Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission Meeting

-Meeting Minutes APPROVED Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission Date: Tuesday February 21, 2012 Time: 7:00 p.m. Place: City Council Chambers, City of Urbana, 400 S. Vine Street, Urbana, IL Members Present: Gary Cziko, Brandon Bowersox, Susan Jones, Bryan Lake, Nadine Schmitz Audrey Ishii, Michele Guerra, Ray Spooner Staff Members Present: Brad Bennett Absent: Morgan Johnston (excused) MINUTES I. Call to Order Brandon Bowersox called the meeting to order. II. Roll Call Roll call was taken by verbal record and there was a quorum present. III. Approval of Agenda Brandon Bowersox asked for the agenda for the February 21, 2012 meeting to be approved. Gary Cziko made a motion to change his presentation name to “Bicycle Safety and Bike Lanes” (item d. on new business) Brandon Bowersox asked for approval with the amended agenda. Motion made by Gary Cziko to approve the agenda as amended, seconded by Brad Bennett, upon verbal voice vote the motion carried to approve the amended agenda. IV. Approval of Minutes Minutes from the November 15, 2011 meeting were discussed – changes to be made – Gary Cziko asked to strike the comment “and hawk signals” (under future meeting topics) With that change, Brad Bennett made a motion to approve the minutes as amended and seconded by Audrey Ishii; upon verbal voice vote the motion carried to approve the minutes from November 15, 2011. V. Public Input No public input. VI. New Business a. ADA Compliance Plan Brad Bennett presented this plan. The City has a compliance plan in place to bring all sidewalk facilities up to federal standards. Part of this plan is to quantify how many non-compliant sidewalks there are in the City and keep an inventory so work can be completed as time and money allows. Brad asked for input from the Commission members and to and report back to him. The last inventory was done in 1991. Part time interns will be completing the survey and will take at least 2 summers. Discussion ensued. b. Pedestrian Master Plan Champaign County Regional Planning Commission has alerted the City to a potential grant funding opportunity for the Pedestrian Master Plan through the Illinois Department of Transportation Highway Safety Project, which the City did apply for this grant in the amount of 49,647.00 We will find out who was awarded the grant in the summer of 2012. If selected we would start the project in October 2012 and it has to be completed by September 30, 2013. BPAC needs to review the scope and return their comments to Brad Bennett. If the grant is not awarded to the City of Urbana then we will want to still do this project but it might have to wait until the next fiscal year to budget it. We have to have a Pedestrian Master Plan in place in order to apply for a Pedestrian Friendly Community. Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission 02/21/12 Page 2 c. SRTS Grant Award Rebecca Bird presented. The City of Urbana did receive the grant from the Illinois Department of Transportation to install a bike network within 1.5 miles of the Urbana Middle School. The grant amount was $199,000.00. This project will benefit the five elementary schools and the Urbana Middle and High Schools. This will include 2.2 miles of bike lanes, ½ mile of shared use paths and 112 bike parking spaces. A Bicycle Encouragement Program will begin as soon as the project is complete. Discussion ensued regarding removal of on street parking in certain areas of the map. These areas will be reviewed before the work is completed and there will be a lot of public input meetings and discussions. We need to wait until we get a notice to proceeds from the State and money should be released around June 2012. Rebecca Bird has a map that was distributed to the committee. Brandon Bowersox is concerned about educating the schools about the new bike lanes. There is no money for education included in the grant that we received. Brian Lake suggested sending notes home with parents and family on how to be safe around the new bike lanes. Rebecca Bird will bring up this suggestion at the next C-U Safe Routes to School meeting and see what can be done to complete this. d. Bicycle Safety and Bike Lanes – Gary Cziko Gary Cziko gave the commission a presentation on Bicycle Safety and Bike Lanes. This included some materials from the Cycling Savvy course which he is an instructor for. URL is CyclngSavvyIllinois.notlong.com for upcoming dates and class times. VII. Old Business No old business VIII. Announcements Rebecca Bird announced that the third annual CU Bike to Work and School day is May 1, 2012. Also there is a new law in effect right now that anyone serving on a board or a commission must take a training course for the Open Meetings Act. http://foia.ilattorneygeneral.net/electronic_foia_training.aspx this needs to be completed by all commission members and the certificate of completion needs to be turned into Theresa Hoffman. Gary Cziko announced that the City Council will be discussing Roundabouts at the next council meeting. Brandon Bowersox announced that there is a Federal Transportation Bill that needs support. Rebecca Bird has form letters that the Commission can use to send for support of this Bill. Please contact her for more information. IX. Adjournment Brandon Bowersox adjourned the meeting at 8:33 p.m. This meeting was recorded.