Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee Meeting   2/5/2026

My name is James Van Bracken, I'm one of the co-chairs of CATEC, I live on Red Street, and I'm a little insightful to work.

Hey everybody, I'm Kevin Sarpe, I live in Georgetown Green, Albemarle, and I've also watched a lot of other films that work.

Hi, I'm Peter Olms, I live in Belmont, and I have five companies meeting with all the other independent ones.

Some people call it Kellytown.

Well, real quick on that, can you go by CAT or Catherine?

Um, Catherine.

So, you know, we can talk about your specific.

Because Rose Hill was the Heights.

I bike, commuter, run, walker, all that stuff.

I bike half the time and I mostly come to these meetings because of the Rose Hill neighborhood vice president and the rest of like that stuff, our neighborhood.

I also bike most of the time and

And I heard about this through the Neighborhood Walks.

Nice, Tommy.

Hi, Meredith.

And I live in the Martha Jefferson neighborhood.

Meredith, do you want to kick us off online?

I live in Fry's Spring, and I'm the secretary for BPAC, and I lead a bike ride on Sundays, and I also enjoy walking.

Alberic.

I live downtown, and I enjoy walking.

Ethan?

Hey, Ethan Tate, local dad, live in the Martha Jefferson neighborhood, got a first grader at Sunrise, an e-bike enthusiast and been doing this for a little while now.

And Josh, are you able to speak?

And I mostly walk and bike.

And does anyone have anything they'd like to provide for public comment?

And there's a link right on the listserv as of today.

Correct, yes.

Yep.

and I've brought the posters from our public meeting a few weeks ago if anybody wants to see them up close.

Ethan, go ahead.

And I guess I'm mostly curious about what's happening or what's being discussed within City Hall at the staff level that we might influence or assist with or whatever.

But I think it should definitely be part of that item.

So I would include that in your comments as well.

We've just had some new people join, and just for the sake of minutes and introductions, could we have some introductions, just name and neighborhood, if that's okay?

Guinevere Higgins.

Sorry, I'm coming from the dentist, but I love you both.

No.

I'm trying to take the bus more and more.

And I don't deserve that.

And Zoe, you asked them to become a panelist if you would like to speak, but you're also welcome to just sit and watch if you prefer.

Hi, yes, I'm O'Flynn, I'm a Climate Justice Policy Manager for the Community Climate Collaborative.

Sorry, I meant to be here in person, but a call went long and I might

join shortly in person.

No pressure to do so.

I'm a student at University of Virginia, and I live over on Portland Street.

That was a good point.

Sorry, I'm not at 100%, but I tried to get through all my thoughts.

I know I have some questions that I'll open to the floor to start.

That didn't work out this week, unfortunately.

That is right.

Maybe I should just stop there.

I'm wondering who that is.

Later you have a note about Rose Hill Drive being repaved shortly and yet Rose Hill Drive does not appear as a highlighted street.

What's the name?

I also noticed that the fact that Lucas is getting repaved is not.

But is it?

Was not.

Is it getting repaved?

Well, that's what I heard.

But I didn't hear that within this building.

Is that what I should enter?

So am I answering your question?

Why are there, why is there no plan?

I'm pretty sure I remember it not being a great answer.

Been hearing in the past couple of weeks mention of public service, which is something that I haven't been to about before.

and all that used to be kind of one cot, but they separated them out.

How did we get a streetscape?

But I'd feel a lot more comfortable if someone could commit to it, even though a year ago that's what we were told.

Right.

But I haven't seen it in writing.

So these are all kind of at the moment looking more like the Locust Avenue, where it's just kind of like patchwork.

And so residents are trying to maybe get more out of that project is my understanding.

Josh?

Basically the city has a rating of the quality of pavement block by block which corresponds quite closely to when we need to repave each block and that's in a document somewhere and I want that and it exists so we'll get it.

I mean, a lot of this came through your, how do I say?

Or do you think we already have that today?

and maybe I'll try to answer more of your question once we get into the agenda.

If it's pertinent, don't let the agenda interrupt.

I'm not experiencing that.

But I think it's a thing we can do.

Do it.

Sorry.

But I forgot to personally that

So especially an entire corridor.

Or are you saying we don't have to have a repaving in order to do a repaving?

Yeah.

Like if you had like partial, if you had pipelines and part of it got screwed up, would they not put them back there just like they'd put the yellow line back there if they busted that?

So we have to just get something in there to see if it works.

And that's the spirit of Andy's thing was that knowing that West Main would be obliterated, it would have a limited shelf life, and you could tell the church or whoever is opposed to it, this is definitely going away and revisited.

that I don't know, I hopefully, and I appreciate Josh's comments, like he's on point with a lot of this stuff, so yeah.

I think I wrote in the data.

I'm just going around town taking photos and making them.

The public works should have collected when they submit, is what I'm hearing.

I know Josh had asked them questions and I don't know if they say yay or nay.

That's the latest I have.

A quick example is, as the snow starts to melt in your all's neighborhoods, take a look at those e-tables.

They do well.

We need to, as a city, be tracking that.

I know, and I'm like, why can't these things just be permanent?

Yeah, but we need to track that so we can then ask the question, right?

Like, I'm not going to say it.

We heard that they were going to be taken up, to be honest with you, in like November, ahead of winter.

If you wait until half a year later, it's not a quick bill.

So why don't we just put in the things we know will work?

Cause there isn't the answer to it.

Me?

Yeah.

Actually, I would like you to answer it.

OK. Fire, fire department.

Yes.

This one makes sure not everyone knows.

And so, yeah, makes your work easier.

And we have recordings of that call if anybody wants to revisit it.

Last year was a big success story in getting a lot of quick build infrastructure projects down on the ground, let's suppose to shorten the crosswalks and speed tables, grab some deacons, we don't have to take those out for the long run.

Not all those quick builds, because they're expensive and they're permanent.

And I don't love that process.

And we will talk more about that.

But fire is an important lever for this and some other things.

So they would love to have.

Does that apply to getting ladders certain places too?

And they set the standard.

Well, this is going to be my question.

I think there's more to that, Jan. Are you leaving?

I can do it.

Right.

I'll say this, don't be surprised if you hear that it's the national agency that says that they have to have these things.

The NFPA, which is not a government body, in case anyone doesn't know, they're in the pocket of big fire truck.

Like this makes people really happy, even when they hate the specific design.

Right, but how do they feel?

So anyway, I think, yes, the numbers are good and we can continue nudging them to be less numbers obsessed and make the case, I think.

Think less like engineers.

I think, you know, the two things can work together.

Or would you like me to introduce this next section?

Well, I'm not a huge fan of recording my email.

I'll send it to Meredith and then she can... Yeah!

Yeah, I think Meredith should be able to screen share.

Oh, thank you.

You're the best.

That's all.

Do you have to say something?

Oh, I was just going to warn you that your web tab still has your email pulled up.

The next picture down is an example of what DC is doing, which is when they're doing these street restriping projects, they're putting in flex posts and curb stops and markings within certain distances from crosswalks just as their standard.

And look how wide that crosswalk is.

Well, also they have wider crosswalks.

But is that also part of the strategy of like, you don't feel like it's taking up more space?

I don't know why they decided to make that wider.

They have bigger people up there.

It's not super expensive to put across.

Right.

Isn't there one more above that?

That was my first one.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, it's a little triangle and people don't park there.

I'm just trying to give you all like, like what's happening.

the 20 priority locations where daylighting could do the best job.

This is what I need from you to move forward.

John.

OK. Josh.

Go ahead, Sari.

Isn't that what you're saying?

And it's like it's 20 feet in West Virginia.

So like just getting in compliance.

It's not just crosswalk, it's any intersection.

Sorry, Josh.

We aren't asking for a new fancy idea that's untested if we're asking for enforcement of rules on the books.

It's got a sign right there.

Right.

That's what I'm suggesting.

And yes, we needed some dockless mobility parking there, but it was honestly mainly about daylighting.

Stacking functions is always the best approach.

and then you're not saying we can't use this space.

We can down the line maybe add more striking or a bike corral or something, but literally just move the, if there's a traffic sign, we just move it back 20 feet because that's how big the parking spot is, 7 by 20.

City Manager and Council and City Attorney and whoever.

Do they really need to go straight to the city?

If that makes sense.

And Gwen, feel free to add on to that.

I'm also thinking, well, James and I have a little more work to do around getting, making sure that our kind of calendar for the year is set up so that we are getting the right staff in at the right time to be, this is not a committee assignment, but just as we think about like when it's helpful to have, for example, public works come and talk to us or engineering as we think about what those subcommittees are up to.

You can put me on a subcommittee.

Are we just advocating ourselves in?

Yeah, let's do it.

You and Kevin.

So yeah, I mean, you can probably wear whatever you need.

Yeah.

It's my job on a day to day, so I'm happy to.

I came first.

And then we figure out how we go about signing ourselves up for them or, I don't know, I feel like I'm maybe missing something in what, missing a prompt or something in this conversation.

And we've heard mention that while it's not on the work plan, it came up this month that the snow clearing plan should be revisited and advocacy for that may benefit from the subcommittee.

And we have contractors helping out who may not be as gentle with our government facilities as hopefully our public service employees.

The curb ramp detectable warning for abseil.

Yeah.

I know it robs people's worlds, but you're showing there's a cost to some of the things that we advocate the most fiercely for.

a little bit, but I don't want to derail the conversation about the subcommittees and such.

a draft of that go out between this meeting and the next meeting so people come into the next meeting with like a pretty clear sense of where their skills and interests might fit into that work plan with, you know, four to six committees, maybe something like that.

I mean, we could take the time right now and figure out what the committees are.

I'd like that.

And we have from, I like that too, can we get some jobs?

Perhaps the subcommittee's role would not purely be recommendations, but also, hmm.

Strong-Arming People, Glad Handing Them, to use a nicer term, to actually lean on, to first identify and then lean on the public officials who need to be communicated with.

I think we should go ahead and do this, but I want to be clear about the first part of the work plan has to be get someone to listen to the second part of the work plan, if that makes sense.

So that I think that's kind of probably what Josh is speaking to.

Right.

Which is like the perfect example of what Josh is talking about.

So they are baked into that as well, but they haven't been installed.

that could be one thing that the Quick Build Committee, maybe that's all the Quick Build Committee does right now.

We just have to do it.

And I think what's important about that, too, is then that Tommy has to do less of that.

Yeah.

Cause we can be loud and annoying in ways that Tom can't.

And we have people who's supposed to be providing that direction.

Because given the action steps that I hope will be more successful than the action steps, it's going to be more successful.

I don't know who figured it out, but be patient.

Why do I want to sidewalk in front of my yard if you're going to, if it's my responsibility maintaining, you're going to cite.

That's why we don't make it a discussion, right?

And I mean, not every single project should be eminent domain.

It's expensive.

Thank you everyone.

Does anyone have announcements or anything?

Reach out to Meredith or I if you want to be a bike marshal for the prolific run slash walk latest month.

You've got five and a half hours to submit.

I wore my t-shirt for you, Tommy.

To submit your comment on the Rick Street West Main Study.

Yeah, and if you also on that note happen to have any pals in the Downtown Business Association who need a little educating about the benefits of protecting bike infrastructure for businesses.

Thank you guys.

I'm going to end recording now.