Climate Equity Council 05/20/26

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3.6-flash from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

The Climate Equity Council reviewed upcoming community events, discussed summer heat preparedness resources and waste reduction initiatives, and received a detailed update on city bicycle, pedestrian, and transit infrastructure.

0:04 Approval of Minutes — The council approved the minutes from the previous meeting.
0:46 Future Meeting Schedule — The council set its next meeting date for June 24, 2026.
1:30 Community Events and Member Updates — Members reviewed upcoming community events, including a free flea market, a mini-forest site prep day, an EV charger ribbon cutting, and planned community garden workshops.
22:00 Summer Heat Preparedness and Cooling Resources — The council discussed creating outreach materials and mapping city cooling resources such as splash pads, pools, and water fountains.
34:18 Electrify Medford and Energy & Environment Committee Updates — Staff shared Electrify Medford participation numbers, and an Energy and Environment Committee update covered proposed black plastic bans, Pay-As-You-Throw trash concepts, and recycling educational games.
52:02 Transportation and Pedestrian Infrastructure Update — Transportation Director Todd Blake presented updates on MBTA bus service advocacy, Blue Bikes station expansions, upcoming bicycle lane connections, and traffic-calming measures.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so let's start. Did we get a chance to review the minutes of the last meeting? I didn't do it this time. Sorry. You didn't do it this time? At all. Then we can, can we like postpone that till next meeting?

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so motion to approve the minutes from the last meeting? Second. Second. All in favor of approving the minutes?

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: Aye. Aye. Great. And then let's discuss the next meeting time, either June 10th or 24th.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, because we had it set for the regular meeting would have been June 17th, but that's Bunker Hill Day, so it was closed. June 10, I cannot think. because it's the library event.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: So no June 10th. Is it 24th? It's fine with me. So yeah, let's plan for the 24th of June then. Thank you very much. And should we go over events?

[Brenda Pike]: Yes. So Todd Blake, the transportation director, will be joining us at some point. But he's coming from another meeting, so he might be a little bit later. So yeah, we can jump to events. OK. Yeah. Yeah.

[Brenda Pike]: Okay, I heard an event that I don't have up on here, but there are probably more than that one.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: We're not going to have tables for that event though, so that's why, you know. Okay, what is it? It's all the elementary schools are getting together to have an AI workshop for the parents and families. So MIT is going to be bringing a lot of interactive activities for us to do with the family. Parents are going to be able to bring their computers or phones to see safety ways to help their kids and learn a little bit because the kids always know more than the parents. So yeah, that's very cool.

[Brenda Pike]: Cool, yeah. May 23rd, free flea market. Actually, Will, do you want to talk about the free flea market?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Sure. Yeah, and we have these awesome, beautiful flyers. This is the, I think, fourth time this event's been held. They try to do it at the beginning of the school year and at the end of the school year to kind of bookend college students moving in and then college students moving out at Tufts. And the idea is everything is free. People will make donations either the night before or the morning of the event, which is this Saturday.

College volunteers will sort through the piles and make sure everything's clean and ready to be moved around. And then shopping happens from 10 to 2, where people just come in, grab what you like, Yeah, it's all free.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: It's yeah, it's for anybody to use You don't even have to be a Medford resident.

[Brenda Pike]: It's anyone awesome the one time that I went I I think it was mostly non-students who came, actually. It was mostly residents who were there.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: That's good to know. We have a lot of families that are moving to see me, and then I look up on your furniture and stuff.

[Brenda Pike]: So it can be a bit of a finish. And then people were dropping things. Again, the one time I went, people were dropping things off all throughout the day. So it's not like people are dropping things off in the morning, and then they're picked over by noon or something. It was constantly being refreshed all day long.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And there's stuff for you? Yeah, the very first one had... Oh, I wasn't sure if that was coming from that. I'm waiting for the owl to talk to me. Yeah, phenomenal event. Yeah, it's all staffed by Tufts people, which is really helpful too. But yeah, free and open to everyone. Unwrap stuff, get rid of stuff you don't need. And yeah, Breed Hall's right on Boston and Winthrop. I love the flyer. Yeah, we have on the Energy and Environment Committee, Prabita. This is like her baby. She designs the flyers every year. She loves this. She does a really good job.

[Brenda Pike]: At the West Bedford Community Center? Yes. Are you doing three health-related events this time around?

[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: No, just the two. There was a third one, but it was put off. There's going to be a men's prostate cancer kind of thing. If it's going to happen, it'll happen sometime in the fall if the group wants to do it.

[Brenda Pike]: That's great. Oh, and going back to the free flea market, that flyer is available on the Medford Events calendar. So if you want to put it up anywhere and help get the word out, you can do that. If you need us to print out some, let us know.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: on Facebook and like the planning page and the Go Green website has the flyer as well. Same with most zero waste stuff now lives on Go Green. All the events are populated. So lots of swap events happening that we can share.

[Brenda Pike]: Also May 23rd, the Tufts Park mini forest is having a site prep day. You're involved with that too, aren't you?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes. Yeah. Oh, that one's all day. Trees Medford is hoping to plant a hyper-dense miyakawa forest. Milwaukee? Milwaukee, thank you. It's like mixing something up. Milwaukee Forest and they're doing all the preparation work on Saturday. That'll run from like 10 to 4 or something and people just come in for small shifts. Anything from setting up fences to seeding the ground with like smaller plants or like tearing up the turf in the area.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Is that a registration required or just come to the day?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: They've had registration in the past, but I don't think they'll ever say no to a volunteer. Like I'm going to speak for them very quickly. Like if you come by and say, I want to help. I don't think they'll say no. They're not very, it's a lot of work. So I can send that info at least to Brenda to share out for registration. Yeah. There'll be a secondary event, sorry, in this fall for all the tree planting as well. So, good to get in the loop.

[Brenda Pike]: And again, the link to all this information and the volunteer registration form, if you want to sign up ahead of time, that's all in the events calendar too. Oh, good. Yes. Okay, May 30th, we have the bike bash here in the Clippership pop-up park. Um, that sounds like it's going to be, uh, a lot of cool stuff happening there, including they're going to have, um, a little like bike rodeo thing where like games for, for kids to do. Um, they're, they're going to do a bike swap, uh, there's the flyer for it here.

[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: So what is it? You just ride your bike or you just ride your bike to the event? Or show up and... There'll be some bikes there?

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, check out some bikes. There are going to be like demonstrations of things and there'll be e-bikes there that you can take a look at and try out. There will be a community ride leaving from there and going along the river. So if you ride your bike there, you can all go as a group together along the river.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: uh yeah i'm seeing if we can get some bike mechanics to show up as well yeah to do some repairs that one's still touch and go they're hard to wrangle but yeah really helpful oh you think those pumps should build in yeah that one i'll just bring i think everyone should just have a bike pump maybe a wrench yeah but there are a lot of people that don't i see a lot of people going to the gas station you know like doing those things so i think you

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: If you have anything available like that, that'd be cool. I like that.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I have a hard time even keeping up with just like greasing my bike chain. I bring some little things and people with more know-how can maybe work on it themselves, but I'll have the stuff for them.

[Brenda Pike]: On the 31st, there's an invasive plant block at Brimston State where they'll be talking about honeysuckle and what to look for and how to remove that. June 1st, Energy and Environment Committee meeting. June 9th is the third party energy suppliers webinar being shown at the senior center. Any other planning that needs to be done for that or that?

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: No, not really. I'm in the process of making a flyer for it. And then I'll send it to everybody.

[Brenda Pike]: OK, perfect. And that webinar is also airing now Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays on Medford TV at 8 p.m. I haven't seen it myself. I haven't checked.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, and it's also available online, so you can check it out anytime on the Medford TV website. Um, and, um, press release went out today about our update to the electricity aggregation plan. And I included a blurb about the, um, the webinar in the press release. Yeah. Well, because it's such like sobering numbers, like what was it like? $50,000 like, Metro residents lost to 3rd party energy suppliers just in a month of April. That's crazy. June 11. Is the cancer screening event at the West community center.

Um. And Stacy, I sent you an email with some resources. Oh, sorry. I haven't opened it yet. Oh, it's too much stuff for you. Yeah, I can see. Thank you. Yeah. But that kind of ties into the summer preparedness materials. We can dig into that a little bit later. Yeah. Yeah, do you want to share? Or have you already shared with these guys that the cancer screening event is going to exist? No.

[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Okay, not yet. I talked to Patrick about it a little bit. Yeah, just saw me and might have been in the room when I was coming in. Yeah. I didn't mean. That's okay. I believe you.

[Brenda Pike]: But it's going to be focusing on multiple different types of cancer, but also skin cancer, kind of tying that into the summer preparedness. Yeah, that's what we're doing. Yeah. June 16th, we're doing a ribbon cutting for the Elm Street EV chargers, which the mayor will be speaking at, and we will be speaking at actually. Yeah. And Some of them actually are already online. National Grid connected the electricity to them, and people are charging at them. We don't have them set up yet, though, so we're not charging a fee. They're getting free electricity.

[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Where's that going to be at? Oh, it's going to be at Morrison Park. Morrison Park. Yeah. Do you know what time? Is it on the calendar? Not on the calendar right now.

[Brenda Pike]: Is it 10.30 at Morrison Park? Is that where you have been parking lately? I'm parking way over there, and then walking to City Hall.

[Brenda Pike]: You know, with the price of gas, everything, it's going to be... I wish they had a... I've heard from two people already who are excited about the chargers and were like eager to, like before they had been connected to electricity. Yeah. We're like, are they going to be connected? I can't wait to start using them. And one person said that her neighbor said that she was going to think about getting a new TV now because there was a charger next door to her. Yeah.

So I think that is exactly why we're doing this. And June 18th is the Juneteenth. I agree, Xavier. And the 19th is the West Med for one. Ah, OK. Is that on the events calendar?

[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: The West Med for one. No. It's going to be at night. It's June 19th, I think 7 PM or something like that. OK.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I put on the event list today, so it should be real.

[Unidentified]: Any other events that we don't have included in here? I don't think we did. Okay.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah. Okay. That's gonna be Wednesday night at the City Hall. Okay. Great. And what is that going to consist of? I think just tabling, right?

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah. And there's usually like... Oh, and they have the dog's parade too, right? The dog fashion parade. Yeah. That's cute.

[Brenda Pike]: Are you guys tabling at it? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Any other non-event related work that you're doing right now that you want to share?

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if it's relevant, but I've been working with the Medford Housing Authority about giving financial literacy classes to the residents. Okay. So we've done three so far and we're going to continue to do them in June as well. But it's not something to be publicized because it's just for the Elgin Authority relations. That's great.

[Brenda Pike]: Do you have, did you develop any like materials for that or are you using like... No, we're bringing in a financial educator from Cambridge Savings Bank.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: they're given the presentation and then we're just supporting with like refreshments and yeah. That's great.

[Brenda Pike]: Paula, is there any update on the community gardens or the connection with Trees Medford?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so we are still in the planning stages, but I'm hoping to connect with the people at the commission uh, to plan some workshops, we do have funding for that. So, uh, we're thinking of doing 2 to 3 workshops in the summer. And, uh, I'm also thinking of hiring someone to run the workshops or to help me as well. Great.

[SPEAKER_01]: So not yet, but I'm thinking of doing herb planting and then nutrition education. But I still don't have the details on that.

[Brenda Pike]: I mean, you're talking about hiring someone to do the workshops. Is there an organization around that you're looking to partner with for it?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure. Do you have any ideas? Catherine mentioned that she can help me find someone, but I'm still looking.

[Brenda Pike]: I mean, I had worked at a place before that used Green City Growers, which is an organization that will Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've heard of them before. Yeah, they will set up, like, raised beds in people's yards. And then you can either take care of it yourself, or they will come in, and they will take care of it for you or with you in addition. Yeah. That could be a good idea to reach out to them.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: So, Hala, there is a lot of immigrant families that take manage of the food pantries. And I think it would be very beneficial if we could find a way, maybe, you know, if there's a possibility, you know, give like a cooking class with the stuff that they get from the pantries. You know, there are a lot of people that don't know, you know, how to use a lot of the things that are offered because, you know, where they came from, you know, they never deal with like canned vegetables or, you know, like things like that. I think that would be very beneficial for, at least for the community that we are working right now. Yeah, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's an awesome idea. I was actually talking to Matisse about this. If we end up getting the grant with the youth, one of their deliverables would be to do like recipe cards. But yeah, I think that's an awesome idea. Thank you.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I've been thinking about also what it would look like to partner with the Cambridge Culinary School and the Vocational School. a whole teaching program, so getting the students involved. I really wanted to do it for sustainable cooking, but to do it using food pantry staples is a really good idea.

[Brenda Pike]: The vocational school, especially, although the timing might not necessarily work out with that.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I mean, there's still students over the summer. They're just, they have nothing to do. They'll be bored.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: And the community service. And if you're able to give a stipend, so I'm sure they're going to be more than excited to be part of that too.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I've been thinking about it for a minute. I can't get the teachers to respond, but I bet with our powers combined.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Having events or no, but I do, because it's related to the events at the last meeting, we talk about maybe doing the game of the wheels and then to the states kind of mentioned that a little bit. So you are listening. No, you talked to me. You talked to me and you said that, oh, you know, maybe do the wheel. And then I told you, I mean, if you want, I can help you. You talk to me about that. So, you know, we talked about this last meeting and then I said, I would love to help with that, you know, like to come up with something with the wheels. That's great. Like the trivia questions. Yeah. Yeah.

like you're thinking about to have for all the events coming up, is that what you think, or for specific events? What is the timing?

[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Well, the one that I was speaking to was for a specific event, for the cancer screening and prevention, because as I was saying, maybe get some of those neck pools, that you freeze or put in the freezer and spin the wheel and you can win. You know, we don't have to have a bazillion of them for everyone. As if you get the question wrong, you don't get.

[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Well, we can use, yeah, we could use the spinning wheel, but, you know, maybe come up with some different, I mean, you could, you know.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I remember talking about the table and I said, take it down to the table. And I said, I'll maybe put it in the wheel. That's how it, yeah. Yeah, but anyway, I want to, I want to, I want to do that if you don't mind, but like, um, I just want to put it like, when are you expecting that? I want to have a timeframe when I need to focus on that because I have other things going on at the moment. Do you think that it would work for the June 11th? Yeah, I think that'd be fine.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah. I don't think we have any other. Events coming up in the near future where that would be good to use.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Do you have anything coming up in July or August? August, we'll have the night out. That's my favorite event. Yeah.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: That's the one in the stadium, right? Yeah. I love that one too.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: That's my favorite event of the year. Love it. because the amount of vendors they have and you can meet so many, even though like, you know, like, you know, some of the organizations that are there, you always meet some new organizations that are coming. A lot of families come to that event and I love the free food and free ice cream. I love all that. But I like the community, you know, like a lot of people come in and see a lot of... Have you guys ever tabled at the Farmer's Market?

[Brenda Pike]: I'll be there in July. one day in July for electrifying the herd. Yeah, we have an EMP table there.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: We used to do that. We used to have an MFN with the director, you know, activities over there. I don't know if HAL is going to be doing that now, but it seems like a fun thing to have at the farmers market to have a little trivia.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, it's true. Yeah, that would be cool. All right, this is jumping ahead a little bit, actually, but since we're sort of on this topic, let me... Paula, can you see this? Yes. Okay, good. Thank you for sharing it. But some of the things that I sent to you, Stacey, I can share with everybody if you're interested in, we were talking about developing summer preparedness resources. And MAPC did some work on this already with some really cute things, like really bright designs, really in focus.

And they have little templates that you can make your own flyers and social media posts and things like that. And then They have a messaging library for Geeks, so if you're putting out messages on the book for especially hot days, they have a series of messages they've already come up with around that.

[Unidentified]: And then, they have some very cute buttons on there that I thought people would love.

[Brenda Pike]: They have like coloring sheets that they made up out here. And there's buttons for like little tips, like play in the water, a little elephant, spring water, stay hydrated. for your neighbors, rest in shade or sunscreen.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I like the choice of animals instead of people because it's so hard to make flyers with people, especially things like, you can't represent everybody sometimes, you know, depending on the flyer that you're making. So I love the idea of animals.

[Brenda Pike]: So I don't know if this is something that would be interesting for you guys, but we can pull these templates. Oh, we have these little gumball machines. I don't know if they're still doing this, but you can request them from them and inside each of the things is a little trinket, sticker, tip to stay cool, something like that. And there are people have been installing them or cities have been installing them at like libraries or parks or things like that. Not sure if I like all the plastic involved there, but yeah.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Or I've seen really cool 3D printed or bioplastic ones. Cool.

[Brenda Pike]: So yeah, some ideas for that. And then there were other resources that I put together in that email that we can talk about more in depth. Yeah. But one of the things we had discussed also last time at our last meeting was having some sort of map with different locations around the city where people can go off. And so Amanda from our office put this together. And she's getting some feedback from our rec director on it, too. But just listing drinking fountains, splash pads, pools, and just other places where people can go swimming around the city. And then we can have this mapped out so that we can have a large-sized map that people can look at, too.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: It would be good to provide the links to and then like the forms that like the weirdest form, you know, like you need to buy a pass, a season pass, explain, give a little more detail. But sometimes people just show up over the end and they think like, oh, I didn't know, you know, they don't have to do this or that.

[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Oh, and that water, that reservoir I was talking to you about? Yeah. It came up in our meeting from some visitor where he likes to swim. The Winchester, Winchester, yeah. The Winchester Reservoir. so it's off the shelf. And that's what I was saying to you. I knew growing up that, you know, there were, there were these kids in the neighborhood, mostly boys who would, you know, they would go over there and swim. I've never been there. I couldn't tell you exactly where it was. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I knew it had to sort of be in walking distance or biking. Probably rode the bikes into the woods and jumped in. That's probably the Winchester one. Yeah, yeah. That's good to know. Winchester arrest of war.

[Brenda Pike]: But for these, for the summer preparedness materials in general, so Stacey, I know you're putting together a slideshow for the event, for your June event. Right. But for the other, for the other like materials, any flyers or anything else that that are being developed. Do you know who is actually putting those together?

[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: Well, we had Patrick said we, we have something that we that was worked on last year, but I don't know if it needs to be updated. Do you know what he's talking about?

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, so PR made one last year. PR, that's right. And actually just used like for one event. So we asked our intern to just change the date, you know, the year because it was 2025. So she changed it from 26 and we think it's a pretty good flyer as it is. And, uh, you know, with Stacy's suggestion and the rest of the team that should give a little more like specific places. Yeah. Like for families with children, you know, for elder, you know, people, yeah. Separate by group and kind of like give a little information, different flyer will be beneficial. So that's going to be our next step to work on that flyer. Okay. Great. So yeah, so I guess I'll share all those resources with everybody just so that you all have it. Yeah, that'll be great. Is there a way for us to have, you know, like Zillow have, like if you put a map, like you put Mountain, you know, Medford, and then show all the houses that are around, you know what I mean? Is there a way for us to come up with something like that? I don't understand much things about computers, but like where shows you know all the parts that have this sprinkler you know like in the cooling places where people can just like you know what i'm saying are you talking about like a like a static map like i was talking about developing for this or you want to be able to click on each node to see more yeah yeah like you know when they click i show the picture and the address all the information about just like zillow have you explored zillow you know i always wish i could go to a place anywhere i'm like oh i wish i knew where the Baseball fields are around here that I can go and throw a ball with my kids, you know, things like that.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, I can talk to, so I'm going to talk to our, the GIS person and the DPW about putting this map together. And I'll see, and I was thinking of it as just being a static map, but if there, if there's a way that he can make it online.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's gotta be so easy for him. Like that, that feels very doable.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, but like think about the cooling centers too, you know, like put in a different color, like, yeah, so we have all this option for summer preparedness, you know, places that can cool down, you know.

[Unidentified]: Yeah, I think that would be good. Yeah, that would be really cool. All right, I've stopped sharing the screen. And back to sharing the PowerPoint. Oops.

[Brenda Pike]: Okay, I have some very brief updates as Hasn't been that long since the last time we met, and I was up for a week of that. But so far, so for Electra, we've had 246 residents sign up for it, and we've approached 129 of those. 56 actions were reported. We have the utility check-in, bill check-up flyers translated. Did I email those, did I send those translations around to all of you, or? okay or did you i know you wanted help with the translation yeah did i send you the finished version after you gave feedback okay i will send that out then thank you by the way for your feedback that was and for actually jumping into the canva and yeah it's it's easier that way because otherwise i you know

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: it's like because i know what it's supposed to look like so yes yes i yeah when you were like the spacing is really weird on those i have no idea in arabic how it's supposed to be spaced yeah i think i think the one unfortunate reason gave tomorrow life on the table yeah yeah okay yeah i think we got it or you sent me just that that's great okay um and then

[Brenda Pike]: And we talked about the fact that the aggregation plan update press release went out today. The consultant who works on this for us, Good Energy, is putting together some flyers. And those will be coming. And then we'll be doing some social media and things like that around it, too, to get the word out. But as we talked about last time, it's not a significant update. All the prices are staying the same. It's really the only change is the fact that the folks who are on National Grid's low income discount rate will go on to the basic rate instead of the default rate that has more renewable energy now. So it'll be about half a cent cheaper for them than a per kilowatt hour than it otherwise would be.

Actually, Emile, do you want to do an update on what the Energy and Environment Committee has been up to?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. I threw together some quick... Our meetings have been pretty simple, all told. Let's see, we also were talking about the predatory energy supplier reveal. I mean, that was horrifying. So we put out a general call for op-eds and information to go out to people, make sure no one's getting taken advantage of. We had some pretty long and robust discussions on bills on rodenticides and black plastics, lots of things just entering our environment that are really harmful to public health and safety.

And we're looking to potentially propose some bills banning black plastic in restaurants. Um, for those that don't know, they can't be recycled, uh, and they shed microplastics in a really, and other toxins really much better than normal plastics. Um, so they're really, really bad for us. And most restaurants use those in their takeout containers. Um, very inappropriate. So we're hoping to just, uh, mix that. Uh, so we're looking at some possible bill language, uh, to recommend to city council and such.

Um, yeah, I, I'm glad people are taking them on. Uh, and we talked for a good long while about the pay as you throw trash programming, uh, which was highly contentious. Um, we have some people that are very on board for the sustainability aspects of it. And some others that are very concerned about the cost to residents and what it represents to, to not pick up your trash every other, every week. Um, so that's a kind of ongoing conversation that, um, we had mothers out front come in and publicly weigh in in favor of every other week pickup. Um, but in general, we really want to make sure that not just our committee, but the mayor and legislators are hearing if people are for or against it. Um, so I've been producing some materials to make sure everyone knows exactly what it means uh to make this change um so i can move some flyers towards this committee of like here's what will be happening what won't be happening and you know the good the bad the ugly could you go over yeah what pay as you throw me i know that uh yeah alicia came in alicia alicia explained it but i i didn't really quite understand yeah i mean it's not

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: It's also the... Excess waste will then cost extra. So right now, your trash, your recycling, your compost is all free at the curb. With taxes, I suppose. But it's free. No matter how much you produce, it all gets picked up. Because we are running out of landfill space and the incinerators are producing a lot of toxins, we know that we can't keep producing that much waste. So Medford is one of the first cities to start doing this in Massachusetts, but a lot of cities are toying with the idea as well of reducing the waste in a bunch of different ways. Massachusetts has a program called Pay As You Throw. And the idea is they want to reduce everyone's waste to 35 gallons per week per household. I think it's 161 municipalities in Massachusetts already do that.

But the proposition for Medford was because we have those 64-gallon bins, we just pick those up every other week. And that comes out to about the same. that qualifies us for some grant money and things to help with that transition. Um, but more importantly, um, any waste that you produce above 35 gallons, then you need to either rent an additional barrel or pay for overflow bags. Um, so that's where the pay as you throw goes, anything you produce beyond 35 gallons you pay for. Um, so, That way, households that produce a lot of trash actually recognize that they're making a lot of trash and have to pay for that. And households that don't will continue to save money and not have to pay for that excess waste.

There's a lot of ways that it can be done. The biweekly trash is the thing that's been proposed, but there's a lot of fluidity in it and something that we're still kind of talking through. It's a contentious one at MEEC, but, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of ways to talk about it. And I, I'm always kind of door open, like want to talk about these things.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Is that a planning for more education for the recycling part? So that way, you know, even though, you know, we will create a lot of trash, there's a lot of things that is still could be recycled.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Exactly. The big thing is. Your trash gets picked up less frequently and we want to reduce trash. We want to encourage recycling and we really want to encourage composting. If you were to put all your composting in the small latching bin, that would be really important for rodent management. It'd be really important for maintaining the smells and odors. It all goes into one bin that goes weekly. So if you compost really well and we teach everyone how to compost really well, uh, reducing waste gets a lot easier and a lot less gross. Um, but they kind of all begins to weave together into a pretty messy network of, of trash.

But that being said, my whole world right now is sorting through it with people. So if you do have questions, um, now or the next year and a half while we're sorting it out, please,

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: I think that, you know, like we have been focused a lot with the climate and have so many other things that we're doing that, you know, with issues with the trash, you know, maybe could think about some activity that we can bring to the tables, you know, that you can kind of teach the people how to recycle, you know, like, you know, the compost, you know, trash cans, you know, maybe get

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: all that size but a color different than the other right and then put a bunch of stuff in a box and people just grab it and show me what just started designing this exact thing and Brenda was like you should talk to these people everyone here likes to make these games and all the table and stuff and I was like I'm so glad you brought it up because I started designing it and I was like troubleshooting it it's like two or one little bean bags or like yeah because like if you you know because I I remember one time the

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: the guy yelled at me and didn't take my recycling because I put the plastic hanging and it was right on top. And I said, it's plastic. And so I thought, he said, no, you're going to read it to me. Read what? I don't even know where I can find the information. I thought it was plastic, you know? But like, I'm trying, but I don't know much, you know what I mean? So where's the information at? Where can I, you know, like, so. If there is a way we can be providing that information, I think it would be great.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I love that. Yeah, we have MassDEP has a how to recycle guide in eight or nine different languages. So that's on the website, on the MassDEP website. They make these little nice flyers with infographics that I can send links to, again, relay through Brenda. just because recycling is prohibitively hard sometimes. Like, Massachusetts recently standardized everything, so all things that are recyclable in Medford are also in Maynard, are also in Weston and Worcester and beyond. Like, now it's all the same. That wasn't always the case. It's not your fault that it's confusing. It's awful. But we have some nice flyers that I can send around that will hopefully make that easy. And I'd love to talk about making a game because I'm really excited.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: I was just thinking for the game. like maybe we can if we can get access to like a 3d printer and like maybe 3d print like different like kinds of trash like a banana peel with government houses or like uh like paper or plastic bottles obviously unrecycled So like, you know, and then having that game of events and stuff, you know.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: The night out event would be a great place for us to do that. We should work on that now, be ready for that event. I think we're going to get a lot of people.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I, okay. I've been working with Medforge to help get them a space actually. That's completely unrelated. But, um, I, I spoke with, uh, get his name. Is it the main guy, Trey?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been bringing him in all the time now. He's meeting with Kayla and doing all sorts of things. Yeah, yeah. So maybe we can work with them. Yeah. I started putting these together, like, here are different items organized by compostable, recycling, and standard trash. And I was trying to think, like, how do you go about like do we put them on beanbags do we 3d print little guys that would be really fun but like the scales could be weird i don't know or they could break but yeah and then a relay race or like you toss them into the right bin could be a fun way to play it i don't know yet but i i want to play i want to play with you all and figure it out because well you are all the masters they're all green

[Brenda Pike]: well that's what's green for the uh for the compost it's like black right for both the do i have this wrong for both the recycling and the trash no everything's green here but just the cover is the top of the recycling it has to do with oh there's a reason for it i'm trying to remember why is the other one yellow

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: You get, so like my household bins are all green. All the lids are green. The bins are green. And I think you get different colored lids. Alicia is going to be yelling at me through this. You get different colored lids. I think it's based on your day or like. Because mine is green. Yeah.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: But I know that there's some... And we're probably on the same row. Yeah. Some residents have a blue one to represent the other week, the alternate week.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: The recycling is taller. It's a 94-gallon. It's a 90-gallon bin versus a 64-gallon bin.

[Brenda Pike]: So if we were, like, making the little bins for her, we should make sure we get the sizes right. If that's the only way, we'd have to differentiate between them.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah. Like in every block, trash is blue, recycling is brown.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And that would be so easy, and I wish it were that way. But that's the one thing I can't control. But we can at least do like a logo, or like recycling trash compost, or maybe the little logos. We'll find it.

[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: So tell me, what happens when people, when folks don't recycle? They're throwing things in their recycle bin, that isn't recyclable. I mean, are the folks at these recycling plants, are they literally going through it? That's a problem, too.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, so the recycling centers have automated and manual sorting that gets done, and they kind of expect a certain amount of contamination, because nobody's perfected. It's going to happen. Um, but if at pickup, they find like, Hey, you put a plastic bag in your recycling or something awful. They just won't pick you up, pick it up. They'll put a little notice and say, Hey, you really messed up. Don't do that next time. And then DPW gets a call and everyone's like, why didn't they pick up my trash? Why didn't it take my recycling? No one's happy. Everyone's confused. It's not a great system. So it's better to start educating. Yeah.

[Brenda Pike]: The plastic bags are a big one because at the sort of facility, it's like a giant conveyor belt that it goes down and there's different places where it identifies what type of material it is. Plastic, there's like a, the conveyor belts are shut down like 30% of the time. just because plastic bags get caught in the ears of the conveyor belt and shut down the whole system. So that's why they're so sensitive about those.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: So that's why, specifically, I was like, I want to make this game. I want to teach, especially kids, how to recycle well. Because they'll definitely teach the parents.

[MCM00001801_SPEAKER_10]: That's the first place to start with the conveyor belt. especially make a game out of it, because you'll be the first ones to say, mom, that's not right, dad.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. And there are lots of resources and ways to look it up. I don't expect many people will want to pull out the milk carton and go, gosh, what do I do with that? I mean, Google every single time. It's awful.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: But it has a good part of a cleaning, too, right? Because I don't know if you're supposed to, but I wash everything out, my milk, all my tomato sauce, you know? And I see other people don't do it, just throwing me, what is the point?

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And it's, again, like they expect a certain level of contamination, but if everyone just cleaned it, oh my gosh, things would just move so much cleaner.

[Brenda Pike]: And the reason for that is really like if the food contaminates the paper, then the paper can't be recycled.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. That being said, there's a lot of weird things like greasy pizza boxes can be recycled in Massachusetts in a way that growing up, I remember that wasn't the case. But they're like, no, put them in the recycling. Recycle. Things change. Hopefully it's hitting a standard.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, you're writing on my tagline. I'm hiring you full time. This is good.

[Brenda Pike]: So we have Todd Blake boarding us now, but if we have more questions about... I'll just want to touch base about building games with y'all, because that makes me happy.

[Todd Blake]: Good. How's everybody doing? On double duty, I just got off the playing board meeting.

[Brenda Pike]: So I have the maps that we talked about here. Can you see that, Todd?

[Todd Blake]: Yeah. Sorry, folks, I'm upstairs, too. I could come down in person, but I figured if I had to share anything else, it might be easier, graphically-wise. Yeah. I'll say hi when I, yeah, when we're done.

[Brenda Pike]: So I don't want to speak for you guys, but I think the reason why we're talking about this now is because there was sort of a perception that the city's too focused on cars and electric vehicles and things like that, and there's not as much focus on pedestrians and bus riders and bicyclists and things like that. And so I thought it would be good to have Todd come in to talk about sort of what the city's done up to this point in those areas and sort of what some future plans are.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, I don't know where we want to begin. I'm willing to talk about anything.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Actually, I'll quickly touch on transit. So transit, we're continually to advocate for better service in Medford, whether it's bus routes. Obviously, we've got the Green Line Extension Project, which added light rail to Medford. We have the commuter rail station. We don't necessarily have a heavy rail. Well, we have heavy rail at Wellington at the border. you know, otherwise rely on bus. So we've constantly been advocating in the MBTA's better bus projects and bus network redesign to not only keep the routes we have, but improve, increase the frequency to be better transit access to all of our users. So I don't know how much you may have followed the MBTA's efforts there. So there are a lot of good things related to the MBTA's proposal that was approved by their board a couple of years ago, but not implemented yet. But some of what was included in that included, believe it or not, removing existing bus routes, or at least one. And then we advocated hard to keep that, and then they came back with a revised proposal where they eliminated a different route. So we're still working, hopefully. towards, you know, we're still striving to keep whatever we have, but overall, even within that framework, so where there's positive changes elsewhere, where Medford's going to get some high frequency routes, the 96 and the 101 are going to be every 15 minutes, so they haven't been implemented yet, but lately that the frequencies for The 96 recently got improves, but it's not yet to that level, but that's the intent. So, so we, we commented very extensively on that process for every single neighborhood and quarter in Medford, because as a whole. Some neighborhoods, say South and East, might have gotten improved frequency, but say West might have, in some people's eyes, got reduced service, right? So we tried to advocate for all those equally to wherever it wasn't, you know, get as much as we can. And then we, you know, we had added the city's first ever bus lane in Mystic Ave several years ago. And then, you know, we've done our own grants to get like amenities like bus shelters, the two orange dots on this map. And Recently, I've had conversations with MBTA that they may provide many cities and towns with additional shelters that they would own and install. So the last I spoke with them, hopefully they're going to add four more bus shelters to Medford. So again, that's the last I spoke with them. They were targeting this construction season. So there's continuing efforts on making transit better. And then kind of why the transit bicycle map is uh two combined into one is because medford and the other 12 communities that are involved in bike share with blue bikes we all kind of treat bike share as an extension of public transit because it really helps people get to and from that last mile in their community so if a transit station like the green line extension or West Manfred Community Rail or Wellington Station, if it's not walking distance or short distance away from where you live or where you need to go, you know, providing bike share as another connection from that point extends it further into the community. And also the bike share provides good connections within the community from business centers to residences and other things like that. So, by expanding the bike share network with the number of stations we have each year and continually to try to improve bicycle infrastructure such as on-street bike lanes and working with state agencies that are adding them as well. We're slowly going to add more and more connectivity to give more and more transportation options other than driving to people. So usually a lot of what I work on is improving safety for all modes, so safety of drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, and then adding infrastructure like pedestrian or cyclist infrastructure or transit so that we could provide as many and as safe options as we can for our residents, business owners, and whoever may be visiting. So we started blue bikes a lot later than some of the other communities, but we've caught up and surpassed many of them now. So not necessarily surpassed the likes of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, but cities like Malden, Arlington, Newton, you know, Everett, those types, we've caught up or surpassed a lot of them since we launched it in 2022.

So the blue dots are existing stations. The gray dots are kind of plans, but just not built yet. And then the white dots are kind of like possible future ones. So we've tried to work with private entities as well. So One thing I want to touch upon is the funding for all this. So the stations and bikes, this whole launch and expansion for Blue Bikes, we essentially didn't use any general fund whatsoever, with the exception of the labor of the DPW department to build the landing pad for the stations. But the stations and bikes themselves, we purchase and own just like the other 12 communities. And we've done it all with grant and alternative funding sources other than general funds.

So I think that's a good, I'll stop there and see if there's any particular question.

[Brenda Pike]: I have a question Todd actually. I see what you're talking about is an extension of transit here. I see how there's a station, there's a Blue Bikes location near Wellington and West Medford and then there are some planned ones around the Tufts stop or the Green Line. Are those slammed around like Tufts construction projects or what's the time frame for those?

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, it's a great question. So usually with any like safety, a lot of things I work on with grants and trying to equally spread out through the community based on need and fair sharing throughout the community. And basically, we try to seize opportunities when we can. So if there's a project or a private entity, we might try to get, you know, I recommend mitigation for a private project to include a blue bike station, for instance. And then that enables us the money we do get from a grant to put that station, another station elsewhere. So like, so in the Tufts University and Greenland extension area, that's, you know, long been like one of our desires, just like it's the most requested area. Right. And it makes the most sense to extend transit and also have that transit to Medford square connection. So Tufts University, working with them, either by private developments or otherwise, we knew that there would be a source there that would put a station there. So we wouldn't necessarily want to, like the station in Carr Park, for instance, there's no development up there that's going to add that. So if we have resource from a grant, we're going to add one there and extend our reach. versus like Tufts University and Greenlight State. So there are planned ones at Greenlight. The three dots, that's the hope that there'll be a station in each spoke there. So each direction you would be coming to or from the station slash campus.

So one of those, the bottom most gray dot, that's already been ordered, the station, but Tufts, we're working with Tufts to build the pad on the grass here near the psychology building. on Boston Ave, the gray dot on the bottom of the screen. And then the other gray dot is associated with the Tufts dorm project. So that's mitigation for their project that they're paying for the station and they're going to build an area to take away parking to house the station so it has somewhere to be. And then the white one, the white dot, is something on the planning board hearing right now the aquatic center from the tufts that's going to be we're going to use a grant funding source so two of these three is still going to be the city paying for the station one of the three is the project but um in all three of these Tufts is going to be building the area that we could house that station. So the aquatic scenario would change to a gray at this point.

Basically those three will come online at some point. The first one will be the one at the bottom gray one will be the first one that's probably actually in place. But they'll each be 11 docks, so there'll be a total of 33 docks in that area. So for comparison, all of our other stations are 11 dock, with the exception of the Wellington station. Bikeshare, that's a 19 dock, I believe. No, we may have two. That one and the one at Hickey is 19. The others are 11. So we'll have 33 docks, so that's a good good collection of bike share stations there eventually. So, and we continue, basically we start with three and we've added each grant, we've got, we've added like three or four at a time usually. So over the years we've continued to grow. Another one that's coming online very soon is the gray one to the right of the screen near the purple lines, Myrtle Street at Fellsway. So that's associated with mitigation for the 40B housing development at the extra space storage.

[Todd Blake]: Do you want me to share so I could zoom into the ones I'm talking about?

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: So the blue lines are the bike lanes, right? Is that what I see over there? Oh, sorry.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, these dark blue lines. Yeah, those are bike lanes. The light blue lines are sharos. So no separate bike lane, just the little things in the road to indicate to cars that they should share the road.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: So if I go to a bike station to get a bike, is there a map like that that shows me where the lanes are that I can just take it?

[Todd Blake]: It's a good question. There's no map to show you where the lanes are at the stations, but typically with the station there is a station map that would have a map like this with the dots around the city where the other Blue Bike stations are, because you have to re-dock it at a different station. So the bike share system and blue bikes, if you're not familiar, the docking system, so if you take it from one dock, you have to bring it back to another dock, not necessarily the same dock, but another dock. So this helps identify those.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I think it would be very helpful if people had access to the lanes, like to know where they could go. Oh, I need to go from point A to point B and then that lane will be easier for me to go and I'll be safe, you know, like safe and I think it would be something to think about.

[Brenda Pike]: That's a really good point. I bike to work for years, but it would be the same route all the time, and I would get very uncomfortable trying to navigate a new route. So having something like this at the station.

[Todd Blake]: That is a good point. And one thing to highlight, this is only showing on-road bicycle facilities. There's off-road that the state has a much better overall mapping system for. So this doesn't necessarily include, at least currently, it doesn't show the clipper ship connector that was just built. Brenda, I don't know if who's controlling the map screen. If you zoomed into the center of the Medford Square area, Then like right in the bend of where Clippership is, that's where the Clippership connector comes in. And then so that connects to off-road facilities as well. So there's actually more connections than what's shown on this. This is just focused on the on-road. But yeah, that would be helpful to have an overall map system. A lot of the cyclists, I think, that use Bikeshare are familiar with some of these maps, just because to get the membership, you have to be online. A lot of the trip access is online, so it's less physical maps, but that's a great point. Yeah, that's something we could work towards.

[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, because I see that you do have some state bike lanes, like on road bike lanes included on here too.

[Todd Blake]: Correct. Yeah, the purple are state owned and the blue are city. Because of the roads, although I like to point out the Mystic River Road on the left edge of what's currently shown. that was a state it's a state road but the city designed and managed the projects but with state money the mystic river road contra flow bike lane and then i drew the improvements for the paint on the next block the next two blocks and then dcr implements them so we work with other state agencies like that all the time as well so some of it they did independently some of it we manage this for them um Yeah, like Arlington, the leftmost purple is a recent on-road bicycle facility that's actually in the town of Arlington, but I show it here because it kind of shows the loop connection that a cyclist could have combined with ours, so it's not just like our side of the river leading to nowhere, right?

[Brenda Pike]: You talk a little bit about how Triple O Lane doesn't look like we generally have them in the city right now, but things that might be coming up.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, so South Street, if you zoom into South Street, that was our first ever contraflow lane in Medford. Just west of Medford Square, if you go to like Medford Square and then to the left. Yeah, right there. so uh down uh yeah south street's right there yeah so south street's a one-way street for vehicles but we made a contra flow connection for for cyclists and this little piece closest to main street will be filled in eventually with control lane because we didn't include that piece yet because the state main street project is going to provide that connection to it right now this you would be going opposite traffic on a state portion that doesn't provide that connection yet, but it will in the future. So it's going to connect at Walnut there. So that's a control bike lane. The Mystic River Road is a control bike lane segment.

Then we recently approved two others. So those two are built, the South Street one that's colored dark blue, and then the The, yeah, that should be, it should probably, it should be a dash dark blue on South Street, so that's something we got to correct, because the dash dark blue represents Congressville. But Mystic River Road is already built and functioning. The Clippership one in the center of the screen, the dash dark blue, and then just to the right of that, the Park Street, Congressville, those are approved by the Traffic Commission, but not yet implemented. The Clippership one is a city project that we plan to go out to bid to build that soon. And that also involves a special traffic signal addition to Medford Square to allow the bikes coming up the wrong way in Clippership to have their own traffic signal to get into the bike lane on Main Street near Deep Cut. The Park Street one hasn't been implemented yet because the pavement condition is really bad, especially for cyclists right now. So we want to fix the pavement first and then paint and implement the bike lane. But it's already approved as a regulation as a control bike lane. The Park Street in that area, for those not familiar with that section of the city, that piece of Park Street is one-way south, so cyclists wouldn't have to circle the block or go to other streets to be able to have that northbound connection.

[Brenda Pike]: I think that these are really important, because for instance, Big Flipper should drive one. It's scary riding your bike through the middle of Metro Square, so it would be so nice to be able to go around it like that.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, I have another graphic to show the future connectivity between city projects and state projects. As I mentioned, Clippership Connector is one project that's been built, and then the Clippership Drive control lane will further extend that if you're going westbound through the square. And then there's the Main Street project that's going to further improve bicycle connectivity. So there's a lot of projects coming together that will eventually piece this all together. So parallel to the Clippership project, there's a state project called the South Medford Connector.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, I could share that because then I could drive a little bit. Let's see. So there's a project. Can you see my screen? Yes. OK. So the Clippership project goes from this Elbow and Clippership Drive, the Clippership Connector, along the river back to the McGlynn Andrews School to connect into that path system. There's another state project that's going to be on the, I'm just going to zoom in a little closer, on the other side of the river that will go from Main Street right here along the ramp system and down to the ramp system closer to Wegmans. So that will be along the whole side of that river and then eventually these will all converge at Main Street to cross Main Street with either that new bicycle signal or the pedestrian signal that's going to be there. I'll share another graphic to kind of show the connectivity of two of those three things and I could talk about the third. Let's see.

So here's a graphic I put together for other meetings to explain the eventual connectivity. So the red, can you see my cursor too? only when it's moving okay so this area to the left is red and green that's the state main street improvement project that's going to add traffic signals and and pedestrian signalized crossings to cross main street to be safer right so that project's moving forward uh it's potentially going to go out to bid this summer fall and then construction starting next year for for two years or so but that's going to build bicycle facilities north south and then also allow safety connections safely to cross main street right now there's unsignalized crosswalk near the police station down here and then there's no crosswalk at the crack bridge right here So here's the Clippership connector, comes into Clippership Drive right here, if you can see my cursor flashing. So by providing the control bike lane, the red will now be the westbound to travel on a bike through the square and get across to the other side of Main Street. you'll follow these red arrows and then you'll have a signal to get into the bike lanes and then continue westbound either on the south street control bike lane or towards the Condon Shell area. So in the eastbound, the green arrows kind of provide how someone travels through the square in the eastbound direction. Now the other connector that I was mentioning is on this side of the river. So this ramp that comes down from 993 and from Wegmans 16 westbound right here, if you could see this cursor, you see there's a path right beside it. that's going to go all the way along the river here and back towards Wegmans. So that's being accomplished by taking a lane up top on the ramp. So the ramp, the roadway from Wegmans currently, you know, let's, so this is how I'll end up connecting, but I'll bring up an aerial to show the other area that I'm talking about. Let's see.

So picture this. And MassDOT doesn't really share with the public, because it's not quite a 25% design. That's usually when they have their public hearing, if they have one. So basically, this area that's a PATH system over by Wegmans and Homewell Stadium. So this PATH system here is going to go out in here. This travel lane is going to be reallocated So it's going to be only one travel lane here, not two.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: It's funny you talk about that because I was going to ask about that specific spot right there because it's a small way to work.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, this shoulder will be the bike ped path and this lane will be the shoulder. And then this lane will be the travel lane. So the city, a while back, looked at a path system along the river, like along the embankment. But it was cost prohibitive based on certain slopes and things like that, environmental reasons. So the state kind of swooped in and came up with this idea. And it's all on state infrastructure. So if we just follow this, it will carry what I just said. And then once it gets up to the I-93 off-ramp area, Sorry, I'm going slow here.

So once it gets up here, everyone knows it kind of opens up to like three lanes plus the shoulder. So again, this shoulder will be the bike and this right lane will be the shoulder. So there'll be two lanes instead of three. So it's reallocating from cars to ped bike usage. And it will have, for safety, it won't be just a painted line. It's going to have jersey barriers between, yeah, along. The jersey barrier will roughly be along this white line, or give or take. And then this will be a new solid line for shoulder. So the intent of a lot of, regionally, a lot of the cities and towns are trying to, wherever bike-ped connections don't exist on either side of rivers, we're all trying to connect those, right, and make a more cohesive system. But sometimes it takes a lot of time with this individual project, another individual project, and eventually all pieces together. So this will come down here to Main Street. This right side with the jersey barrel will be Ped Bike, and this left side will be the lane. So the lane will be scooted over to the left here, and I think they may be going into this embankment a little bit to make that happen. But So eventually down here, this new Main Street project that makes these traffic signals work and provides crossings, the ped bike will be right here between the roadway and this railing.

So, yeah, if you look here, this parking shoulder, 25 park spaces are being approved to be removed for the control bike lane. So picture these parking spaces here are going to be the bike coming into the screen towards us. This travel lane leads that way and there's already a bike lane that way. So you're going to come up here as a cyclist and you're going to see a traffic signal here and here. that let you know you have a green arrow to make this turn to get into this bike lane here that already exists. And then you'll take a right here up to this system or under there and take a right. There's going to be a crosswalk here to get across for Pedz Bikes, which is a major obstacle right now to get through the square.

So I know I kind of zoomed through a lot of that. Does anyone have any questions there? Let's pause for that.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: For the parking spots that will be taken out for the bike lanes, is there another plan in place to like, I guess, to make up for those lost spots?

[Todd Blake]: So there's no direct one-for-one, but there's an opportunity when the parking lots are redeveloped to recapture whatever parking was lost from the surface lots. You could potentially capture these 25 if so desired at that time.

[Brenda Pike]: And I know the plan, at least I've heard that the plans for the developments in those lots will increase the parking in the area.

[Todd Blake]: When we approved this project, we did meet with the Chamber of Commerce in Medford Square to discuss that parking loss.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, so the Clippership connector comes out here and we're widening this to provide this connection and you'll cross and get into a bike lane right here. And that will carry on from Riverside if people were up at Riverside as well.

[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And what did you say the timeline on that project is? Is this like way down the road?

[Todd Blake]: Which one? This clipper ship or the self-driver connector? Okay. So this main street one, and this is where it gets challenging to time all this, right? But the main street one is likely next spring construction for two years. This clipper ship one, We hope to have this construction season, but we're trying to wrap up some improvements with the Forest Street signal project, which includes adding the camera for video detection for this leg of the signal. So that needs to be done first before we could go out to build this clipper ship one. But the hope was that this construction season, that's the optimistic view. And then the South Medford connector does not have construction date yet, that's only at like pre-25% design.

And there's another ped bike project that MassDOT's working on from, can you still see my screen and cursor?

[Todd Blake]: Yeah. So there's another MassDOT project that carries this network from here to here with a ped bike facility on this side of this stretch of road. And that's also like pre-25% sign. This crosswalk will become a flashing crosswalk as well in the future.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, so by changing the two lanes to one and trying to tighten this turn up and adding the RFB, it hopes to reduce speed in this segment to make it a little more user-friendly for non-drivers. There's a lot of efforts going on at many different stages. Some of them are state, some of them are city, and some of them are all going to connect together eventually. We work with Myra as well. They have long-term planning along the river over here, and we coordinate with them. This piece of Mystic River Road that was redone you know, helps with some of their goals along the rivers to provide. Yeah, so this is the area that we recently changed. Mystic River Road, this used to be a very wide one lane with no sidewalk, no crosswalk, and cars parked against the metal guardrail. So if you've been out there recently, there's two speed humps on this stretch, there's a new crosswalk. There's a contraflow bike lane where these parked cars are, and the cars are parked kind of in the middle more so. And there's a nicer wooden guardrail versus a metal guardrail. So yeah, the crosswalk provided a valuable connection to the backside of the West Medford Community Center. So there's a sidewalk from the back of the community center to the street now and a crossing.

so that was a project that i managed on behalf of the city because dcr you know they were helpful but they weren't doing it on their own and the state provided some earmark money and then i provided the design uh the plans for this to continue the cultural bike lane up here in their efforts to try to improve the two rotaries here, and they have recently added bike lanes between the two rotaries, between Arlington and Medford. So this has been changed. This wide pavement has been reduced to more narrow travel lanes with bicycle connections across. So there's a lot of different efforts going on to promote pedestrian and cycling safety and access.

That's primarily what I work on. From the vehicle side of things, usually it's just safety, improving safety, but it's not improving or expanding capacity for cars. I'm trying to think if we covered it. Oh, there's the other map above the safety improvements that kind of show some of the pedestrians. I could pull it up to, let's see, I could pull up, I'm going to pull up another one briefly. That's a subset of the one that you have.

[Todd Blake]: So this one's a subset of the safety one. It just highlights one component of the safety. So it's not so cluttered. These are like what I refer to as raised elements. So it could be a raised crosswalk, a speed hump, a speed table, a raised intersection. So these are efforts to calm traffic going through the city that helps not only vehicle traffic safety, but also pedestrian cycles make it more friendly environment, right? So these ones in the black circle have been installed and then we, Engineering has a restoration plan for Willis Ave area that includes speed humps, at least right now, if it's going to go out to bid. If everything stays as is, it will include speed humps on streets like Bowen Ave and Golden Ave. uh that experience some cut through and speeding issues and then um we constantly work towards getting grants to continue to provide this you know somewhat equally throughout the city so you can see on this map south metro kind of had a gap with this type of infrastructure but we're going to change that soon And then these dark ones were all done with a grant. And the vast majority, all but maybe one or two of these were done with alternative funding sources, usually like mitigation from private development or grants.

[Brenda Pike]: Do you get pushback from like residents or? fire department or anything like that, but you're doing these sorts of raised speed bumps in the road, because I know of Somerville recently.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, I'm aware of the Somerville cars. Yeah, I'm aware. No, in Medford, we haven't got any strong pushback by any of those entities. So we're moving ahead with it. And we think the overall safety of the entire community, no matter if it's, say, a traffic crash or a fire, it's still all safety related, right? So if you look at the totality of everything, we think the improvements for the transportation sector are valuable and should be included. And these don't reduce people down to zero miles an hour. The ones that we implement kind of reduce people down to the speed limit or just below the speed limit. So say 20 miles an hour, not zero or five. So speed bumps are those which like are included in parking lots say, like say say the ocean state java parking lot has a couple speed bumps those are meant for parking lots not city streets city streets there's national guidelines of what types you can use and how high and how they could be in this and that so basically those are the intent of getting people going 35 40 to go 25 20 You know, so that's the intent to manage them and get them to go slower, but not necessarily so slow that it impacts either, you know, has a potential impact to damage to a vehicle or reduce it to zero for like response times and things like that. So, so far, so good, and we're continuing ahead with this is probably 1 of the most frequently requested improvements that I get.

[Brenda Pike]: So, is there anything in particular that you really wanted to focus on? And the other map has a lot of different things on including, like. Stop signs, blinking lights, pedestrian warning signs. shared street pilot projects, things like that. Is there a particular area you want to focus on?

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, so the graphic is, I know there's a lot here, but the red octagon is like, you know, blinking stop signs, so to add awareness to where people should stop and if they're not, you know, we're not getting compliance there. The blinking pedestrian signs, they could be in the form of just a blinking outline, which helps make drivers more aware of a crossing exists. The RFBs are the variety where you can press the button and it only flashes when it's activated. There's the rectangular kind of lime green color. Those are the in-street pedestrian.

warning signs. Those are the style that have like a spring in them so a car could hit and it could bounce back up. But those are usually placed in the middle of the road like at the double yellow center line to bring awareness to drivers that there's a pedestrian crossing. It also makes them kind of slow down to navigate between that sign and parked cars. So it has kind of dual benefit. So we have about 50 of those throughout the city. Radar feedback signs are kind of the black squares. Those are the signs that say your speed is and they say thank you or slow down.

So we have, I think, compared to other communities, that's one thing we might be ahead on. We probably have more radar feedback signs than any other community that I'm aware of. Yeah, so these are things all meant to improve safety. A lot of them are for pedestrian awareness and pedestrian safety. We're also daylighting a lot of crosswalks, like trying to restrict at least one parking space prior to a crosswalk so it less feels like a pedestrian's coming out from behind a parked car.

[MPS Member Jenny Graham]: uh so they have better visibility uh from the pedestrians to the driver and the driver to the pedestrian so yeah we just need better drivers you know better road design can make better drivers yeah yeah you hope yeah i see a lot of frustrated drivers and that translates to bad decision it's just like the flashing light like you know for the crossing you know like you see the thing flashing, people keep going. I get so worried about the people that are crossing, you know, like, and people don't pay attention to those things. But anyway.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: It should probably be brought up sooner. Thank you for coming in, Todd, and explaining the upcoming improvements to the transportation sector.

[Brenda Pike]: And I think, Todd, if they have any, if they, you know, when they're going to bed tonight, if they have thoughts or questions, comments, feedback, then we can reach out to you with that, right?

[Todd Blake]: Absolutely, yeah, I think about it and I'll talk to anybody about this stuff all the time, no problem.

[Brenda Pike]: Counting bicycles to go to sleep. Counting bicycles, I love that. Thank you, Todd. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else we should talk about before Heading out any new business we want to plan for next meeting? No. I think we should just say motions.

[MCM00001615_SPEAKER_04]: I'll keep that for next meeting. What's the final motion? Motion to... Oh, I thought you said emotion. Oh, yeah, yeah. Motion to adjourn the meeting. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. I'll reach out to him.

Jenny Graham total time: 10.23 minutes total words: 1904