Complete Streets & Bikeway Committee

City of Middletown Complete Streets Committee Regular Meeting Minutes Monday, September 12, 2022, 7 PM Location: Online WEBEX Meeting Attendees: Laura Baum, John Hall, Zoemma Warshafsky, Lisa Liesener, Tom Quirk, Cat Young, Gary Middleton, Chris Holden - Host 1. Current/ongoing projects: ● Air Line Trail – Farmington Canal Trail (ALT-FCT) Connector Study Update ○ DOT needs to approve the scope. RiverCOG ready to get started with an RFQ. RiverCOG will fund and get reimbursed from CT DOT. ○ Meriden - Middletown connector multi-use trail in search of a good new route; old trolley line path had multiple issues. Looking at going from Giuffrida Park (West side of reservoir) along the mountain ridge to just behind Scarborough Lane (South side of loop). ● Micro-Transit (bikes/scooters) ○ City teamed up with Bird Company for e-bikes and e-scooters. Users are restricted from some areas of the city (Wesleyan Campus, off-road in parks, highways, etc.). Had about 800 miles of usage in the first week. Press release due out very soon; info available on city Facebook site. Bird has a local operations manager that coordinates with the City. Group should consider some form of education campaign for users (press release or public event); City and CS to coordinate. Program shuts down in the winter. ● Bike Friendly Middletown application ○ Cat Young would like to return to this when she has more time but if anyone is interested in taking it over, she’s happy to have them do so. ● Washington & DeKoven Dr intersection ○ No update ● Washington & Rte 3/Vine intersection work ○ No pedestrian improvements have been part of the work thus far. We continue to expect CTDOT to improve the crossings soon. ● Lyceum Road ○ The committee will discuss again in the spring. ● Committee membership ○ Current official members are Beth Emery, Laura Baum, Lisa Liesener, Tom Quirk. All are on expired terms. We would like Cat to be reinstated. ○ Chris Holden checked on the committee requirements and reppaointments “No more than six persons, no more than ⅔ of 1 party. Four year terms.” ○ Gary Middleton will reach out to some folks to see if he can find any interested individuals. ● Complete Streets Leadership Academies opportunity ○ Some city staff will be participating in some of the educational sessions. 1 2. Reports from other pertinent regular meetings/events: ● Middletown Public Schools Health and Wellness Committee ○ No updates ● ECOIN ○ No updates ● Sustainable Middletown ○ Chris Holden notes that the city is looking to re-up their application. ● Sustainable CT ○ No updates ● MxChamber Environment and Infrastructure meeting ○ No updates 3. New Business: ● Pedestrian safety at W Lake Drive and Russett Lane. ○ Brought up by Gary Middleton. This is an access point to the Mattabasset multi-use trail. There is a crosswalk there but it’s at the bottom of a hill around a corner. Are there improvements that could be made there? See image (Figure 1) at the bottom of this doc. ● Traffic officer ○ Dan Patrulus (sp?) is the newly hired traffic officer taking over for for Pete Botsacos, who was promoted. The other traffic officer is John Passacantando. Chris Holden will share their contact info with CS to try and coordinate their attendance at occasional future meetings. ● Spring Street ○ As a result of a committee member question, Chris Holden said he’d check on whether there could be a signage change that makes it clear that bicyclists are allowed to travel in both directions ● For next meeting ○ Add Pamecha Pond to the agenda. PW is trying to set up a public hearing for the fall. Notes: - Next meeting: Tuesday, October 11, 7 p.m. – Location Online: WebEx - Next quarterly Public Works/Planning deps. Meeting: Tuesday, October 11 Figure 1: W Lake Drive and Russett Lane 2