plugs in and it shows up. But if that's too hard to do because dates aren't known, then even like a simple page on the website, like here's the annual events that we know about that happen every year. Even if we don't have dates, you can plug them in for approximately when they occur. It might be nice for publicity as well to advertise things.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, at least note the month. that they usually occur.

[Emily O'Brien]: Do we have a person who's in charge of the website now, or is it still you, Daniel?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I haven't even been updating it consistently.

[Bruce Kulik]: I think I've got access to it. I'd have to double check, but I think I do.

[Emily O'Brien]: I think I did at one point, but I don't know if I still do.

[SPEAKER_01]: I do website maintenance for my job. I maintain the website for my job. So that's something that I would be happy to help with, depending on what platform we use.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I think it's cheese. Yeah. It's a UI. It is entirely like a graphical user interface. It's very simple. Anna, if you are interested in helping us with that, that was something that when I was secretary, I took on as part of the meeting minutes updates, but I never maintained anything else on the website. If you're willing to help there, that would be wonderful because I know that it's something that has fallen off my radar recently.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I can help with that.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Anna, I can get to that to you offline.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you need another resource, I'm happy to help. That's in my skill set as well.

[Bruce Kulik]: OK. I can work with both of you and figure out what we want to do. For me, it's mostly just been a matter of attention. I won't even say bandwidth, but just getting my attention to think about what should we do and what changes need to be made. So by having additional people doing that, I think that might be helpful.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think that's great.

[Bruce Kulik]: We can just do that offline.

[Emily O'Brien]: Do we need to move to form a web subcommittee or working group? Are we just good?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I think we're good. Good. I think this falls within standard maintenance and just maintaining. At the moment, yeah, I concur. I don't think we need a working group for this. Sorry, not to belabor that we've been on Harvester Energy Festival for probably far too long at this point. Bruce, would you like to give a quick update on Tufts Community?

[Bruce Kulik]: So I left a link in the agenda, which I will copy to the chat for everybody's edification. And it's basically going to be on October the 5th from 11 to 2 PM. They are looking for people to sign up, they say as soon as possible. So hopefully we're not too late, but I would take the lead on that and get us there. And if we are accepted, then organize for people to show up. Otherwise I would just show up and I would volunteer to be the coordinator for that event as well. So that's assuming we want to do it. So all we need is just approval for me to go ahead with it and I can take it from there.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Do I hear a motion to approve Bruce to be the head of that?

[SPEAKER_09]: I'm just like, what is what is like being there? What do I entail? Same thing as we do at other.

[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, it's our basic table. And we hang out at the table. People come and talk to us. And if we have lights to give away, we do that. I have in my head to get some better handout material or better program. And I know, Chris, you and I are on planning to get together. I think, who else was the third person who was going to do that? Adam. Adam.

[SPEAKER_09]: Adam.

[Bruce Kulik]: Oh, Adam, OK, not on today. So anyhow, where was I going with that? Yeah, so basically, that's what we do at the tables, and answer questions that people might have. How do you get places? What are we doing about blah, blah, blah? When does ClipperShipConnector open? Blah, blah, blah, that kind of things.

[SPEAKER_04]: Do you think it will be more skewed towards students at Tufts, or just our general crowd?

[Bruce Kulik]: It's a general crowd that when people show up, it's like literally a community day, and it's really more externally facing than internal for Tufts.

[Emily O'Brien]: Gotcha. When I did it a couple years ago, I saw a guy that I had met on my very first group ride 25 years ago. I mean, I have also known him otherwise in between. It wasn't like I just saw him that one time. But he lives in Wellesley and was in town for the day and went to the thing. So it's definitely not just a Tufts thing.

[SPEAKER_09]: All right. That is one I might be able to attend if you need another person there. Chris?

[Bruce Kulik]: All right, I will send out separately a call for volunteers as we get a little bit closer. And assuming we get accepted, I do need to contact them, which we'll do in the next day or so. So I heard a motion, I think. Anna, that's right. That's what I had you named out for. One second.

[Unidentified]: All right.

[Bruce Kulik]: And we're looking for a second, I think.

[Unidentified]: Yep.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Seconded.

[Bruce Kulik]: Emily.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All in favor?

[Bruce Kulik]: Aye.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed? Hearing none, the ayes have it. All right. All right. Ernie, bike lights report, if you can, in as few words as possible. We'll try and catch back up with this schedule. Oh, we're running late. Same with me too. I'll get through helmet distribution real fast if you can get through.

[Ernie Meunier]: Sure, well, it is quick. Thanks for reaching out to Alicia to get an old invoice paid. I've not heard from her. You probably saw, well, last time we agreed that since we're running short on the League of Bicyclists, American Bicyclists quick guide that we need to order some. So I did earlier in the week after asking Alicia if she wanted to order them instead. I didn't hear back from her. So I just followed through on our agreement to purchase some. Remarkably, they're arriving tomorrow, so 500 of them. That'll take us through next year and allow Anna and I, in a couple weeks, to stuff the bike light kits now that the guides are in and the lights, as you know, have been here. So what I will do to make this a little bit more expedient is combine the invoice for next year's bike lights, which I paid for in April, with this $600 expense for the 500 quick guides, and ask JRA to submit that as a combined invoice to Alicia in the city, and hope that maybe by 2028, I will get paid.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Um, Ernie would, would it make more sense to pay this out of the, uh, uh, and back, um, checkbook effectively?

[Ernie Meunier]: Well, I don't know. See, we talked about that briefly before as to who has money and who gets to control all this. Last time, I don't know how I was reimbursed, but I bought these booklets about two years ago. Maybe Emily remembers. And somehow I got reimbursed for that.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay, with that, let me just see this. Emily, do you have any updates on that particular portion?

[Emily O'Brien]: I don't have updates, but just to answer the question about how they get paid for and why JRA is involved is that the city didn't want to go through for various reasons.

[Ernie Meunier]: We don't have that history. All right, go ahead.

[Emily O'Brien]: The city can only buy from approved vendors, and the cheap supplier in China is not one of those. And if it goes through JRA, then JRA is an approved vendor. And so that's why this whole thing, the whole operation gets done through JRA. I don't know why the quick guides also would have to be, but if that if that expedites the process, then whether it comes out of the bike commission budget or not, it still gets paid for. The money still gets paid to the same. person or the same entity, regardless of which budget it comes out of.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yes. The kink seems to be that Alicia does not want any funds dispersed to MBAC individual members, only to final invoicers. So that's why I think it may make sense to put the quick guides in on a JRA invoice, bumping that from $1,100 to $1,700 and getting her to pay for it once and for all. Given that Brookline Bank's giving us $500 this summer. That means the net expense for all of the lights for next year and the quick guides will be $1,700 minus $500, so it'll be about $1,200, which is most of the budget. But again, I don't see that there is even a fixed $1,500 budget account in her purview that is monitored or balanced over a period of time. It seems to be losing... Let's not worry about that, Ernie.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: No, I know, but... I will raise this with Alicia directly. I will follow up there.

[Ernie Meunier]: Okay. Yeah, be curious. She didn't respond, so...

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I realize that. I suspect there's a lot going on with Alicia. I agree. But nonetheless, leave that one with me. I'm happy to follow up and make sure that you get reimbursed.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I'm in no rush for it because it's been, you know, over a year in one case. But but it'd be good if it doesn't fall through the cracks forever.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I completely agree with that. As an aside, the invoice with JRA required me to follow up with Alicia because they directly reached out to me because I know people at JRA. So let me see what I can do about getting the finances sorted out. But thank you for the update on that and continuing on. I know you've already sent me that invoice. I have it saved. I will make that a particular point to follow up as just a natural part of being the chair. I don't think we necessarily need a motion for me to follow up on our outstanding debts.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah. And as a last sentence, it appears that with Anna's help in mid-September, we'll get a couple hundred of these. bike light kits wrapped up and I should be able to distribute 150 or so to the schools by, let's say, the end of September for the fall season. That's it. Thank you.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Bernie? Helmet distribution. I'm sorry. Does anyone have any comments on the bike lights or shall I move on to helmet distributions? All right. helmet distributions. Sadly, um, Berkshire, white and Gluck or Berkshire, I've.

[Bruce Kulik]: Breakstone. Breakstone.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Breakstone. Thank you. That's the B. I forgot the B. Um, Breakstone, white and Gluck has discontinued their helmet, um, I did reach out to the individual who was originally there. She has since left. She gave me some leads on the ability to buy helmets ourselves if we need that. I believe she got something like 30 helmets for $500 for a program that she's currently running. She did give me those links. I think that's something that we may need to raise as either finding a new corporate sponsor or coming up with the money to buy helmets ourselves. So that is the update I have there. Any comments on that? I currently have enough things on my plate that trying to follow up with the helmets may be a bridge too far for me at this point. But... I raise this. Go ahead, Ernie.

[Ernie Meunier]: immediately yeah i got it um i will tickle my contacts in uh hong kong about that because they had offered the lights people uh to to be able to get helmets i i Boy, doing due diligence on quality and all that would be awfully difficult if they're coming from China and maybe the shipping makes it nonsensical. But we know that good helmets that are approved by ASTM as well as other regulatory bodies, you know, retail in the low 20s at Target and all kinds of places, and they're well-made. Schwinn has their name on them, et cetera. If that's the case, then they only cost in bulk $12 or $13 or $14 a piece. Maybe that's not too far off from what you were quoted as $17. Daniel. But I don't know how to, you know, go to a market and pick and choose what we like. I think that what's his name, the Bridgestone people did pretty good job with whoever their source was. I think the helmets we distributed were right on the money for quality and size distribution for all youth ages. So I'd love to be able to replicate that somehow. Even if we try to find out from them who their source was, we wouldn't need special stenciling or ink on them or any of that personalization. But if we can get this down below, let's say $15 per helmet, I think we should really try to attract some funding to do that.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: No, what I'm hearing move, we're looking for, uh, per item piece below $15. Ultimately. I would.

[SPEAKER_09]: Sorry, sorry, quick Google search helmets are us. They've got a whole bunch of options that I'll meet the sort of us quality certs for under. $12 each.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Um, I should note that I think that that was one of the names that, uh, forget her name. Um, but yes, that was a, that, that was a company that was raised to me.

[Ernie Meunier]: Chris was his quantity under a hundred or 500. What to get that?

[SPEAKER_09]: I don't see any quality requirements here. I mean, wow. Okay. I'm just briefly searching right now, but.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Uh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_09]: It's like $10 for a single one.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: That's for 500 for my own project from helmets RS.

[SPEAKER_09]: Uh, minimum order 24. Oh, that's easy. And orders must be placed through an organization. It says, but I think we need those.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yep. Um, at the moment, uh, I do not have the bandwidth with other things that I have on my plate. Um, is anyone willing to take this on, uh, possibly, you know, either a working group or individually? Oh, yeah.

[Ernie Meunier]: Working group, but not into it.

[SPEAKER_09]: Not totally me. And just to clarify, when you say take this on, like research and purchase by comments?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I think at the moment we probably want to do research and then we can approve the purchase at a future meeting.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I guess I'm happy to take it on, but I think some clarity around like who are we buying for and how many and any other sort of considerations to help. spec out what we need?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I think at the moment, this is helmets for distribution at events. Specifically, I think that Ernie has also raised that these might be presented to the police department as something to give out to kids when they have the opportunity to. So that is I think how we are envisioning them being used at the moment, sort of a giveaway to any particular individual. Sorry, go ahead, Leah.

[SPEAKER_04]: I was going to say, it may also be worth mentioning that I think we've focused on children-sized helmets in the past, just because the law in Massachusetts is that you're required to wear one if you're, like, 16 and under, I think. Possibly under 16.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, that's our priority. That's the glaring need. And in terms of distribution, I mean, I'm going to distribute to the five schools twice a year. It's pretty easy for me to fill the car with 150, 100 helmets at the same time and have distribution through the schools with a point person there who might do the fitting. Because we talked last time about how we should be responsible for fitting helmets on kids, especially, and not just throwing them at them or having the police do so without at least some due diligence about proper fit.

[Bruce Kulik]: So, again, this is working group stuff, I suppose, but... I'd like to move that we form that working group and appoint people to that group at this point.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Bruce, before we do that, I'd like to give Noam and then Jared an opportunity to weigh in here really quickly.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is it proposed that the working group also is like trying to solicit a corporate underwriter for this? Is that part of the scope? Sure. And then I do recall the Metro police has like their own supply of helmets they give out to like that big event they have at Hormel, you know, they're handing out helmets and I don't believe they came from us. So I wonder if that's another line of inquiry as well. But perhaps this is fodder for the working group.

[Ernie Meunier]: are you joining the group?

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm volunteering, I guess, to participate in the group as well.

[Ernie Meunier]: Great.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Jared. Sorry. Where's there? Yes.

[Jared Powell]: There we go. Just following up on Noam's point there. The Medford family network, you know, as fodder for, for distribution, or for the working group, sorry. The Medford Family Network is probably a really good resource there. They do not exclusively serve low-income families, but that's certainly a big part of their mission. And it seems to me that that should be something that we're prioritizing as well, because those are the people who have the hardest time actually buying helmets for their kids. So that seems like a very natural partnership for this sort of effort. amazing organization if there's anyone on the phone who has not worked with them due to not having kids or just not really being into that or something. Really, really wonderful nonprofit in Medford that beats the pants off of almost any nonprofit I've come across. Really, really great organization.

[Ernie Meunier]: Jared, I missed their name. What's their name?

[Jared Powell]: The Medford Family Network. The Medford Family Network.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[Jared Powell]: Their office is in the high school building.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this is a great, great group. All right.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Sorry. Oh, Jared, I'm going to lower your hand. There we go. Sorry, so do I hear a motion to form this working group? Okay, just to clarify, the working group is to both determine a set of helmets to buy and to try and solicit a corporate sponsor. This may not necessarily enable the group to purchase helmets on the behalf of MBAC that may have to come to in a separate vote just due to budget constraints, I believe. So those are the limits of the working group. And I guess, Bruce, I think if your motion, I assume your motion still stands with those limitations.

[Bruce Kulik]: Yes, that's fine.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay. Do I hear a second? Second.

[Jared Powell]: Second.

[Bruce Kulik]: Please raise your hand when you second, so I can tell who did it. Thank you. Thank you, Chris.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

[SPEAKER_09]: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Sounds good. Moving on. Unless there are any other comments. Clipper ship connector access. I guess since we don't have Todd here, I will have to follow up and see what's happened to Todd. I realize he's been a little MIA recently. uh i think it's worth noting that the way finding signs did get out emily if you would like to make any comment on that feel free to um and aside from that i have nothing else i think i basically i said what there was to say about that that was just that we

[Emily O'Brien]: went out and did it, that it's better than nothing. I think it's nice. It would be good to mention that we had to go out and put these plastic signs up with a special grant and volunteer help, because it wasn't part of the original planning of the project, like it really should have been all along for the 10 years that that was planned. So all I would say about that is, next time there's another bike path project, another DCR project, another connections project, even just improvements or updates or repairs to existing path networks, this would be a reason to say, hey, remember how we went out and put up quick and dirty plastic signs with volunteer help because it turned out that they were important I do remember, I do remember asking about wayfinding in a public meeting about the Clippership connector, something like eight or 10 years ago, back when such things were all in person, and we'd never heard of Zoom. And the person who I don't even remember who it was from DCR saying, oh, we have these granite pillars and you can't miss them. And we know how useful they are for getting you across Medford Square. So that's all to say, it's great that we have them. I'm really glad that we did it. I hope that next time we can point to it and say, let's plan it in the first place. And it doesn't have to be a separate quick and dirty thing after the fact. That's all.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Noted. Bruce?

[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, so I went through there, I think, after the signs were put up. And I've got to say that I don't remember there being a kind of continuous path as to how to do things. Maybe I missed a sign or maybe someone pulled down.

[Emily O'Brien]: We did walk through and there is, I'm pretty sure there is a continuous method or there was when we put them up.

[Bruce Kulik]: It could be that because I was on my bike and perhaps going faster than a pedestrian would be, I bypassed some of them without realizing it. Yeah, I mean, we did our best.

[Emily O'Brien]: We had to put them on, you know, on posts and poles that are there already. And they have to be above a certain height because otherwise, like, people, you hit them. But it's definitely some of those locations were definitely things like, I know that at that height, I would miss it. But then Todd was standing there being like, oh, my head is almost hitting this. Or at one point, I rode my bike past standing up. And oh, this is high enough that I would probably miss it. But I can hit my head if I'm out of this.

[Bruce Kulik]: I'll endeavor to do another survey at some point in the next week or two, just as I go through that area to see. Maybe some have come down or if either suggestions.

[Emily O'Brien]: So yeah, I'm sure they also like get loose and rotate around the poles and stuff. They're just zip tied plastic.

[Bruce Kulik]: Thanks for the effort.

[Emily O'Brien]: It's, you know, hopefully we can hopefully we can get something better in the future.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: With that, Jared.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah. I just had a quick question. Thank you for putting those, those signs up. I, I wrote that the other week for the first time and it was such a, such a nice path. Um, but, um, yeah, I lost the, I tried to follow the signage, but I, I think I deviated. So I wasn't sure, uh, what the final route was when you're, when you're East bounds, like. Emily, do you stay on Clippership and then go all the way to Maine and take the sidewalks up and then kind of make a U-turn there? Yeah, both directions you pick your way through the crosswalks.

[Emily O'Brien]: If you're heading eastbound, I think you cross at the, you cross at the pedestrian crossing that's closer to the Condon Shell, and then you're on that side of the street, and then you go through that area that apparently is called Sleepy Hollow. And then in the other direction, you cross at that pedestrian signal that nobody stops for, and And you're on the same side as the Condon shell. Or maybe I have that backwards. I don't remember. I think it's flipped. But it's.

[Jared Powell]: That's cool. What about, sorry, at Clippership and Maine specifically, if you're going westbound? Is that the approach you take clipper ship, but into Maine and then turn right to filter up through the crosswalks and then yeah.

[Emily O'Brien]: And at the moment you're, you're doing that on the sidewalk.

[Jared Powell]: Right. Okay.

[Emily O'Brien]: And there, and I think Todd told us that there will be, or possibly this is still a possibility and not a definite thing that there may be a bike signal so that you can actually just take a left on main from Clippership. Um, if you're heading westbound.

[Jared Powell]: That's just a possibility. Isn't that.

[Emily O'Brien]: I think he told us that that was going to happen. I don't know a particular timeline for that, but that's, it's not like, it's not there yet. So for the moment, for the time being, you have to go through the, um, you just go through the crosswalks and there are signs asking you to pretty please dismount while you're in the business district. Um, otherwise it asks to yield to pedestrians while on the sidewalk.

[Jared Powell]: If only we had had some warning that this project was coming so we could have handled this in advance If only oh boy Well, thank you.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Thank you for your effort All right, um Yes. Thank you, Emily. I very much appreciate you taking that on. I know it was mostly you and I was like in Sweden while that happened. That's a good excuse. I could have helped you otherwise, but I was all around better biking infrastructure.

[Emily O'Brien]: I mean, it was honestly, we had plenty of people and it was like more people than really necessary to do this job, but It got done, and it got done within the scheduled time. And yeah.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Is it worth us trying to bring this up with the, I guess, the contraflow bike lane, the approved contraflow bike lane along Riverside Ave?

[Emily O'Brien]: You mean Clippership Ave?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Clippership.

[Emily O'Brien]: Sorry, Clippership Ave. Clippership Drive.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Clippership Drive, yes. Sorry, I thought that was Riverside there.

[Emily O'Brien]: I'm not, I mean, if they, the signage will have to be changed if that exists, but, but that's, I don't know what else there is to this. I think this particular thing was actually spearheaded by Carl Alexander with Myra and, or MWRA. and Mystic, M-R-W-A, whatever. And I think this was the, not Massachusetts Water Resources, Mystic River Watershed Association. So I think they had made in order for a specific number of signs. I don't know if there are any left. I don't remember. I don't think there are any left. So it would be another whole thing. But it's not a complicated thing. They're not that expensive, and it doesn't take very long to go and stick out a couple more.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Noted. All right. Well, again, thank you for your efforts there. Hopefully those get updated at some point in the future as well.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think the hope is that if nothing else, when MassDOT does their big project on Main Street, between Main Street and Mystic Ave, there will be a crosswalk and a signal at the South Street end of the Craddock Bridge, at which point you won't have to pick your way up into the square and you can actually cross the street there.

[Jared Powell]: Remind me of the timing of that?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: That's two years ago? Two years. Approximately two years. Something like that. We're running a little bit behind. If there are any other Um, comments, I'm happy to take them, but we should also note that we're well, I'm sure many people here would like to. Move along with at least some of these points. All right. will do in that case. Hold on, sorry, getting back to the agenda. Infrastructure updates. I don't think we need to belabor this point. Ask the city to add, see, click, fix. That's something that I have not done yet, but will be doing in the future. So I don't think we need a discussion point on that. For Salem, Riverside, Main High intersection work. Jared, is this the one that I was referring to earlier? No, this may not be. Sorry. No.

[Bruce Kulik]: I'm not sure what they did there. They said they were going to do it. There was some modification of the islands planned, but it was not a major thing. I don't know, Jared. I don't know. Why are you listed as the person?

[Jared Powell]: I was just trying to remember. I think it was because I saw a social media post about it and was otherwise unaware.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right. I wasn't even aware of this either. It may be worth noting that this is something we should probably bring up in our next meeting, which is not going to be all that far away. I will note. Unless people have a burning desire to discuss this here, I would propose that we table this for the next meeting.

[Bruce Kulik]: That's fine, I think we can do that for when Todd's here. However, we had pushed some of the Mystic Valley Parkway repainting discussion to this agenda item. And I did have some comments I wanted to make in that area.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: No, I am happy to bring those up as well. I wanted to add that to the end after.

[Bruce Kulik]: I was quite surprised when I saw the ghosts getting painted prior to the actual painting, because I was not aware that there were going to be any changes. I didn't see any requests for comments, anything of that sort. So it was really kind of a blindsiding, in my opinion, of the public with regard to painting what they painted there. And I've got to say, frankly, it's substandard. It does not adhere to many of the guidelines, particularly with regard to entering rotaries, traffic circles and the like. The bike lanes supposedly that went across the bridge, basically doesn't have any provisions for crossing straight onto Medford Street going into Arlington. All it does is turn you to the right at Mystic Valley Parkway. So it makes it kind of difficult. A couple of things it does, it discourages lane control, which is vitally important if you're going to be riding right through a rotary. It kind of makes the assumption that you're going to get off and ride through the crosswalk or dismount, et cetera. And I just think that it was, was done hastily and without sufficient input from stakeholders.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I agree with that statement. Sorry, I guess I'm sort of acting out of... Sorry, I'll finish my point really quickly, Emily, and then I'll hand it off. I agree with all of those statements. I think that we might want to think about reaching out to who I believe is sadly, DCR, and raise with them that the design of this rotary is suboptimal. So I would suggest that we possibly get the weight of the MBAC commission to write a letter to them and possibly see if we can't get the rest of the city to push on that point. Go ahead, Emily.

[Emily O'Brien]: I was going to say I, I, I agree with what Bruce said about this. I think this is one of those one of those cases where we need to. We need to get on top of this as quickly as we can. And, you know, there's having just been yelled at for not using a bike lane three times in the last two days, now that there's, you know, students back in town. I don't know if that's why, but this is a case where we're only setting up everybody for more friction. If we make it look like the bike lane is where you're supposed to be, while also creating a situation where that's not actually a safe place to be if you're trying to go straight across the intersection. So my first suggestion is that, if nothing else, if there's a bike lane that looks like it only goes right and there's not a provision for going straight, at the very least, we should have sharrows that go immediately through the middle of the lane and through the middle of the rotary. I think it's possible to configure it in a way that looks like slowing down stopping and using the crosswalk is an acceptable way to get across on a bike and also going straight through the rotary like a vehicle is an acceptable way to get through on a bike. But making it look like bikes just turn off to the right and then disappear is is really pretty counterproductive and it just contributes to the kinds of harassment that we've been complaining about because it makes it look like when you don't use that bike lane that you're doing something that you're not supposed to do. And so it encourages bicyclists to do something that's not necessarily safe And then if they decline to use this facility that's not really safe for making a maneuver that they want to make, then that gets lumped in with the running of red lights as bicyclists don't want to follow the rules and don't want to do what they're supposed to do. And I know that that's a misconception, but it's a common misconception. So I think we're just inviting more friction when we have things that look like this.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Let's see, Jared, and then Ernie, and then Leah.

[Jared Powell]: Sorry, I was looking at maps before, but just to confirm, we're talking right now about High Street, the two rotaries that turn into Medford Street and Arlington?

[Bruce Kulik]: That's correct.

[Jared Powell]: Okay. So apologies. My memory, I feel like is not what it used to be, but did, but did we not review plans for this redesign maybe a year or two ago and provide comments on that topic where like Bruce, I remember comments from you about it being too, you know, putting, making bikes feel more like pedestrians. And I remember a variety of comments that we not submit comments about this project that.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Uh, so I do, I do remember that discussion. Um, that was not the, um, implemented design. The design that we commented on was a much more complete design, which I think we pushed back against. This seems to be some sort of what looks like a temporary repainting of the lanes.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is what I was going to ask about too. I think what Chris put in the chat is like more of a long term vision for this thing. But does anyone have any pictures or is there any way to look at what's actually out there now?

[SPEAKER_09]: I can get you guys a picture probably tomorrow.

[SPEAKER_04]: I just kind of have no idea what we're talking about in this discussion.

[SPEAKER_09]: It's all just white. There's no other. There's bike lanes painted around both rotaries and along the side. But yeah, I could probably get you a photo tomorrow.

[Bruce Kulik]: This link that was provided is basically for the paths and not so much for the rotary, it looks like. OK.

[SPEAKER_09]: Go to page 32, they've got proposed design for the 2 rows. Yeah, this is my memory. This is this is, I believe it's part of the comprehensive, like, minimum and domestic.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Path, so just to clarify for Leah, so the redesign, yeah, on this side of high street.

[Bruce Kulik]: So, I do remember this 1. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's not what was implemented.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Right so the rotary ends up, there are painted lanes going in here but there's a and there's a new bike lane that either goes up mystic Valley Parkway but shows no provisions for continuing straight on high street. uh vehicle lane ends up having a yield sign right here or sorry painted yield markers on the ground right about here and then can continue through but the bike lane continues up this way then there is another bike lane that comes south along mystic valley parkway goes across high street and simply continues up north on mystic valley parkway and provides no provisions for going straight And then all of this has been repainted to reduce the radius of the rotary and reinforce the current paint markings here. So the problem is that we end up having sort of a bike lane that ultimately you can either go up Mystic Valley Parkway or down Mystic Valley Parkway and then back up it and no ability to continue from High Street to Medford Street.

[SPEAKER_04]: Gotcha. Thank you.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Just for clarification. Uh, we will get. Yep. Sorry. Go ahead, Ernie.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah. I just want to be hopeful in that we will eventually have a dedicated bike line, a bike lane painted green, maybe with some separation. running west from West Medford Square to this rotary. And it's important that that be completely continuous with whatever is done to cross the rotary on DCR's turf. In this case, we're nowhere near that, but we can at least complain about the fact that the current design is discontinuous with what we are going to be planning on the Medford side. So I want to take a long view of this, hopefully not too long, and see that we would have, you know, maybe a green path going west on 60 through the rotary and continuing over the bridge to the other side. Whether or not there is a dedicated bike lane going east over the bridge, because that's DCR's turf, is immaterial and I guess would be up to them. But if we're going to have a dedicated bike lane from West Medford Square through to Arlington, we should make sure that whatever we control seems continuous, efficient, and safe.

[Bruce Kulik]: I think the big problem with the current design and where I'm afraid this is going to go is it basically provides, there's two ways for cyclists to safely get through this intersection. One is by merging with traffic that might be wanting to turn right or effectively controlling the lane as you do so and proceeding through the rotary as a vehicle. The other option is to be shunted basically off to the crosswalk, but because of the nature of where those crosswalks are, that's an incredibly non-efficient mechanism for most cyclists, especially if you're coming down the hill from Arlington into the rotary, you have substantial speed at that point coming through. At least any non-trivial cyclist will have that. So it really becomes a question of making sure that motor traffic that's turning right is aware that there are cyclists potentially continuing straight. And whether that's done with signage or paint markings or whatever, that in my opinion is the biggest issue that needs to be faced because this rotary serves a fair number of what I refer to as fairly experienced cyclists. It also is kind of trepidation for those who are not. So it's fine to provide a pedestrian-like approach through here for those cyclists who don't want to ride it, but not at the expense of making it more dangerous or more confrontational for cyclists who are competent and are willing to ride through with traffic, which is probably most of us here. with the exception of maybe some of us when we're using a larger bike that's heavy and so on. So that's my comment about that and why I'm concerned with what is there now, similar to what Emily said.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I would like to just add my weight to that comment as well, Bruce. I cycle through this intersection, as does my partner, as does several people that I know on a very regular basis. So yes, I concur with you.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, and if any of you have ridden through the rotary at Powder House Square along the bike path, it's horrible. Yeah. Miserable. And it's really hard to do the almost U-turn look over your shoulder as you're going across those.

[Bruce Kulik]: I don't do it. I just ride with traffic there. It's also a very slow rotary.

[Emily O'Brien]: I will say it is easier to take the lane in Powder House than it used to because the lane is narrower now.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah. Yeah. The only saving grace for this is that there are fewer cars going west on 60 who turn right to then go up on Mystic Valley Parkway than there are cars coming from Arlington who go around the rotary and therefore have the right of way who turn left and go up Mystic Valley Parkway. That's small consolation, but at least the numbers make it not as bad as it could be.

[Bruce Kulik]: Well, that's on the Medford side, less so on the Arlington side.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yes. I mean, a lot of people go up Sagamore or other ways to get to the lakes, as an example. They don't necessarily go all the way to the Rotary, but take a hard right. So that's That's a small consolation, but it seems to be what the count looks like.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Sorry, go ahead, Chris. Also, I'll note in Malmo, this is how they do road race in Sweden. It works. But of course, that's with separated bike infrastructure too.

[Bruce Kulik]: It's also that the motorists are more familiar with the patterns and therefore have an expectation of cyclists being to the right in those situations. And I think that's part of the problem that we have here is to the right is out of sight, out of mind. And therefore, it's really important to be able to assert oneself in those situations. Yeah, I wish we had what we had in Sweden or wherever, because they do it right somehow.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Not all the time.

[Bruce Kulik]: No, but I mean, it never has felt like I'm being slowed down deliberately because I've approached an intersection. I feel like I've got the same throughput that motor vehicle traffic has whenever I'm in those situations.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Sorry, go ahead, Leah.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, a couple things. One is I'll be the voice of dissent and say that I like Pedderhouse. I'm slow. I'm a slow cyclist, so I don't mind riding through it slowly, but I feel like it strikes a nice balance of like, I'm close enough to vehicles that they can clearly see me and I haven't been shunted off completely to the side, but there's still some separation in there, which I like. And the thing that I assume is similar to Powderhouse and I think will work well is that I assume that by clarifying where the lanes are, They've hopefully helped with the approach angle and the sort of illegal passing situations. And hopefully this improvement can cut down on some dangerous driving or aggressive driving that can happen in the rotary. So I think whenever we make our comments or statement or wherever we're going to get to, we should kind of make it, you know, balanced. Like, I think, you know, there's very valid points about not putting cyclists off to the side and sort of not considering all the movements that we, that someone may possibly want to do. But I think we also want to make sure that, like, No one says, oh, take the project out completely, put it back to the way it was, because there's definitely some traffic calming elements here that I think will help. And then I'll add to that and say that maybe we want to think about what we want to accomplish or what we wanted to do from here. It almost seems like your comments have been submitted for the long term. There probably isn't much we can do about this short term, but maybe there is. Yeah, and maybe if there is, it would seem like we need some senators or something like that to kind of get involved on our behalf, because DCR is really tough to get a hold of.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Emily.

[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I was just gonna say, if nothing else, it should be not too steep of an ask to just ask them to put Sharrows in the middle of the travel lane along with the bike lanes and put enough of them so that it's really clear that there might be bicycle traffic in that travel lane going straight through using the rotary because they're going straight. And that isn't a major design change. And that's something that can be done with a relatively minimal level of complexity. So if nothing else, if we end up with, if we end up with this, I think we can mitigate at least some of the problems by asking for sharrows in addition. I think the other, the other potential problem with some of these places that we didn't mention is a similar situation to the left hook. So we know that this is a potential right hook issue, and it maybe isn't not that many people are turning right there, but that people are essentially coming from the other direction and making a left using the rotary. But what can happen if you have all the cyclists going straight on the right like that? Is it somebody exiting the rotary onto that road? sees there's opportunity behind a car that has just passed. And behind that car that has just passed was a person on a bike who was hidden behind a car that was on their left. So this is the same as the, pretty similar to that left hook situation where somebody turning left hits a bicyclist because they saw a gap in traffic and they took it, but that was obscuring somebody biking on the right-hand side of that. So if we need another reason why this is concerning, I think that's the sometimes less considered counterpart to the right hook. And I think it's also a factor here. And of course, if a cyclist is turning right, it doesn't matter. They'll be over on the right side and they'll be in the bike lane. But this is an issue of a cyclist who's going straight. And even if we can't fix the whole thing, adding shares to the travel lane and making it really clear that bicyclists can choose to be in either place is at least a way to mitigate it.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Bruce.

[Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, so just a couple of comments regarding the points that Leah had made at Outer House. I can understand how the current way it's set up is more comfortable for somebody who's willing to basically walk their way slowly through the intersection and watch every time they're crossing one of the ways that somebody is not taking their right of way. I can understand that. But the second thing is the rotary on the Arlington side, at least, is a much faster rotary than the one at Powderhouse Square. Both College Avenue and Broadway are slower streets. Powderhouse previously didn't used to be, but they put in mountains all over the place, making it harder to go fast on Powderhouse. In any event, that rotary is inherently a much slower rotary than the one on the Arlington side there is. And that is one of the reasons why pushing the people to the outside of the rotary like that can result in the issues that Emily was bringing up, where people get hidden by other cars, people exiting the rotary at higher speed than they ought to, but nonetheless at speeds that are apparently normal, that can create a real problem for somebody trying to cross that crosswalk. As a pedestrian, I cross that crosswalk from time to time and find it's very tricky to make sure that people coming off the rotary, particularly those making the left turn through the rotary, see you. People making the right turn seem to see you more often because you're kind of in the way, but people in the rotary don't, and that becomes a very scary aspect as a pedestrian. So it'd be great if we could make those into more modern roundabouts where, you know, you're deliberately being slowed down to 15 miles an hour. that would make it easier for bicycle traffic to get through at a reasonable speed and remaining safe.

[SPEAKER_04]: But you just put in the chat that you don't want flex posts. And how would we make the speeds?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I just want to call out, A, we are about five minutes over time. So I request that everyone make their comments. relatively brief if they can, and at the end of this, I would like to propose that we move the budget proposals and the other follow-up items to another meeting. Sorry, didn't mean to cut you off there, Leah. I just wanted to get those out there. Go ahead.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I just wanted some clarification on people's opposition to the flex posts if we get in the way.

[Bruce Kulik]: What? that get in the way. Of what? When you're trying to make a turn, for example, or trying to merge with traffic as you approach a conflict point, the flex boats are generally spaced in a manner that they are in the way of bicycle operation. I can cite several examples around the metropolitan area if you want to go look. and experiencing it. But there are places where flex posts across the bridge on a straightaway, no big deal. They're not a problem. Except when you're trying to pass another slow cyclist, but that's a different problem. But when the flex posts continue too deeply into the intersection, they don't allow for effective lane control if that's what's necessary to be safe at that intersection. And that's why it's a problem. You might disagree with me, but it is a problem. What I would ask for is that flexible. That's debatable.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's a 20-foot lane. I don't see if it's not narrower. How can we ask for anyone to drive less aggressively or slower?

[Bruce Kulik]: I'm not sure what you mean. But anyhow, that's an argument we don't need to have at this point.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right.

[Ernie Meunier]: I think I saw Ernie and then Chris. Yeah, just a tiny tailing off of what Bruce was saying there before we got on to the FlexPost issue. So the way it is now, and this is what I'm afraid of, bicyclists going west on 60, coming to the rotary, are encouraged by the bike lane of sorts to turn right. Perhaps thinking they have that right of way and not yielding to a car coming from Arlington in the rotary that has full right of way through the rotary onto Mystic Valley Parkway before they turn right in this supposed bike lane. If that's the case, that's a further endangerment because a bicyclist in a bike lane is at, on a right turn, is apt to take it and maybe not yield to someone in a rotary that's ahead and on the left a bit. Do you see what I'm saying? The fact that we don't have the throughput lane encouraging the bicyclist to perhaps go straight or turn right perhaps precludes the necessary caution a bicyclist would have even when turning right at that rotary by thinking they can turn right in their bike lane and not have to obey the rotary rules. Do you not follow me? You all look- No, I understand.

[Bruce Kulik]: I follow you, Ernie.

[Ernie Meunier]: Okay, that's it. It's just an observation that the current design is even worse than I thought, because it doesn't remind bicyclists that there's rotary traffic that has right of way crossing them if they are intending to turn right, because the bike lane suggests that as the only option. creating a cognitive dissonance in the bicyclist's brain as to who has the right of way. Okay.

[SPEAKER_09]: And I was going to just try to summarize this up in terms of what can we try to do about it. And I think there's a few suggestions. I like Emily's idea of sharrows in the rotaries makes it clear to cars that cyclists can go there. The other thing I think that could be useful is the dash lines where the bike lane would be able to go straight, like what's in that page 32 of that proposal. which maybe is as simple as some black paint to create dashes, so that it makes it clear that cyclists can cross straight through rather than stick to a defined course. I'm happy to try to go out and get some photos if that's helpful for us, and then maybe we can sketch up or mark something. I think the question though is, who can we even bring this to and how do we actually try to get any change to happen here?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I think, yeah, we still officially have quorum. I would like to, so generally what I'm hearing is that all of us are upset with the current design of the Rotary. So what I would propose is that we take a motion to have me take an executive action to write a letter to DCR expressing the discontent with their lack of public comment and push for at least a set of sharrows to be added to all of the sections of the road that have been recently repaved to indicate that cyclists have uh also have a right-of-way there or maybe not right-of-way but right of use of lane um and then to also push to have a public comment period um on their current design that that is my takeaway from this i realize that i'm sort of um i'm ad-libbing or sort of riffing on this a bit but i'd like to propose that as a motion uh before the next meeting so moved

[Ernie Meunier]: Yes, I would like to only add that the shadows are seen as a necessary but insufficient temporary.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yes, anything at this point will be considered a temporary improvement over the current iteration or design and that they need to readdress this in a more complete manner in the short term. Perfect. Okay. Excellent. So do I take that as a second, Ernie? Yes, that's a second. OK, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed? Hearing none, the ayes have it. That I will put as my top priority to do in the next week. I will write something up and send that over to DCR to push them to try and rectify this issue. All right, I'm sorry to rush everyone through that, but I know that we have a couple items, but okay, go ahead, Ernie.

[Ernie Meunier]: I'd like to make a motion that we adjourn, unless you have other items.

[Bruce Kulik]: No, that was what I was going for. First, point of order, first a motion to table the next agenda item, then a motion to adjourn. Oh. Motion to table the next agenda item on reviewing our goals.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Second. Second, okay. All in favor? Aye. Okay, all opposed?

[Ernie Meunier]: And now I make a motion to adjourn.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Robert be damned. Yeah. Goodbye, Robert. Robert's gone. We kicked him out. Have a good night, everyone. I'll write that letter ASAP. Bye, everybody. All right.

[SPEAKER_04]: Bye.

Bruce Kulik total time: 15.78 minutes total words: 1507