Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee Meeting   9/4/2025

Yeah, let's start tonight.

I live in Belmont, and I am looking forward to eating ice cream in fall.

Pumpkin ice cream.

I look forward to eating ice cream all the time.

And I'm really enjoying the cooler weather.

Good sleeping, Mother.

I'm with Blue Ridge Health District and I'm excited about fall because it means Luteville is coming.

Woo!

Kevin, SARP, should we specify?

Tommy Safranek, biking and pedestrian coordinator, Martha Jeff, neighborhood.

Fall, I get to wear hoodies.

No surprise, I love mountain biking in the fall.

So that cyclists have more space because it wasn't enough.

Exactly.

I was too busy crying.

What's this, counseling?

Herb, I see you're ready.

And what I love about the fall is that when I finish riding my bike, I haven't already taken my shower.

John Trevor.

Awesome.

Josh?

I live in Locust Grove and I think somebody mentioned it but I'm also excited about the week without driving because cars are annoying.

Well, if you would like to speak.

There you go.

Yeah, everything.

Thanks.

Do you mind just saying more about that?

I'm not entirely sure what that entails yet.

Michael Kochis.

So just thank you, city of Charlottesville, for doing something really great.

Yeah, was that right?

I have a specific thing I want to talk to you about.

Evan, can you tell us where you found this?

Go on and grab it.

Yeah.

I saw your hand was raised.

Yeah.

Does anyone have any questions regarding anything in the staff updates?

constellation of efforts that is behind those platforms.

Does that answer your question?

Like who is going to manage all?

And then we have a team here that will select the company that decides to get hired.

That's the company that keeps it alive and built, right?

It's a generate content.

So like if we hired an out-of-town company, how would they know?

So someone who's local and knows things like what our community wants on that website and or program would score higher.

And then we can submit anything to you that could get to you.

And so we set the top in, but it doesn't mean that we're going to meet that every single year, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Sorry.

So if somebody here is a writer and likes to write things, then we can have people do that.

And what's the budget?

I can be, let's build a thing and then worry about it later type of attitude, which I've done, but now we need to be a little bit more thinking.

Yeah, I guess that's kind of where my question resides.

So there's just like helpful, relevant information on these sites.

But that would be part of the RFP, that they would manage the social too?

Well, I guess my instinct is like, can this live in an organization and not outside the city and outside of like this group?

And maybe the city funds it.

That's all about outreach, education, and stuff of that nature.

So let me take on this opportunity.

Like, I am constantly advocating for stuff within my own city, government, right?

Even community bikes won't touch this.

I get it.

It needs to be something that is the umbrella for all things like community bikes, like the e-bike lending library.

It's like an all-encompassing.

I mean, maybe we don't need this stuff because you could just like, I live in Charlottesville and I Google bikes and like certain things come up.

And so it has a lot of value as an educational.

Yeah.

You go here, you learn more about the community and culture, what it thinks and what it means.

Hey, there's a, you know, city council deciding this thing you might want to show up and voice that kind of.

being more targeted in that type of response, or that helpful, if that makes sense?

Or to find the things that you would expect on study websites rather than like, yeah.

Is there any sense of that?

I can speak to the fact that Matthew Gilligan invested 15 hours of his weekend to activate against the proposed funding ordinance.

Where I'm going is maybe there should be a Bikesville, non-staffed, non-profit.

No, we're nonprofits.

That's why I ended up on that.

This isn't something that would fall under the city's communications department.

But it feels like a missed opportunity to also be able to capture people's emails and send out a lot of advocacy.

We aren't capturing any emails.

Then all the advocacy could roll up to Community Bikes' mission.

I'm a city employee, right?

Especially if, like, let's imagine the city does something that all of us are really actually pretty pissed off about.

Right.

Never happening again.

Like, you can do some other things about it, right?

Kevin.

We can just include this as part of that mix as another lever that we have to pull.

Certain other organizations might be able to do that.

But we can get people to show up to a meeting to express their opinions.

And let them know that you have an opportunity.

Without any shyness at all.

It was a subgroup of that larger group that was advocating.

Advocacy and advisory.

Yeah.

When I say, hey guys, who am I talking to?

Yeah, your boss.

Gotcha.

Right.

Just remind me to talk about future meetings and space where we go and whatnot.

We shall move on.

And it would be fun to be able to hand them a little note card or business card with a QR code.

I have a bunch in my office.

It could be general BPEC, it could be a bike Seaville thing, but a way that it's easy for them to remember the info that we told them.

If you're handing something out, telling somebody this is what this ride is, does that then require somebody to be in charge of that ride and see that it is consistently happening?

I think if the QR code goes to Bike Seaville.

That's why we need Bike Seaville, so there could be a place for QR codes.

Like what happens if I get a QR code like, oh yeah, we ride on Saturdays and then I show up, you know, six months later and it's a Saturday and nobody's there.

Check the calendar for updates.

We know through December 31st this thing will be maintained.

Yes.

And, you know, because it's like, if you're going to advertise that something is happening, you have to make sure that it's happening correctly.

and like land on an out-of-date web page or whatever.

Totally.

Oh, sorry.

The question is, are we still on track to bring the Mid Street Bikeway to Council this fall, or is that a placeholder?

Thank you.

Just on the way here, I was coming up 5th Street and there was, I saw two bicyclists going south, one going north that I passed on 5th Street, but then passed me on Ridge and like never saw him again.

So you were going north?

On 5th, I passed him in the bike lane, but then we got held up at Ridge and he would zoom by and I was probably the only car being like, yeah!

In fact, one of the things I want to do on Bike Walk Seaville is to have like what we talked about, which is car versus bike across the city who gets their first.

What time?

Five o'clock Friday during Eight to Count Orange.

And do you want to take it away?

You should make sure that we finish that within the next hundred and twenty days.

We will have to follow up, say your name a lot.

I'm using your name as a placeholder for the city person who owns a catalog.

But the official title of the position will be the top.

So that owner of the catalog would be pushing back out information on this.

And who's the owner of the catalog?

The Tommy.

So we'll have to talk about this because, I mean, I totally understand why we're going that route.

Yes.

We need to sit down and look at it.

I think we talked previously about part of the transparency being letting folks know the summary of what the neighborhood said, and then maybe when things happen.

It was a lost opportunity and totally upset, but we, Ben and I didn't have the ability to change, you know, that, um,

So I think what's within the scope of power for the Tommy and the situation is informing planning priorities and shaping.

our power changes or what we're able to do and not do changes through you advising the city, if that makes sense.

And I didn't think about that as, I really thought about it as tracking progress that was completely outside of your department, but purely for the accountability and transparency.

They're not being done really in a way that they need to be done better.

And then this one, when it happens after that year is concluded, and I'm going back and editing the bus stops that I've already provided by organization.

Yeah.

So you're totally right, but then the other thing's true, where you're going to be, there's going to be stuff that the wrong way.

So we'll check back with you when it's there.

I'm getting a period of gear, it's not a period of gear.

What's BPAP doing in all of this?

Or we can say, sounds great Jen, seems like a paid job, peace out, keep moving, this is not a good fit at all.

That would be like a dozen

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Go for it.

Yeah, I hope to see more of that.

That's real informative and nimble and dynamic towards permanent infrastructure.

There is value in having people walk in their community and seeing the thing.

So you're going to hear that from people like, well, I've done walkouts before, right?

So that's the worry.

So like with a fox in the box.

Yep, exactly.

What, where is that in the model that you

But you know, so I, this, this is where it all was born, but I think you're thinking of it, right?

Yeah, maybe the community liaison needs to lean in more.

That's something else.

I think that there could be some that could maybe help move things forward as well.

Ooh, I don't know.

And I don't know.

I can't agree to anything.

Yeah, even there are existing walk orders for their neighborhoods that the neighbors can attach to their petitions.

There's existing petitions right now that are... Could you submit them for the... That's what I... We submit them today.

Yeah.

It's a curb ramp problem or something like that and save the city a lot of money.

a summary of kind of what we've talked about the potential for these to be and then hopefully we can filter down from there to not only decide should be back play a role is there a role for be back or but is this project one worth doing and how does it how is it worth it and that kind of thing so i'll try and yeah um i'll in in your process i'm sorry if i just lose this but how does

Or maybe it's just one person and actually doing the walk on it?

And then I think the inaugural field captain would probably, I would add to that bullet, to train's next field captain.

There was a regular walk audit training.

Does ARRP see other municipalities that are doing this?

I think they're trying to train the trainer by giving you that packet to follow.

I think it would be an interesting question to ask them how other localities are going about this.

A box needs to be checked, that's a walk on it.

Oh, I see.

It might be there.

Yeah, maybe no one's giving it a livable, sustainable effort.

Correct.

Okay, got it, got it, got it.

Yeah, right.

Public health and planning frequently intersect with environmental justice.

Thank you.

All the volunteers can take me.

I've participated in a working group on that.

Okay.

It's fine.

Maybe not.

Thank you.

So we'll communicate with those people.

Around what we might do.

Like.

I mean, yes, and like we're BPAC.

We're BPAC.

But I would, it would be amazing if there was a county BCAC.

And I'm a little, I don't know, worried that there's just not going to be the appetite from the county to stand something up on their own.

My work is better the more that BPAC is a clear entity that wants certain things.

It shouldn't just be a road.

We have one concrete tabling opportunity coming up at the UVA bike

No, it's a bike and commuter fare, the commuter lane.

Social without riding.

Some people have socials without bikes.

Totally weird.

It's a biking event.

Perfect.

Yeah, I'll finish.

Do you have anything specific, but without driving?

But you wanted to de-fetch yourself.

And one thing that could be communicated in a tangible way is a week without driving.

But we're on a hard no tabling for this loop-de-bill.

I just signed up to table the loop-de-bill.

You mean you signed up for a cheer zone?

Who did you sign up with?

Please don't tell me to count.

Please don't tell me to count.

That was what we were talking about.

I'm going to have to continue to be back so Tommy and I can have a temper tantrum together.

Announce.

That's a perfect graph to tell the week without driving.

and some of the logos are getting added as we speak.

So I'll send it to you.

We're active transportation, not your primary mode.

And major being go to with prizes at the end.

Feel free to use the, to send things to the email list.

Can I?

Leading up to it.

Let's do better.

I thought it was maybe their process, but we can just directly write to everybody.

Awesome.

We'll pick you up.

We'll pick you up with you.

Stay focused, stay focused.

That's the worst end of that issue.

Does anyone have any other quick announcements?

That was us.

It'll help me design cool t-shirts.

Are you going to share this with the VTech lister?

Sorry, I was so stupid.

So we'll be here for the near future at least.

Then we'll see.

It doesn't solve this space problem though, it sounds like.

This is always going to be available to us, right?

You have to walk a lot further.

Rocks are great though.

As city space, even for like city council stuff, we put like a trash can in the way.

We have, I have asked facilities, um, the security people and they said no.

What do you mean by open it?

We're going to be in this room.

We'll see you next time.