well, well, well

some interesting stuff at tonight's BAC meeting.

item one:

roger geller asked for input on the current ODoT bike/ped grant cycle. proposals due july 9. up to one million to be awarded on a single project, twenty pct. of the entire grant budget. OBPAC saying "think big," "showcase projects," "community-wide impact," etc.

roger mentioned a couple of "candidate projects," maybe put "hawk" signals at every major intersection along some corridor out east, beyond 82nd, maybe "improve" the klickitat walkway, taking advantage of a greater portion of the sixty-foot right of way. looking for other suggestions.

alicia crain urged that any proposal should focus on closing what she called the "equity gap," increasing bike/ped access for underserved populations. she mentioned cully in particular. mark ginsberg suggested going for the cutting edge, maybe close the transit mall to automobile traffic. several other ideas put forward.

item two:

among the informal announcements at the start of the meeting, mark ginsburg mentioned that the BTA board election is coming up in september, and in effect put out a call for anyone interested in contesting some seats.

item three:

katja dillmann, transportation policy advisor to the mayor, asked for feedback on the difficulties with the couch approach to the burnside bridge and on PBoT's response to date. maybe implying that further decisionmaking on this matter might be made over susan keil's head.

ian stude said he had biked down couch from 14th and found that the lights seemed to be timed to about 20 mph, rather than 12 mph as had been stated in the planning documents. dillmann actually confirmed that this was the case. apparently the change was made by some traffic engineer (she said who, but my notes are sketchy) in order to accommodate the throughput from sandy.

i seconded stude's suggestion that the timing be brought down closer to 12 mph, and i also suggested that PBoT simply get rid of the bike lane altogether, pointing out the conflict with the bus stop and the right hook at grand, and that they reduce the posted advisory speed on the transition itself to 15 mph.

somewhat to my surprise, there was a certain amount of support for these views among the committee. a straw poll actually favored asking the mayor's office to "look at" taking out the bike lane.

more to come.