Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee Meeting   4/2/2026

James, you want to kick us off?

Sure, James Van Vrinken, Ridge Street neighborhood.

And Josh?

I'm the co-chair of BPAC along with James Van Vaken.

I'm Peter Krubbs, Belmont.

I'm Natalie Ochsren of Wollan,

Little High.

Welcome.

if you can, while I was in architects.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Officer architects leading it Sunday.

We're going to shift right into Bike Month updates, Peter and Tommy.

Why don't you start with the volunteer form?

Yeah, so what else is new this year?

a big turnout of people showing up and attending, so that should be on everybody's radar.

And yeah, there's more and more uptake by the community, like stepping up and running events.

They could be biking, walking, or carpooling, just trying to offset single car trips.

Not transit?

Correct.

But yeah, it's a cool program, so we're trying to highlight it during Bike Month.

I just mean, what's the idea?

Long Range, 15th, Planning, you know, copy and paste.

You can go back and look at it last year.

So it's like, not an ordinance, but it's something that they have in order, like statements.

So, which is a little bit elevated over the public comment as far as statuary.

And who's receiving it?

We haven't figured that out yet.

So you can see what happened.

That reminds me, we just need to make sure to, I haven't yet looked at what else is on the agenda for those two days.

That's important.

Yeah.

It might be a long-time advocate plus a bike-oriented business owner plus a TDD, something like that.

So it would be fact or property.

Do we just say we encourage you to walk, bike, and roll to school?

So, I mean, if it falls under like all that, then we would, I do have an email draft with Amanda, so I think people were also copied on that, but if they want to promote that, have at it, but I don't know, my experience a couple years ago was just like exhausting.

Are there different thoughts about that?

But I think we've talked about September, trying to get it on the front end of the school calendar so that kids can start and families can start making it a routine for the whole year and not

So it's really complex to do something like that, not be in the middle of a school show.

It was really hard.

It's hard to create it in a way where it could be self-sustaining.

Thank you.

And by the way, the National Day is on the 12th or whatever happens.

We doubled down on Family Bike Day last year.

There was one final thought I had about this, but

Thank you.

So just reach out to Tommy or

And we don't necessarily have data in front of us, but I think just observationally, I feel that's the case.

Something that might be helpful if we do decide to do like a September thing is instead of it being all the same day for all of the schools, it's school by school so it can be supported better by unlimited resources that we have.

So that might be the easier approach.

It's a really good group of people from all across the community.

It's very fun.

Questions for staff?

Can you explain what the bike registry is and what kind of feedback you're looking for?

I had the same question.

You have a question.

I think I heard you say that you're going to promote bike index for this bike loan.

Yeah.

Is that like in addition to bike index or just

like what they're going to ultimately do with the data and all that, if that makes sense.

I've used them in the past, but I think that's the one I'd try to do.

That's interesting.

I'm seeing that there was a question from James in the chat around there was some color coding in the staff updates, yellow coding and red coding.

They are supposed to be providing, I think, City Council an update soon, is my understanding.

Do we get money?

Yeah.

Great.

Do you want to see the dynamics of your questions?

Are you proposing any language to them?

going anyway, as it turns out, about 40 on average per year.

Okay.

And it would be nice on my end if through that process I can just look up a bike registry

Dan, Michael?

Any details you can share about the traffic engineering question for First Street?

So, traffic engineering is coming up with their proposal to use that design in a temporary demonstration way, collect some data during that process, and to either show its success or failure.

Who decides that?

That's a big question that we're trying to get at.

I have asked for it to be multi-season on behalf of fire trucks to be able to test drive around down it.

Okay.

So that they're comfortable using that as an emergency access thing.

Is that one of the concerns?

It was a concern from them that taking that a second lane away from cars would make it harder for them if it's available and there's no parking in it.

That's cool.

They need it.

So for example, if a jersey barrier is a temporary measure, that is not going to fall over the first time someone runs over it.

Second that.

Thanks everybody.

That's just confusing to me because if the project was already supposed to be flex posts, then what exactly are they scaling down?

The duration, the time period?

The traffic engineer wants to put some data and use it as a test.

Even if you don't need to be going to 5th Street Food Lion, maybe start shopping differently.

Josh, go ahead.

Hey, am I here?

Yeah.

I have notes.

It's not how a public process works where the engineer, like unelected, says, psych, we're doing this other thing.

After plans have been presented.

No, that's not how it works.

I mean, we're hearing this hearsay from Josh.

So, Tommy, either do you know or can you forward a request to Brandon and Caleb about those projects?

I will, man.

If you don't know, then we'll just talk to traffic.

Yeah.

I, a new manual, a new policy is great, but there's projects on the books and I want them to be built or not.

So I don't have any answers for you.

Can I ask about keeping that dashboard up to date or making a new thing to track those projects?

I'm opening the agenda now to look.

Citywide Mobility Plan.

And so I'm hopeful that she can work with Public Works on providing a much better dashboard and one that gets updated on a more regular basis.

Great, so that's OSEI and Public Works then, is that right?

because I've been told it's a priority, but I've been told that for a couple of years now.

I think Evan's pro-dashboard, so that may help.

Sam was also pro-dashboard when he was in that role.

So my yes-no question for you is, do you have per-incident data in the dashboard that you can see, or is that only the police?

That's all questions for the police department.

So it's not in your dashboard?

It's not mine, no.

But there's something you can log into and look at, correct?

I had to get that from CPD.

Who wants CPD?

You can email Greg Wade.

Guinevere and James, I'm going to, if you don't mind, each of these questions, unfortunately, it's for somebody not in this room, so I'm going to ask your help in tracking down some answers, but I'll do it offline.

I've already emailed Brennan.

I will ask you more questions later, and I'm sorry in advance.

Hi, James.

Feel free to jump in if there are any questions that you have strong opinions about or things you'd like to see in the program, then have at it.

So it could be a busy meeting during Bike Month.

And he has confirmed.

So anyway, just wanted folks to have that contact.

Rose Hill has the current traffic petition but no one knows about it because it wins that office.

It's a black hole where the petitions go to die.

So the idea here is to try to find what is the best mechanism where these projects generate from and how do they get prioritized.

Is there any instance that you know of where a petition resulted in results in the build environment?

Yeah.

MRCIP.

I have a question.

Yes, I do.

Is one of the goals of BPAC talking about this more to be able to shape how the city develops the traffic calming program?

to inform what they do because it's very easy for them to say, nope, it's not needed here because it doesn't meet, you know, we don't have high enough speeds and we don't have high enough volume.

This would be the time to do it.

I think is one of the things I would be concerned about, but at the same time, if the only way it's going to continue to exist is by adding more process to it, then that's what you got to do.

What is the future of those projects?

and just put them out there, glue up a flex post down, and then see what happens.

So that would be my own personal preference.

So can we use flex posts for those?

Especially with $100,000 in the budget.

How do we move to like, concrete or something more permanent?

So like, it's about like, what is this project gonna look like from, like once it's concrete, and if we can like, do it so there's no standing water in a crosswalk and that's an ADA problem, then let's move forward and do it.

or any of that.

But for the most part, those just went in.

Were there factors that might inform how the new traffic calming criteria might be set up?

My question too is like, if they can have raised crosswalks in Harrisonburg and their fire department's cool with that.

Hey, by the way, did you hear that we can do street art now?

That's great.

Rose Hill's going to be where everything happens.

Yeah, Rose Hill's going to be where everything happens.

Yeah, Rose Hill's going to be where everything happens.

Yeah, Rose Hill's going to be where everything happens.

Yeah, Rose Hill's going to be where everything happens.

The typologies.

You can't just say chicane.

They're like, what language is that?

What would be great is they could do stuff.

They have, it's in their manual are visual examples of all these things.

And it doesn't have to be some world-class thing, right?

I can send you some photos that I have.

I've seen the other ones.

I don't know.

Like, they're just, if you go around Summit Elementary, like, they're just, it's like a, it's a quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick

You shouldn't say that this project was a failure and tear it up, go back to what it used to be.

and the example that I would provide is Sheridan and North Road by Northeast Park.

North Avenue.

Maybe not in this version of it.

If you do a demo that isn't representative of the ultimate design, then it isn't a valid experiment.

And thank you for kicking us off.

Good and good step towards I think having something to present to staff and taking Tommy's point, presenting to engineering stuff.

Okay.

Announcements and other business.

This is happening.

on Monday the 13th.

What are the steps?

Yeah, so if we can pass this around.

Can we build a road for bikes, but it's not your own?

So, yeah, if anyone fits that bill, let us know.

Or knows somebody.

Or knows somebody, yeah, who might be interested in sticking up for Better Bike Pedal.

It hasn't been scheduled.

Tommy, sorry, I totally put you off at the outset, but please talk about your neighborhood walk.

April at 10 a.m. and we're going to meet at JPJ parking garage and bike rack outside JPJ at 10 a.m. on Sunday the 12th.

Are y'all going to go to the gardens behind Garden?

I'm going to adjourn us, y'all.

Good night.

So I'd be happy to attend.

I just need to know