Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordination Committee Meeting   3/18/2021

We didn't have any support vehicles or plans of where we were going to stay.

So we just kind of picked up and, you know, had some money and some cell phones with us and just kind of went for three days.

And it was, you know, to see everything that you thought you knew from a different perspective was quite amazing.

Thanks, Kyle.

And I'm just letting everyone know that I am recording this meeting.

It will go up on our website.

I have a similar story to Kyle, I guess, back in, I don't know, 2004, something I rode from Norfolk to Washington DC as part of the DC AIDS ride.

So it was like a

awareness fundraising ride, which was really fun and just got to see so many places in Virginia that I'd never seen before.

Met some new friends along the way and it was just really a great time.

And it also was probably the first time where I really learned as part of the training for that, there were a lot of supported rides and a lot of great mentorship that happened with trying to learn how to ride properly on the road and with groups and things like that.

Hi, I'm Sara Pennington.

I'm also with the TJPDC.

I am the program manager for the Rideshare program, which promotes alternative forms of transportation throughout the state.

So as a non-cyclist, probably one of my favorite bike memories is when I remember as a kid, I think I was about eight and I got a bike for Christmas, which was a really big deal.

It was like my first big girl bike.

And it was so cold that day, but when you get a bike for Christmas, you have to go ride it.

And I remember like bundling up in all of the winter wear

Luckily there was no snow in Kentucky at the time, so it was good.

And like just riding up and down the street for what felt like hours, it might not have been because it was so cold, but I remember my mom, you know, standing there watching, just being like, could you stop?

I'm freezing to death.

But I had to enjoy that, that awesome new Christmas gift.

Thanks, Sarah.

Okay, I have no official capacity here.

I did the, I've done the bike ped count a couple of times.

And my all time favorite bike experience was about three years ago, I went on a tandem bike ride with my son.

You know, that's the way for somebody of a certain age to ride a bike.

I ride myself.

But anyway, we went on a six day trip around in Northern California, around the Napa Valley.

And he really, really, really pushed me.

And I wasn't sure I was going to be able to really do it, but knowing that he was on the front there just in case helped a lot.

But I felt it was the best way to travel with someone ever because the guy he's captive there, which you have young kids, you don't know what this is like yet, but he was captive.

So he had to be there with me.

And you can talk if you're on two bikes, you can't really talk.

If you're on the one bike, you can.

It just was a wonderful, really wonderful experience.

I hope to do it again, going out there again next month, finally, after not seeing him for a year.

And I'm really all over the tandem thing.

Sounds like fun.

Thank you for sharing.

I'm Peter Holmes, I'm with the VDOT research division and I will kind of go back to the most embarrassing bike memory a little bit like Peter Krebs.

When I was a kid I was biking on a paved trail and went over the handlebars and got a nice scratch on my elbow and from then on I've worn a helmet and checked that the brake on the front wheel is fully attached because when it went around it locked that front wheel and

Thanks, Peter.

Yeah, so my name is Lonnie Murray and I'm a past member, not current member of the Charlottesville Track Club and have done several marathons and 10-miler programs.

I'd say my favorite pedestrian, my favorite memory was probably running with the Western Animal Across the Country team.

We did a run, we'd start at Coach Bain's house in Crese and then run up German's Gap all the way to the parkway.

And those only seniors got, only seniors did that run.

Great.

Thanks Lonnie.

Hi, I'm Michael Geiser.

I'm just a bike advocate.

I live up in Carsbrook.

rides by my house all the time.

So that's nice.

I said, my favorite memory is I rode, one of the times I rode to Carson country from Cleveland to the East coast.

I stopped in the Finger Lakes area and was just looking at this lake and this guy came out of the house.

He's like, you need a place to stay overnight?

It's like, yeah.

Well, I can't let you in, but you can put your tent on my yard.

That's great.

So that was great.

And then in the morning he came out and said,

Do you want to ride across the lake?

I'm like, okay.

So I put my bike in his boat and we go across the lake in his boat.

It's like, man, that was great.

So back in the seventies.

Thanks, Michael.

Good morning, everybody.

Michael Barnes.

I work with VDOT, helping localities spend the money that we have to build facilities.

My favorite memory, and probably what animates me so much about this stuff, is I lived in Boston when I was a little kid, first and second grade.

And it was great to live near the Olmstead's Emerald Necklace.

And what was amazing was I could

head out my back door, cross a busy street, but then get on a bike path and ride for miles within the city of Boston.

Thanks, Michael.

Good morning, everyone.

I'm Shane Salyard with the Virginia Department of Transportation Central Office.

Let's see, a favorite bike memory would be

In another lifetime as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania, a bicycle was my only means of transportation for 27 months.

And there is an endless supply of unpaid roads in Tanzania.

Thanks Shane.

Chuck.

Chuck, are you there?

If not, did I miss anybody?

Oh, Chuck.

This is Chuck.

I'm the Culpeper District VDOT representative.

In my hiking, I do a lot of hiking up in the Northern Virginia area.

And it's probably hiking on the C&O Canal in the Maryland side.

Going out to see Great Falls from that side of the river because I live in Virginia and I go out to the Great Falls side on the Virginia side and I'm seeing all the restoration work that's going along on this C&O Canal.

I remember when I was a kid, we went on a bike trip up that corridor after Hurricane Agnes went through and it was totally destroyed.

and to see how it's rejuvenated and revived and they're restoring some of the ferry boats that they used to run up and down the corridor and they're establishing the locks and all that stuff.

And that was really exciting to go out there and look at the historic area while you're hiking down the trail.

Great, thanks Chuck.

So we're gonna, I think it's nice that you were all able to share something special about biking and walking.

I think it's fun to remember all of the good stuff in addition to thinking about infrastructure and bike counts and all the other things.

So I'm gonna quick share my screen.

Let's see here.

So this was our agenda for today.

And just based on who has to leave early and who can, who's showing up late, we're going to kind of go in a different order.

So we're going to start with, let me just jump ahead, the bike and pedestrian count.

So yeah, we are up to the spring count already.

That count is going to run from Tuesday, April 20th and conclude on Thursday, April 29th.

We'd like to do the counts on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

So we'll have six days total to do those counts in either week.

The morning counts are going to be from 7 to 9 a.m.

The evening counts are going to be from 4 to 6 p.m. just as they were back in the fall.

We'll do one morning and one evening count for each location.

Last, with the fall, we had plenty of volunteers who agreed to do those counts, but we did not have anybody sign up for weekend counts.

If we get more volunteers for the weekend, we'll add in weekend counts this time around.

And they'll be at the same locations.

So there were 10 locations we went to last time.

I was going to ask Jessica, do you have a list of those?

Yeah, so let's, I have that just in case somebody asked it.

I didn't write them out nicely.

This is just directly pulled from our summary Excel spreadsheet that is up on our website.

But those locations are Riverview Park, Emmett and Angus, which is near that Emmett 29 area.

James Warner Parkway and Rio Road, Monticello and 6th, the intersection of Rio Road and Penn Park Road, the intersection of Ridge and Main, the intersection of Market and 9th, the intersection of Emmett and Ivy, the intersection of

Fifth Street and Old Lynchburg.

And that's kind of a weird one, but that's the accurate way of describing it, I guess.

And then the intersection of Preston Grady and 10th.

And we worked with Amanda to figure out exactly what it is we wanted to count because otherwise it's too much to try to count all of those little intersection areas.

So there's a very clear plan for how to count that one.

Does that answer your question, Shane?

I know it would be better if we had it all on a map, but I just didn't have time to pull that together.

Great.

That's a great question.

So basically we stuck with Charlottesville and Albemarle because that is the staff that we have represented on this committee.

So that's just the reason, the historical reason for it.

I mean, particularly Ridge Road is if you drive past or on any Saturday, like the side of the road is full of vehicles and same thing with Dick Woods Road on a Saturday.

Great.

Let's see here.

So I am now making a call for volunteers for the spring bicycle and pedestrian count.

What I will do, last time we had a ton of help from Peter Krebs at PEC.

He sent out an email requesting volunteers and that's where I got quite a few people from.

So what I'm going to do is create an email template calling for volunteers.

I will already have the training video for how to do the count up on YouTube and I'll include a link in that email template and then I'll send it out to

All of the staff in this meeting and any members of the public who are interested and then you can share it with your networks and hopefully we can get all the volunteers we need again.

Cool, okay.

I would love people to sign up as early as possible, as early as they can commit, but like last time I was taking more volunteers all the way up through the last day of counting.

Great.

Okay.

The next thing I'd like to do is talk about the One Map update.

So, Dan, I'm going to stop sharing my screen.

Sure.

I'll start with just some general background for anybody new.

The One Map is a regional effort from the recent

Bicycle Pedestrian Plan adopted by the city, the county and with UVA.

And it just shows regional network of proposed connections, our existing infrastructure.

It has more of that urban focus on it for transportation.

But we do have rural recommendations and

This One Map initiative is to really get these

recommendations into an online user-friendly accessible resource and as a planning tool to show our proposed route, but also as for the public to see our existing infrastructure.

And so this has been in the works really starting once the plan was adopted in 2019 and trying to build the data structure.

And so we're three entities working on this and then

Last year I think it didn't gain much traction with everything that's been going on and so we're really aiming to get this probably accessible and ready in the summer.

We've been doing a lot more like data, looking at the data and the merging.

Early stages of efforts were more focused on

Compiling this data and making sure it's what we want to represent.

So working with the county GIS person, he's not here, but we're noticed when the city and UVA provided all this data that we still have some minor tweaks, some minor homework to do.

We're going to be meeting next week.

We still have to find that date.

But some issues that we're finding is not everything has the domain structure that we need for things to merge easily.

You know, some domains that we requested early on for attribute fields and just even just some naming of what the facilities are themselves.

So these are really minor updates, but we do need to address these.

And then once we're able to get those addressed, we're going to be able to look at this data emerged as one whole structure and being able to

Start the end and steps towards this.

So again, that's a general overview of where we're at.

I just had a question.

Are you going to be able to look at prioritizing the needs for the network as the long-term goal so we can identify a prioritized list of projects that we can push forward for investment and construction?

It would be good to have that as the end goal so we have this map that

Yeah, that's a great point, Chuck.

I think that we're at a stage, and Dan and anyone else, correct me if I'm wrong, we just need to get the map put together.

And from there, there's so many things we can do with it, including what you just described, using it to help prioritize

Upcoming projects and future projects.

So I think we're just at a stage where we just need to get it all together, get it up and running.

We have, you know, as Dan described, the staff have a little bit of homework to do.

And then what we talked about last time, and Bill, you can jump in, UVA is going to take over a little bit of the hosting work early on to take all of the data that the staff have worked on and turn it into a usable map.

So initially it'll be something that the public can also take a look at and plan their own routes.

Yeah, we've been talking to the scholars lab folks, Chris Gist and Drew McQueen, who are also avid cyclists, thankfully, which is good.

And they have a lot of experience in this ArcGIS online world where that's the way that we present this data to the public and come up with different ways of using it.

They're probably going to be able to help us with that, whether it's hosted through UVA or probably more likely hosted through the TJPDC.

That's good.

And Bill, it'd be good to keep them kind of get them start involved with our meetings.

And I can see us probably handing off, you know, within it, to be able to get their involvement with that.

And like Chuck said you know once we have this hosted you know then we'll be able to start doing the analysis that Chuck's talking about you know looking at vtrans data compiling just evaluating in for the county we're going to look at you know paving data and

I have a couple of comments.

Looking through the data, I've noted that

It appears that the data has been digitized in several different ways, which is presenting some problems.

For instance, some of the features are hung from the center line.

which is great.

But then you got other features that are basically you got the bike lane mapped where it is on the other side of the road.

So again, there's a lot of inconsistencies and also some of the lines are broken at intersections, some aren't.

I mean, there's the attribute names.

I mean, there's like five different types of bike lane is spelled like five different ways.

And I mean, it's just a little things like that that needs some

some attention to clean up and but before you get started doing a whole lot more.

I think some basic decisions have to be made.

I mean, are you going to hang it from the center line or are you going to break it intersections or you know, are you what are you going to call a bike lane, you know, again, it's a

Well, yeah, I definitely agree.

Just evaluating all three of the layers.

These decisions were decided when we started this process, but I'm sure through the transition of

A lot of people involved and just kind of the extension of this project.

We're bound to have definitely some upkeep with that and correction.

And, you know, it might need to be a refresher.

But that's what we're going to be.

That's very specific details that you just called out is what we're going to be the homework that we have to address.

because this is kind of extended.

But we did iron out what we want this data structure to look like.

And we also are coming from three different entities that already had their data set up a certain way.

So we're also trying to collaborate internally as we're trying to collaborate regionally.

And can I suggest one of the things, Mike Barnes, and that would be once we do have some of the attributing data ironed out, maybe creating like a small team of folks who can like go, you know, break the development areas up some of the places where a lot more density of trails and maybe focus on like the south side of town or west side of town.

And just kind of like breaking into small analytic zones where we can go through a small team and actually do some QA, QC and try to find some of the stuff.

I think my experience is you really got the devils in the details.

We're not that big of a community.

Many of us know it quite intimately.

Thanks, Michael.

And Dan or Bill, if you guys want to jump in.

So Michael, it sounds like what you're describing is some ground truth thing that would happen.

I still think that the cleanup work that Dan and Bill have described is something that would have to happen first.

Just brainstorming the kind of ground truth thing that you're describing, it definitely sounds like it could be a fun volunteer project.

But again, we just need to get the basics in place and make sure it's a map we can all look at and that makes sense.

And then we'll

and then we'll do that ground truth thing to ensure that it accurately, do that quality control to make sure it reflects what's actually on the ground.

Thank you.

Just real quick, if you don't mind, I completely agree with you, Jessica, that the cleaning up the data is something that needs to happen first.

No, I was not meaning physically going out in the field.

Thanks, Michael.

Yeah, thanks.

I wanted to go back to some of Shane's comments.

So you mentioned like whether or not it's using centerline data and breaking it intersections.

And I think you mentioned one other thing.

I'm curious if VDOT has kind of a protocol for how their data is, because I think, you know,

All of our data should be working together.

And if we need to make some calls about how that is structured, it would be helpful.

Yeah, Amanda, that is a good suggestion.

Yes, we do have a protocol that we use when we're developing a statewide inventory

and we ran into the same issue.

We collected data from numerous regional agencies, localities, and none of it was mapped the same.

So we took the data and basically said, this is how we're gonna do it.

And we have to do some re digitizing, but it is at least now is consistent.

So yeah, I could definitely share that information.

And again, I'm not saying that the way we're doing it is right.

I'm just saying we are trying to be consistent across all of the mapping that we do.

I think that would be really helpful.

Yeah, so Shane, if there's anything you want to send me to share with the work group, we can do that.

But also, Dan, if you want to extend an invitation to Shane for that work group meeting next week, I think that would be helpful.

Hey, Shane, I was going to comment.

You might want to reach out to Geraldine because she's in charge of the Pathways for Planning project, and they're doing a lot of that stuff.

She might be able to

Yeah, Chuck, that is a great idea because we are sending all of our data is going to be housed in Pathways for Planning.

So, yeah, that's

That's a great idea.

And also the other layers that wouldn't be needed for analysis are there, such as the six year, you know, improvement plan.

You've got a SMART SCALE projects that are funded.

You've got, you got the tier one V-Trans needs.

So all of these data layers are there that we could put on one, you know, overlay on the one map to do the analysis once, once one map is in, you know, where it needs to be.

Yeah, and the other thing I was going to say is that's an external web-based mapping tool that anybody can get access to.

You just have to register and get access to it.

So once that's incorporated, and it includes all the other data sets, the crash data, the safety data, like Shane said, the V-Trans data,

That's available.

So you can get a lot more information in addition to just the bike ped information.

Yeah, so in the past, a lot of this data has really excluded runners.

The staff, I'll let you guys jump in, but in short, the

The one map is supposed to include bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.

I thought it did.

I thought we had like a category in there for like class B trail or something like that.

But it's not like, it doesn't say like,

This facility is for runners or walkers.

It's more of just the type of facility that it is.

I think that's a great point.

And I think it probably segues into this conversation about quiet routes and all that, that

I think would maybe be more of the next step with this data set, because this is strictly like infrastructure that is designed for that purpose of biting.

You know, it doesn't have bike.

It doesn't have like, it's just not track heavily traffic.

So, you know, it's not like it's set up specifically for biking or running.

It's walking.

Okay, thanks.

Okay.

I just, a few last points is I definitely am fully aware with what you're bringing up, Lonnie.

And you know, that's data, VDOT's unpaid roads data that we could bring in and evaluate as well.

The initial scope of this One Map was a transportation network and it was decided to bring in existing trails data.

We're talking like within the park systems and greenways, you know, linear parks.

But to just mention something with what Shane says, you know, we have to look into the scope, you know, of how much we're going to take a step back and have to reevaluate this whole data structure.

We, you know, looking at do we put, I think recalling initial discussions in the way that I believe that the county took was

Existing infrastructure has, even if it's a bike lane on both sides of the road, we decided to count that so we could evaluate linear miles of infrastructure.

But we're also, unlike the, I believe, the Virginia Interactive BikeWeb map,

We're having also half of our data set is for proposed routes as well.

I don't know if VDOT is portraying proposed routes.

And so that does take more of the center line aspect to this data.

And so we're balancing a lot within this one map in itself.

And we just decided to include shared use paths, trails, bicycle infrastructure, and pedestrian infrastructure to be included in all of this within the three entities.

So, you know, we also do call out rural areas that that is known for bicycle use.

I think, to what you're saying, there are places, for example, like I live in Sugar Hollow, it wasn't created as a greenway, but it is a de facto greenway.

The length of Sugar Hollow Road on any Saturday is highly used by runners and cyclists.

No one planned to build the infrastructure to make that a greenway, but it is a greenway.

And so in terms of planning and for VDOT and other organizations, that needs to be taken into account as improvements are made.

Same thing would go for roads like DECA, Ridge Road, and other highly used existing places in the county that are de facto greenways.

This has a lot to do with our discussion yesterday with the rural rustic pavements.

And, you know, I definitely agree.

But also on our end, I don't know if the county is at that point in promoting these roads as specifically, you know, a greenway.

I think we can point to saying we feel there are users here and what accommodations can be made.

And we can have those conversations with VDOT.

And I put in the chat bar a link to the interactive bicycle map that, well, a couple of them.

One is our inventory, but one is the actual interactive bicycling map that you can actually click on.

And I guess this relates to the low stress conversation as well, but you can actually click a toggle on unpaid roads, traffic volumes for each road.

the facility type.

So again, you could use that map to, I guess, you know, find the low traffic volume roads that if you want to travel those, you can find the unpaid, you know, the gravel roads if you want to find those.

Thanks for putting that in the chat, Shane.

Any other questions, comments?

Great.

Okay, so I'm going to share my screen again so that we can talk about low stress routes.

And I'll preface this conversation by saying that this is really just the beginning of a conversation.

This is just something to put on your radar.

It's one of the many things that we can do with One Math once we

get a map in place.

It's not something that we have to do, but I think that there's a lot of value to it.

So just to give you a little bit of background on why we're bringing this up now.

And Patrick, I see that you've joined us and I'm probably gonna call on you to help me introduce this a little bit.

So just giving you a heads up.

So a big thank you to Peter and PEC for hosting that active mobility summit a couple weeks ago now and let's see at that summit I ended up in a breakout room with a couple of other really great folks who were talking about low stress route maps for biking and and walking too.

One of the people in that group was Becca White from University Transportation

And she was particularly interested in a low stress map for the university area.

So we were talking a little bit more about how one map might complement that work.

Yeah, thank you, Jessica.

So my name is Patrick Clark.

I'm from UVA's Department of Parking and Transportation, and I oversee all of our alternative transportation offerings.

So the university, we have a bike map currently, if you're familiar with it.

It was designed

to be used by everyone, but it's clearly made by planners.

And so we're concerned about how user-friendly that map is.

And then couple that with, you may or may not also be aware that due to COVID, our transit system changed many of its bus routes.

And post-COVID, we don't anticipate those routes going back to normal.

And there's been a philosophy shift accompanying that, the idea of eliminating convenience trips and more facilitating commuting trips, just getting people to and from grounds, but not necessarily helping them get to different areas of grounds, kind of cutting out those trips where possible.

As a result, we anticipate an increase in micro mobility use chiefly bicycles.

And then

With that, we expect and we welcome a lot of new bicycle riders, but there are certain obstacles to overcome.

One of those being, we want to help them be familiar with the best way to traverse grounds.

And so identifying quiet routes

So that kind of led into this conversation.

Thanks for that introduction, Patrick.

Just for the public, because I know staff already knows this, the benefits of low-stress route maps are that it provides people who are already biking with safer and lower stress routes.

It provides people who are not comfortable biking on the routes they know from driving to find lower stress routes.

So yeah I mean I could I could add to Patrick a little bit because I worked a lot on you know developing that map in the past and

It really goes back a long way.

The original iteration of it was probably 15 years ago.

And yeah, Patrick's right.

It was like a two-sided map, bike on one side, bus on the other.

And it was really designed to be printed and given out to students as kind of a, not given to them in orientation, but available to them as they

Kind of went to some of the orienting activities on grounds for the first time.

And so, yeah, and it's evolved, but it's never evolved to that point where we've put it online and it's dynamic at all.

So just kind of leave it there.

Great.

Thanks, Bill.

So like I said, this is just like an intro to what should be an ongoing conversation.

And what I've done is just pull a couple of examples that I'm familiar with.

Those of you who have heard me talk about it before, I moved here from Arizona.

So these are some Arizona examples.

These are not the only examples.

They're just examples I'm familiar with and could pull quickly.

And I think more so than looking at maps at this point, it's important to look at the keys to those maps.

and that's because

In order to move forward with any of the piling on or layering on any low stress routes onto the existing one map is going to require some definitions.

We're going to have to figure out what exactly a low stress route means for our community.

And maybe that looks different in the university area versus the city versus the county versus rural areas.

So I think coming up, having a sense of what other communities are doing with their maps and how they're defining low stress routes can be helpful.

So these are really just here for you guys to take a look at.

I'm not a Zoom expert, so I'm going to try to share this.

Is everyone seeing a map?

Okay, great.

So this is just an example.

Since this conversation comes, is initially spearheaded by the university, I'm showing a university map.

What they ended up doing was creating a definition for a bicycle friendly street.

Those are in blue.

These are streets that have vehicles running on them, but they meet certain

Certain limits of having so many vehicles per day and the speed limits are pretty low on those roadways.

So that's how they're identified as bike friendly streets.

There's no signage on those streets to identify them as bike friendly.

It's just that they met a definition and they're highlighted on the university map.

There are also shared use bike paths.

Those are a little bit obvious or a little bit more obvious because they're clearly created for bicyclists and pedestrians and those are identified here in green.

And then there's pedestrian walkways.

I don't know about UVA, but at this university, there were shared use paths that because of incredibly high numbers of pedestrian traffic, they were banned.

We have similar UDA with dismount only areas.

Yeah, and I think from a university standpoint, those are often really important to highlight because, you know, enforcement can only go so far.

You have to educate people to let them know where they should and should not be riding.

And then low stress maps, I think, also really benefit from having additional information for bicyclists.

So this map includes things like where you can get bike parking, where you can get your bike repaired,

It also considers how people are traveling beyond the university area so people might feel really comfortable biking around the university but if they're coming to the university and this is like their first time on a bike since they were 12 they might not feel comfortable biking beyond

the university environment.

So it's thinking, this map is also thinking about how are people connecting to other transportation options?

So there was a streetcar there.

So they had the links or they had the stops identified as well on this map.

So that's just an example.

I just wanted to put it out there so that people start thinking about this as one way we can move forward with the one map.

And I want to open it up for comments or questions.

I don't want to stick on this topic too long.

I want in a few minutes to switch over to our conversation about Bike Month.

I would really, I love this.

I am so tired of trying to figure this out on my own.

You get to a place, oh bike lane ends, you get someplace else.

It's just,

So aggravating and frustrating.

I welcome this so wholeheartedly.

If there's anything I can do to help, including going out there and finding out what all the problems are, count me in.

Great.

I have one quick comment.

And it's more about how those safe streets were kind of determined like those blue rats that were on there.

You said it was based off of speed and traffic volume and all that.

You know, I just kind of went through a similar process with making these walk to school transit style maps and we kind of, you know, it was it was kind of a mad dash last minute kind of thing because of COVID and

and things like that.

So we weren't able to really kind of pull the masses on how we should calculate those safe streets.

And once we tried, we tried to collect all the information and once we published it, you know, we got a lot of feedback on like, hey, this is not a safe street.

This is not the route that we use, even though this street does have two sidewalks on either side and crosswalks and, you know, like, you know,

It checks all these boxes, but we go this other way because of this, because of like crime or something like that.

No, that's a great point.

I can say we did not do that for the university map that I showed you for the city map.

We definitely did a lot more work about those definitions.

So one of the things that we talked about with the city map creation was this invisible information that you're talking about, like people

There can be something, a route that meets a particular planning definition for being a bike friendly route or a safer route.

And that doesn't meet people's real lived experiences, whether it's crime or like a rogue dog in the neighborhood, there's lots of that kind of information that we can only get through interacting with people.

So I'm definitely hearing you and just seconding what you have to say.

Oh no, I just think that Kyle and Kath, I think those are great comments.

I think going forward, obviously we probably want to look at this as more of a online tool.

I don't know, you know, maybe paper maps are still useful for some, but I think generally the online dynamic aspect is the way to go.

And so then, you know, both the map that you showed and the map that

that we created were heavily edited in design and illustrator.

So I think the cartography has to fit the technology.

But Kyle, the safe routes to school aspect is really, yeah, I hadn't thought about that, but that could be a good model.

And I do think there needs to be a lot of,

You know, it's safety, it's steepness, you know, there's all kinds of different factors at play in Charlottesville as we know.

But I'll leave it.

Do you have something?

Yeah, I don't know if it's really helpful, because it pertains mostly to on-street biking.

But if we talk about streets where it's OK to bike on the street, and then sometimes you run into intersections with smart traffic signals that don't recognize you as a bicyclist,

and you have to wait for cars behind you to come close enough so that the signal can see either of you.

If it's possible to highlight these as kind of flag them basically as problem areas.

I said people aren't stranded there.

I know it's probably even legal to go, at least where I lived before in Minnesota, it was legal.

They said in the code, after a reasonable amount of time, if you wait and the signal doesn't react, but it's not safe.

No, that's a great point, Max.

And I'll just really quickly point out on the city map, there was, they had little icons for every push button crossing.

So this recognition that if you're going to be going on less busy routes or less busy roadways as a bicyclist to stay on a low stress route, you're often going to come to an intersection with a busier street.

And there may not be a traffic signal at all to try to get you across that.

So

These icons were there specifically to indicate places that were the only places where you could safely cross a busier road by using these lower stress routes.

So yes, recognizing that that is a really great point.

Hi, I posted a screenshot.

I hope I posted the right one.

Strava and Garmin all collect data on activity and I've wondered if you've considered using some of the heat map data.

I mean, just scanning what I've seen is pretty accurate in terms of the usage of a lot of areas.

Lonnie, can I ask you to mute yourself when you're not talking?

Otherwise I get a ton of feedback.

Thank you so much.

Yes, I think that the locality staff has repeatedly expressed a lot of interest in using Strava and all of the great data that that offers.

I personally am a little bit more skeptical.

I think that low stress routes in particular are meant to reach out to people who don't feel comfortable biking yet, no matter what.

So it needs to be, I think that there's a balance with,

using that kind of data from people who feel comfortable getting out on a lot of different roadway types and also hearing some of that invisible information from community members who just don't feel comfortable yet in any situation.

I just had one more quick comment, which is there's a huge problem with obesity in rural areas.

It's pretty well known.

And for people in rural areas, it's because we don't have bike lanes.

We don't have sidewalks.

It's very important to have access to areas where you can safely exercise.

Great point.

Thank you.

I was just going to mention, you know, we did do some analysis with the Bike Fed Master Plan identifying levels of traffic stress.

So there is kind of at least some base information that has done that sort of

You know, methodical analysis of the different roads taking into account traffic volumes and speed and unsignalized crossings and things like that.

It's imperfect, but it could at least provide a starting point for ruling out those areas that maybe they do have bike lanes, but because of the traffic volume and some other factors might not be a low stress route.

I just want to add one last thing to that too.

Early state in our development of the One Map data, we definitely worked with the PDC on this screenshot that you provided was a tool that we use to kind of just for the rural areas, see where people are riding.

It's not the most accurate, but it was a starting point for us to gather that type of information.

And it is included, I looked, Sugar Hollow is included as some type of proposal for accommodating bicyclists on this location.

And we have a lot of other areas in the world

Amanda, I'm going to pick on you if you want to introduce a little bit more about Bike Month, which is coming up in May, and I thought what we would do after Amanda gives us a little introduction is

We will do a roundtable of things that different people are planning and then try to identify opportunities for collaboration.

One other thing I want to note is normally this meeting goes until noon, but we're sharing a Zoom account with the housing people at the PDC and they are running an event at noon today.

So we need to actually end it by 1135 as a hard stop.

Awesome.

Well, yeah, as Jessica mentioned, May is Bike Month, and so we kicked off our planning at the Active Mobility Summit a couple weeks ago.

We had a follow-up meeting last week with a few people who were interested in kind of helping to organize events and, you know, put some energy towards promotion and organizing events and things like that.

You know, Bike Month really is a celebration of all of the great things that so many people are doing in our community and it comes together, you know, from a variety of different ways.

The city tends to feed on putting together a calendar and promoting stuff, organizing people where we need to, but we really rely on all of the community partners working in biking,

in the region to help fill out those events because people are doing a lot of things.

And so this is just kind of a way to collectively share, to celebrate how we can enjoy biking more, learn more about bike safety and maintenance, and just promote cycling as a safe transportation and recreational activity.

We have a good list of things that we're doing, you know, things that are kind of nationally recognized are Bike to School Day and Bike to Work Day and Mother's Day rides and Rides of Silence and things like that.

So we've got a pretty good start.

So I think that's kind of, that's kind of

It.

As far as an introduction, you know, I guess in terms of the roundtable, some of those folks that were on the call could speak up about the things that they had volunteered to organize and promote.

And certainly we are open to whatever ideas anybody has.

And if you know of events that are going on, you know, as part of a club or

I'll start with Bike to Work Day and then we'll turn it over to Kyle.

That is kind of one of those signature events and obviously people are doing things differently.

like you know we could have a safe socially distant pit stop like we do normally on West Main we're hoping to maybe expand that to other different pit stops and focusing you know we obviously have a lot of people who are no longer commuting to work but you know encouraging people to get out and ride their bike to the pit stop and go back ride back to their home to you know telecommute or

Whatever they're doing from their homes.

So that's something that we are going to be looking towards.

I know parks is going to be offering free bike rentals out at Dardantown Park.

So there's opportunities there.

You know, the city often puts out PSAs and

A press release and things like that.

So we'll continue to do that as well.

So just kind of like Amanda said about how Bike to Work Day is kind of like a mainstay, flagship day.

Bike to School Day is also that.

I don't think it's as high profile as Bike to Work Day because we're not really setting up pit stops on Main Street for

eight-year-olds to stop at, but kind of what Bike to School Day is.

Well, at least what we're going to push for this year is basically kind of like a welcoming committee.

So a pit stop at a school.

So like an incentive for kids to ride to school.

And then there'll be some schools that will do like a, hey, meet at this parking lot or this area of town.

And then we're all going to ride it together.

So, but that's kind of a school by school basis.

So we're kind of counting on the PTOs to kind of go into that.

We also talked about trying to get maybe some city counselors riding with groups at the school, but we haven't really reached out to them yet.

I'm just looking at my list here from that meeting.

The other thing that we're going to look into is see if Cambic, the Charlottesville Area Mountain Bike Club, who does a lot of trail work in town, if they have any trail work days that they want to add in the calendar or projects that they're chomping at the bit to do that we can kind of advertise.

And then also at the schools, I'm going to get in touch with the BRIDGE, the arts organization,

about maybe doing like kids making their own bike maps so kind of a la that desire lines that Peter was talking about in the chat you know kind of which way they might take to school and maybe we can kind of hang those up somewhere or something like that and past that that's really everything that I have that's kind of concrete everything else is really just a vague brainstorm that's on my

My phone here.

Great.

We certainly will be, but I don't think we're there at a point where we can put out a call for volunteers.

I think there's always, if somebody has an idea that they are interested in sort of organizing, certainly at this point,

If you're interested in volunteering to organize an event to add to the calendar, we'd love to hear from you.

Great.

So when you guys are, what I'm offering to do is for, I will put out anyone who wants to make a call for volunteers.

I can put out an email to all of the group, all of the people who are on our email list for this group, which includes our bike and ped count volunteers.

So people, you can, we can send things out that way.

And then one more question for you guys was should, if people have things that they want to add to the calendar, should they email you directly, Amanda?

I'm gonna let Peter answer that.

I think he was trying to organize a calendar.

He's got some other things that he's working on too.

I guess in the absence right now of a Google Calendar, which is what we're shooting for, if you've got ideas and want to email them to me, feel free.

Yeah, so I'm in the process right now of setting up a Google Calendar that will be accessible to the public.

It's a work in progress, but I'll share the, I'll put the link in the chat.

I mean, I literally put this thing, created this thing one minute ago, so absolutely nothing is on it, but we can begin populating it.

Okay.

So, sorry, my two chat items ran together.

PC's hosting this guy, Ralph Buhler, for a event about his new book, Cycling for Sustainable Cities.

I'm asking y'all to help me pick a date.

Okay, so that's one chat item.

The other link that you see in the chat is a link for the new Google Calendar, which we can go ahead and put the basic things on there, like, you know, like the school day, for example.

Yeah, and then the other thing is to that,

to build on the Bike to Work Day item.

PC is going to host some kind of swag station.

I just talked to the folks at C3, the Climate Collaborative.

They also are considering putting together a swag station.

And this also is related to some of the other things we've been talking about, changing the definition of what

What is transportation?

So perhaps these swag stations might not necessarily be like a 8.30 a.m. thing on West Main Street, but thinking about like bike there rather than bike to work day, there's lots of ways to travel on a bike, lots of places.

Most places are not the workplace actually.

That was all for now.

As all of the Bike Month stuff is happening, sorry Jessica, please feel free to shoot all of the information over to me at Rideshare.

We are happy to promote.

If you see a way that we can partner, I'm open to discussions about that.

There are some things that we have the ability to do with Rideshare since biking is obviously an alternative commute method.

Thanks, Peter.

Dan, is the county doing anything?

I was just touching base with our communications department and Parks and Rec.

I don't have anything set in stone right now.

It's worth pointing out that the city's

Patrick and Bill, is the university doing anything for Bike Month?

Parking and transportation doesn't have anything set in stone right now.

Patrick and everyone who was in the meeting, I did send an email

Early on in this email or in this meeting, and there were a couple of things that had ideas for you all for possibly like hosting, also being all post UVA has done that in the past.

I don't know if that's something you might be interested in doing again.

So just take a look at that and shoot me an email.

Sounds good.

Not really related to Bike Month.

I think I may have mentioned here in a different meeting that we were looking into potentially more at the end of April when the students were still around.

We had a student group that was interested in kind of closing off half of McCormick Road for an afternoon as a demonstration project, you know, opening it to bikes and peds just exclusively.

We hit some roadblocks in terms of whether that would be an event, you know, and the university is really trying to not do stuff like that right now.

So I think we're going to table that until the fall.

Just wanted to give that update.

Great.

Max, you were at the bike month planning meeting.

Well, actually, I mean, the initial idea from my side was to go with something akin to the rite of silence, but differently, more or less a parade.

But with how things are evolving, it seems very uncertain that we should have

Gathering in a way for May for bigger group riding together.

So we explored different options now, including having staggered or virtual tours, but this is still very early in the beginning of if and how we can do this.

that it's still offering the benefits.

So basically, the main idea of having a parade would be more next year, not this year.

Hoping that next year, really, this is over.

So, of course.

Yeah, so that's basically it.

We don't have any specific bike month stuff necessarily coming up for us, but like I said, we're very open to any partnerships or any promotion that we can do.

Great, thanks.

So as a little bit of a wrap up, it sounds like try to add your events, whatever they are, to the Google Calendar that Peter is creating.

If you need volunteers or if you want help advertising your event, please reach out to me and I'll share things with Sara and we'll get things on social media and out to our email lists.

I think that's everything.

I see Lonnie has had his hand up for a little while.

Great.

I do have a more general thing to mention.

As was referenced, I brought up to the Board of Supervisors an issue with rural road pavings and some of the ways that that process works now.

The running and cycling community is not explicitly notified when roads are put on the paving list.

And that's a problem because if you look at the paving list right now, three of the most highly used roads for running in the county are on that paving list.

I suspect some of those are also used by cyclists.

Cole's Rolling Road is one being paved right now that was highly used.

When that came up in the discussion, when the public brought that up to the Board of Supervisors, even citizens who were proposing for it to be paved said things like,

Oh, and we see mountain bikers on this road all the time.

We need to pave this to make it safer for them, which is just crazy.

And so I don't know how to go about this, but it would be really nice to find a way if we could encourage localities to include, you know, we have all these great local clubs, the Charlottesville Track Club,

Charlottesville area trail runners club, Cambic.

It just seems like it'd be, you know, the Farm Bureau is routinely notified for anything having to do with rural areas.

I'll respond to that.

That's specifically a county thing with our rural area.

And I definitely am aware of your concerns.

I see it, you know, but with this, this is a policy within the county.

So I would encourage you to

Keep this conversation going with your supervisor.

And it will allow us to continue to evaluate our process.

Right now, roads are submitted by request property owners, you know, and they can be moved by board members or another request by property owners.

And so we do need to have this conversation.

But I definitely

I definitely think we can re-evaluate our approach on this.

We do hold two public meetings every spring towards these roads.

Yeah.

I mean, I think just, just in terms of general awareness, I mean, when I've mentioned to the public and I try to get the word out to people myself as one lone individual,

You know, people, you know, it's buried in language like six years, secondary road priority, and people just, people's eyes glaze over and they don't realize that there's something on there that's important.

So it's something that, you know, people that do walk, run, and bike, they need to be aware that these paving lists exist and that they can have big repercussions for our ability to be able to exercise, our ability to get from here to there,

And I don't know what the best answer is there.

And I'm sure we can't be the only locality that's affected by this.

I know that in Loudoun County, it's also a huge issue being brought up.

Some of those roads that are identified as highly used by runners are not in Albemarle, they're in adjacent counties.

Right, I agree.

I'm definitely familiar with

how it's being handled in Loudoun County.

But again, these roads to be taken off or to be put on a list is through members and through public comment and property owners who have the abilities of requesting for these roads.

So I do encourage the conversation going and allow us to evaluate our process as well.

I'll be going back to the board in May.

Great.

Thanks for.

That question, Lonnie, and for all of your feedback, Dan.

I think all of the outlets Dan gave you for making comments are probably the best way to go about it, but I'll also make you aware that we do have a Rural Transportation Advisory Committee.

That means every other month.

Lonnie, I can reach out to you offline and give you that information.

That might be another place for you to discuss this item.

I want to wrap things up, but before we do, are there any other comments, questions, any other requests for agenda items for next month?

If not, I want to thank all of you so much for joining us today.

I hope to see you all again next month.