[BVC-CHAT] Bike Advocacy

[Jean Marie Linhart]

A bunch of the bike advocates got together for lunch today to talk
over our initiatives for the next year or so.

To advocate for bicycles, you can show up and speak at Citizen Speaks
for City Council in either Bryan or College Station.
You show up 15 or so minutes early for the meeting and register to speak.

All you have to do to be an effective bike advocate is get up there,
give your name and address, and say that you are a bicyclist and want
to support bicycling transportation.   It is also always nice to say
how wonderful you find biking in the local area.

It is critical to get bicycling before City Council and City Planners
and to keep it there.  To this end we need people to show up at City
Council meetings in both College Station and in Bryan.

Fancier talking points are:

Signage -- we'd like to see more bike route and share the road signage
around town and on rural bike routes.

Connectivity -- crossing Hwy 6, getting across Texas Avenue,
University Drive can be difficult.  We have some really good bike
routes, but they do not all connect and they should.

Updating the bicycle master plan (College Station) into the
extraterritorial jurisidiction.

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We also discussed Jeff Paradowski's bike giveaway and the hard hats
for little kids bike helmet giveaway.  It would be nice to have some
training (for the kids) involved with this.  These events would happen
in December.

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With regards to TAMU campus biking, we discussed issues of blocking
bike lanes, need for showers in new buildings, and indoor bike
parking.

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Other topics included: organizing a courteous mass ride, getting
contact information together from TXDoT and TAMU transportation
officials, CS community policing (bike patrol?), rural signage, need
to promote showers and indoor bike parking for campus buildings and
businesses around town.

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Action items:

Everyone is trying to schedule time to attend city council.

Jean Marie is working on a list of problematic traffic signals for CS,
organizing the next meeting, looking into kids bike safety training in
20 minutes or less, and attending some city council meetings.

Jill is working on the kids Bike/Helmet/Training idea.

Scott is getting coordinating with/getting coordinates for TAMU transportation.

Jim is making contact/getting coordinates for TXDoT.

Rudy is thinking about Courteous Mass.

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I am sure I have made some mistakes above and  missed some points;
those in attendance should feel free to add to and correct the above.

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Tentatively we'd like to schedule a next lunch meeting for October 29.
 I will take the initiative of inviting the transportation planner
from CS and the Greenways coordinator from CS to attend.

If anyone is sitting out there wanting to be involved in bike
advocacy, i.e. are willing to attend city council, and/or willing to
take on "to-do" items, let me know and I will add you to my list.

Best wishes,

Jean Marie