all right now welcome everybody to our
our bike friendly baxley public workshop
i recognize a lot of names on the call
um a lot of you have been with us from
uh
from day one as we work to this bike
plan catherine
jervis is here today to talk us through
our final draft our draft final
our our what are we calling a catherine
our final draft there we go before we uh
we take what's
here and uh we're gonna package it a
little bit
um and and bring it to mexico city
council for
discussion and hopeful adoption so thank
you for
those of you who have participated all
along and um
and even if it's your first time glad to
have you here to learn about what we've
been talking about
um katherine i think is going to do a
presentation there'll be a chance to do
a q a
um and uh why don't you just take it
from here catherine and maybe
give a little bit about your background
because it's a storied background
well i am really delighted to be with
you i'm catherine gervas
i'm a senior planner with tool design
some of you may remember me from
yay bikes i was there for a little while
for about eight years and now i'm at
tool design which is an international
consulting firm
that has spent the last two decades
focusing on people-centered
transportation
in 2017 mayor kessler and i started
talking about planning for a more
bicycle friendly
bexley and by the fall of 2019 we
started the process for understanding
the existing conditions researching best
practices in similar communities and
thinking about how we would gather
community expertise
we both agreed that public involvement
was the mechanism we wanted to drive
this process the recommendations i'm
presenting this evening
are a product of those efforts
so the youngest active participant in
this process
was a kindergartner and the oldest are
folks in their 70s and 80s
quite a few middle schoolers
participated in this process but most of
the feedback came from adults
parents working people people looking
for work and retirees
some participants have lived in bexley
their whole lives
others have lived in a variety of places
including some of the most bike-friendly
cities in the world
many of the people who participated in
this process
already ride bikes and represent the
spectrum of riders from recreational
slow rollers
fast riders who love the long hill hilly
pelotonia route
and everyday people who are just trying
to get to the places required in a daily
life
many of the people who participated in
this process want to ride bikes
in bexley but are prevented by a real or
perceived barrier
drivers also provided input both those
who ride bikes and those who don't
and a small group of the participants in
this process included people who are not
at all interested in biking
but they were helpful in sharing their
input
we also monitored social media
throughout the process to see what
people in bexley were saying about
riding bikes here
participants were pretty evenly split
between men and women
um most participants represented white
residents of bexley those several black
men and women who regularly ride in
or through bexley participated in this
process and offered feedback about their
experiences
riding in bexley the type on this slide
is very tiny but it outlines the formal
public involvement process
starting back on october 30th 2019 when
this process
kicked off at green bexley's sustainable
transportation event at city hall
by january of 2020 a steering committee
was convened and that group met
four times between january and november
of last year to guide this process
mayor kessler also hosted two publicized
public meetings one at the bexley public
library in february of 2020 and then the
second one was virtually in november of
2020.
in addition to those meetings we invited
stakeholders
and community members representing a
diverse set of constituencies to
participate in five very small group
bike rides
and then an additional community bike
ride open to the public was hosted in
the fall of 2020
those planned interactions were
supplemented by dozens of informal
conversations with people who provided
valuable input into this process all
those interactions combined represent
152
unique participants and all of this in a
time
when we all faced more distractions than
we anticipated at the beginning of the
process
so the recommendations i'm going to go
through um
this evening include the best thinking
of everyone who generously participated
in this process
these recommendations are designed to
serve all who live
work and play in bexley though the
children of bexley
and the residents of south bexley were
identified as priority
populations in this process
there are four categories of
recommendations
infrastructure things that happen in the
street and public right-of-way
encouragement and education campaigns
policy recommendations and evaluations
all of these recommendations are run
through a filter of
equity infrastructure takes up the bulk
of these recommendations
and investments in infrastructure have
been shown to influence the behavior of
people driving
the comfort of people biking and the
real and perceived safety of all road
sidewalk and trail users the goal of the
infrastructure recommendations
is to increase safety and comfort of
all who currently bike and those who are
interested in biking and don't currently
feel comfortable doing so
so our first recommendation is
to establish four bicycle boulevards
bicycle boulevards are streets um
without a lot of car traffic where speed
tends to be low
bicycle boulevards use signs and
pavement markings to encourage
and create safe convenient places for
people to bike
and crossings of busy arterial streets
these four routes cover approximately
eight miles which is about sixteen
percent of bexley streets
and connect residents to common
destinations including
all of the public schools the library
the parks
affordable housing and to travel
directly to
or within a short block of the primary
business districts on main street
and cassidy so
here's the first route the cassingham
roosevelt route
is 2.6 miles it runs the entire
north south length of bexley the route
includes cassingham elementary
the middle and high school and it's
within four
tenths of a mile of broad street
destinations
including columbus school for girls
several places of worship
an apartment complex the cassingham
roosevelt route
crosses broad street main street and
livingston
avenue at traffic lights this route
also intersects with the maryland
bicycle boulevard route
the sherwood route and the sheridan
mound route
okay there we go the sherwood route
is 1.4 miles and runs the entire
east-west length of bexley this route
travels directly to montrose elementary
the alum creek trail and parallel to the
main street business corridor
if we if this route were to add
wayfinding signs to the cross streets at
parkview drexel dawson cassidy
cassingham remington roosevelt and gould
to let people know what businesses are
within that intersection
it would facilitate easy travel from
this route to the main street
businesses this route also intersects
with the maryland route
the sheridan mound route the cat and the
castling hammers about route
this route also connects bexley to
downtown
by way of the oak street bike boulevard
in columbus
it connects to the jewish community
center which is just
outside of bexley by way of the alum
creek trail
and it connects regional recreational
riders who are traveling on the alum
creek trail
whether that's folks around central ohio
or
folks traveling from cincinnati to
cleveland
or even distances further than that
people who are
bike tourists to the main street
business corridor
this route includes crossings at main
street at a traffic light
one addition to this route one
consideration
would be the addition of a
drinking fountain water bottle
bottle fill station bike fix it station
and a larger wayfinding sign including a
map of the main street business corridor
placed at park hill right of the allen
creek trail
which would encourage particularly those
recreational riders
off the trail into bexley to patronize
the bexley businesses there and also to
help accommodate residents
this route does have a bit of a high
higher stress moment on drexel avenue
the
so we're going to talk about drexel
avenue later if
we were to add bike lanes on drexel
avenue it would
dramatically improve the comfort of
traveling this route
the next route is oops i went one too
far
is the sheridan mound route
it's 1.8 miles long and runs the north
south length in south bexley
and the east west
parallel to main street business
corridor
this route travels directly to schneider
park
the shelter house playground community
gardens and athletic fields
capitol university trinity lutheran
seminary
montrose elementary and five apartment
complexes
as well as affordable housing on
ferndale place
and mayfield place the sheridan mound
route includes existing traffic lights
at college avenue
drexel avenue and livingston avenue
if we added wayfinding signs like we
talked about on the previous route at
college pleasant ridge euclid
cassingham montrose remington vernon
roosevelt brandon and chelsea it would
facilitate
easy travel from this route to the main
street businesses
this route also includes two kogo bike
share stations
and intersects with the sherwood route
and the cassingham rose about route
this route the comfort of this traveling
this route would also be improved by
adding a bike lane on drexel
uh and a bike lane or sharrows on
main street and the final route
is the maryland route which is 2.5 miles
it runs the east-west length of bexley
and includes the cassidy business
corridor
maryland elementary school commonwealth
park
destinations at jeffrey park like
jeffrey mansion the historical society
the swimming pool
it intersects with the alum creek trail
and cassidy north apartments this route
includes existing
traffic light at cassidy in maryland as
well as
traffic lights at that cross at broad
street
main street and nelson avenue this route
also includes elkogo bikeshare station
and intersects with the cassingham
roosevelt route
and the sherwood route it also connects
to common destinations west
south and north of the city of bexley
downtown columbus is accessible via the
greenway avenue
bike lane mount vernon spring street
bike lane the jewish community center
is available by way of the alum creek
trail
and this route connects to the nelson
road bike lanes
which run north south in columbus
it's also too important to note that
connections going north of bexley into
columbus
are coming within the city of columbus
a multi-use path is being planned for
cassidy avenue
the comfort of traveling this route
would be improved by adding a multi-use
path on cassidy avenue
and a bike lane on main street
so those are the four bike boulevards
that are recommended in this plan
does anybody have any thoughts before i
move to the next
set of infrastructure recommendations
catherine i can really quickly share a
map of that if that would be helpful
that'd be awesome thank you yeah
do you want me to stop share oh you just
took it great
yeah so that just kind of lays out
i just started adding some cocoa icons
to it that gives you an idea visually of
of what you're talking about
hey catherine this is robert farin um
this is fantastic and
you may mention this later in the
program can you talk a little bit about
uh what we would expect out of a bike
boulevard
sure let me go back a few slides here
so a bike boulevard would have
significant markings on the street
oops let me share this screen again
there we go can you all see that oops
not yet
can you see uh
great um so it would have a significant
marking on the street
um similar to this if you want to see
this in action
there's one really close by
just west of bexley on
franklin park south that jogs over to
oak and goes into downtown
um that marking is a little different
but the size is really similar to this
um basically you've got a marking on the
street that's the size of a car
there is no um confusion
that bikes belong on a street like this
um it would also include some signage
marking it as a bike boulevard
along the way basically this is an
encouraged
this is a a notification to people who
are driving and an
invitation to people who are thinking
about biking
that people riding are welcome and
encouraged in this space
does that answer your question robert
it does thank you
catherine eric bjorn here quick question
for you
um regarding how bike boulevards affect
other neighboring streets i mean do you
do you expect to see
more car traffic starting to move to
some of the
adjacent streets uh or does this just
mean that
the car traffic stays as is and these
bike boulevards become
a more tolerant environment great
question
um most of the
most of these bike boulevards are
residential streets so they don't have a
lot of thoroughfare traffic
um they run parallel to
streets that have busier traffic like
maine
um there are short
sections of a couple of these boulevards
there's one short section on drexel
and a short section on main i would not
anticipate
traffic patterns changing given that
these are primarily residential streets
i would anticipate more tolerant
driver behavior
and driving behavior is
pretty good on these streets already um
i i think more than that
i think it's it's a warm invitation to
people who are currently nervous
about riding on some of the streets that
are currently really
pretty comfortable to ride on um that
they're being invited
into the road does that answer your
question eric
yeah that's helpful thanks sure
okay i'm gonna move us on to the next
recommendations the alum creek trail
um so there's um
there is some need for uh surface
maintenance maintenance on
on the section of the alum creek trail
the little short piece that runs through
the city of bexley between broad street
and clifton
tree roots have destabilized the asphalt
there creating some trip hazards and
uneven surfaces
so we need to look at maintenance there
but i think the
most interesting thing that came out of
talking about the allen creek trail
where
three big ideas emerged as we were
talking about the alum creek trail
the first one was uh is a bicycle
pedestrian bridge
in south bexley so there's an interest
in proving in improving access from
south bexley to create a better
connection between the main street
business corridor
and the alum creek trail this could be
achieved by
investing in a bicycle pedestrian only
bridge across the alum creek trail
similar to what we've got further north
in bexley it would connect bexley
on the east side a bridge to
columbus on the west side
and require a partnership with the city
of columbus
the second and third big ideas that came
were a recommendation that
a partnership be established with the
city of columbus to create
an underpass on main street and
livingston avenue similar to what exists
on broad street so that
people had the opportunity to cross
under
the street level
this would take a much deeper
partnership
it is not outside the realm of
possibility
but these these were the three big ideas
that came from
talking about the alum creek trail
are there any thoughts about those
before i
move us to the next section of
infrastructure recommendations
beautiful
so the next area i want to talk about
is main street so main street's
approximately 50 feet wide
it is a very destination rich business
corridor with
buildings running the sidewalk in the
street
it's also a high frequency transit route
and a us route connecting
bexley whitehall reynoldsburg and
columbus
as most of you know there's one regular
traveling in each direction
and then a parking slash travel lane
in each direction with some substantial
medians in the center lane
the parking lane typically has at least
some car parking
though it's rarely full the
travel speeds on main street are already
fairly low
so for experienced riders or people
riding in groups
main street can be comfortable
bike lanes in this corridor would
dramatically improve the comfort level
for people riding bikes for people who
are less experienced
but the appetite to remove on street car
parking just
doesn't currently exist the business
community has concerns that the loss of
on-street parking would reduce the
number of customers
now research from other communities has
found that corridors where bike lanes
are added
experience increase in sales as measured
by sales tax revenue
that's a pretty big leap for people to
make when you're talking about their
parking
their pocketbook so i've got a few
conservative
steps to improve the bike friendliness
of main street and then
to think about um
a variety of steps that can be taken the
first
is to add bike parking and those
initiatives are already
underway so increasing bike parking
in the public right-of-way on the
sidewalk would accommodate people who
are already willing to travel main
street
and if demand uh increases the capacity
of the sidewalk we can
add things like this on on street
parking where you've got
a single car parking space
being taken to add 10 or more
bike parking spaces
another accommodation um that would not
require us to change
uh the car parking situation would be to
add sharrows to main street
um along with bikes may use full lane
signs
uh in the right-of-way so
adding sharrows um
is going to reinforce the legitimacy of
bicycle traffic
on the street to motorists uh shares
also recommend
proper lane position for riders who are
willing to
try riding the street um who who aren't
already
who who may currently be nervous about
it it may invite
some new riders onto the street and make
people who are already riding main
street feel more comfortable
research also shows that cheryl's reduce
sidewalk riding
and encourage riders to travel in a
visible and predictable lane position
and reduce crashes caused by people
opening car doors into the path of
people on bikes
that's not a problem we're currently
seeing so adding
sharrows and bikes may use full lane
signs
are really about an encouragement
solution at this point
um something that sends a cue to drivers
and riders
and law enforcement and just anybody
paying attention that bikes belong on
main street
another step to consider would be
hosting open street events
this could be an intermediate step where
we could test the idea
that accommodating people who ride bikes
see if it increases customers to the
businesses
in the corridor this could be done on a
monthly basis
for a year or two in collaboration with
events that are already happening
open streets often look like special
events but they're
often led by local governments and
partners to accomplish some policy goal
like creating a culture that supports
active transportation
and bringing new customers to local
businesses
if we were going to do a program like
this it would it would make sense to
have a partnership with the bexley area
chamber of commerce
and other community organizations as
well as a strong evaluation tool
so that we could see if in fact this is
inviting new
business into the corridor um
if and if in fact it does if
accommodating people who buy
can be shown to be beneficial for
businesses in the main street corridor
that may create an opening to have a
conversation about whether it makes
sense to remove a parking lane or not
and reduce concerns if we see
these events increasing business
any thoughts or questions
about the main street recommendations
this is uh robert again um obviously
these
um implementation action items won't
happen overnight
i would just ask everyone to consider
the link us
east-west corridor work that's going on
and knowing that
there'll be decisions happening soon
about the alignment whether it's broad
or east broader east maine
and to make sure we're not doing
anything to conflict with uh with those
recommendations
absolutely and i've got
i will bring the corridor up here in
just a few minutes but thank you for
reminding us of us that robert
hey guys eric bjorn again here i'll
chime in one more time
probably probably more as we continue
through the night um
uh yeah i i'm i guess skeptical that the
shero
is going to do much to encourage riding
when i think about um
people that are not currently
comfortable riding with traffic
on that road in particular like my wife
i don't think ashero is going to get her
riding on that road with my son uh who's
nine years old
that said the more that we can do to
increase the like visibility
of riding and cycling even if it's not
leading to a lot of additional traffic
uh cycling traffic on that road maybe it
makes
cars more tolerant of the people that
are already riding there so i do like it
from that perspective
and i love this open streets uh concept
i mean
the idea that we can in a fun way show
not just local businesses but show the
community how great
it can be to have more access to the
street in a way that
i mean doesn't cost a lot of money from
an infrastructure perspective it
doesn't require us to build something um
and
we can prove the concept and it can be
the type of thing that that grows
good points
okay i'm going to move us on to broad
street now
broad street like main street is
approximately 50 feet wide
though it is primarily a residential
corridor with large lots
it's home to two private school campuses
with three large places of worship
most of the buildings have setbacks that
fall
between 50 and 100 feet with several
buildings
set back 200 feet from the street
so even though the the street width is
very similar to maine
it feels very different like main street
it's also a high frequency transit route
and a u.s route connecting the cities of
bexley whitehall and
reynoldsburg and columbus broad street
like maine has a regular travel lane in
each direction
and then one parking slash travel lane
in each direction
with medians in the center lane there
are currently sharers placed
uh in the parking travel lanes closest
to the sidewalks
which is also the parking lane
parking lane on broad street is also
often underutilized
and so broad street just has a lot more
capacity than it needs
those conditions induce higher speeds
among motorists even people who don't
want to speed will find themselves
speeding
under those sorts of conditions
broad street is pretty loud and
stressful for even the most experienced
rider
who typically ride in the under utilized
parking lanes
through the community engagement process
there was little interest in making any
significant
investment in the bike friendliness of
broad street
um that could be a combination of
a lack of destinations um you know again
it is primarily a residential corridor
it could also be that people feel a
little hopeless that anything could
include
improve the conditions for people who
bike
when thought about in a regional context
broad street begs for traffic calming
it should be considered a priority
corridor either for
dedicated transit or bike lanes through
multiple jurisdictions
but it is clear that bexley is not going
to solve the problems on broad street
as a as an individual jurisdiction this
is going to require
a multi-jurisdictional planning effort
um again we're going to talk about the
corridor planning
in a few minutes but assuming that
wasn't happening
at a minimum we should think about
repainting the sharrows that currently
exist
and consider moving those outside of the
parking lane
um there
but for now uh broad street is
did not appear to be a priority for for
anyone
uh in the community engagement process
hey catherine can i make a quick comment
again um
so my my thought with this and so i live
in bexley
just quick background on me live in
bexley my office is in
uh just north of grandview i commute by
bike
i haven't been doing it a lot the last
year because of covid
um but i i ride a lot i ride on streets
i ride with traffic
i i basically never ride on broad and
wouldn't it just seems like a total
death wish uh cheryl's or not
but with what seems like it could be
more valuable to me
um with respect to broad the the traffic
calming that you talked about
not in terms of making broad a
comfortable place to ride a bike
which i think would be great if if the
corridor uh
was solved but in terms of making
broad a not feel like a dangerous road
to cross
for families for kids on bicycles like i
wouldn't send my kid
on a bike uh across broad he's nine uh
so he's not super old
but i would feel uncomfortable with that
and and so
crossing broad is uncomfortable i know
we've made some changes
at the the light at broad and
is it i think it's cassidy um or
cassingham
but um i think finding ways to make
broad just a a safer calmer
uh place to cross and uh prioritizing
that cross broad pedestrian and cycling
traffic
i think would be an interesting thing to
solve or address
have the additions of medians on broad
street in the last few years made a
difference
for how you feel about crossing
um so i'm i usually
will if i'm with my family i'm crossing
at a light
um i live on remington so i'm kind of
between
a couple of lights and so if i'm not
with my family i will definitely just
run across but it's always running
across um because
like you're saying the traffic does kind
of thunder down broad
i think the medians make broad
at least from my experience they
definitely
they definitely calm it down a little
bit there's something you've got to be
aware of
the the lanes feel narrower as a result
of that so i like it from that
perspective
but i'm not i'm not necessarily using
the medians to try and like get halfway
across
and then and then sneak across the other
half
thank you
kathy yeah it's mark hathaway
first time caller i just thought i'd
mention something to sort of leverage a
little bit of what what eric was saying
um one thing i wondered about maybe
you've already
included this and you just haven't
mentioned it yet but
none of the lights on main or
broad street will be triggered by
bicycle traffic if you're crossing there
i know columbus has done some things to
put indicators on the on the pavement
where supposedly if you stop your bike
there it'll trigger the light if you're
the only vehicle
we are going to talk about this in just
a few minutes yes
good good catch thank you sure
can i put a plug for broad so this is
actually the first i'm getting involved
in this i just found out about this
process
um and i live on broad street i've been
on broad street for a long time done a
lot to
you know improve the look of our yard um
and i'm i'm a big believer in traffic we
really need a lot of traffic bombing
in on broad street at like when i was a
kid 18
i actually communicated by bicycle on
broad street
um and now that's you know now i look
back and realize that was insane uh we
need
we do need a lot of attention on broad
street i i'm not sure where you heard
that you know wasn't a priority
um but as as a resident on broad street
it's a big priority for me
because it's crazy like broad street's
really crazy it's very dangerous
to cross it's dangerous to ride a bike
on broad street
um and it
really it's it's such an aggressive
street phil and just to add to that
it feels like it it chops bexley
in half almost or in thirds you've got
north bexley and then you've got central
and
and south but uh main street is much
more
forgiving than than broad is
broad really does feel like it creates a
whole different
north bexley environment yeah it really
does i mean even
even something like more zebra stripes
your more frequent zebra stripes
as you go down broad street would make a
big difference i think
for traffic calming at the crosswalks
with the crosswalks yeah
yeah it feels like a highway like you
know most of broad street feels like a
highway
i think you're totally right and i'll
shut up so that ben you can say
something maybe
i just have a question for you guys
because it's helpful intelligence to
listen to this
and um so first off
the we added optical detectors to all of
our signals in the past year
so if you haven't tried them they i
think they're
i think they're working but if they're
not let us know so they are
we don't have that market in the
pavement because we have a we have a
sensor that sees the cyclist
and changes based upon that so that that
is in place
um and maybe we need to make that clear
to people
but the uh question another thing we
changed recently i'm just curious if
it's been helpful
is we added a full-on scramble section
to every single
light on broad street so that there's an
all red condition
for for a little bit of time when the
light changes
to try to provide a greater sense of
security to pedestrians
so that they're a little more emboldened
and we've noticed
some really positive uh just changes in
general from that and i'm just curious
if you guys have noticed that or if
that's
your feeling of safety at all no
personally i just find it confusing
actually
so like i don't know what's going on
with the lights and so i'm afraid to
cross because
i i think it's the the the the zebra
stripes the markings they communicate to
the driver right they they impact the
psychology of the driver and
and change the driver's behavior i'm
afraid of them
right so like i can look both ways
i'm worried about what they're doing and
so that
yeah actually i wasn't aware of that and
and and now it explains it but because
the
the truck to me those those traffic
signals are actually confusing
yeah so it's it's interesting i i have a
different perspective on it
um i i like that
new addition to those traffic signals
the idea that the pedestrians can get
out
uh a second or two before the cars start
going so that by the time the cars start
moving you've already started moving so
visually you're
you're visible to the cars and then
you're also
midway through the intersection as
opposed to everybody starts going at the
same time with right turns and left
turns and all of that so i
i actually really like that um i wasn't
aware of those those vision sensors for
the bicycles
one thing that i will say and i i
cross at various lights on broad but
primarily is it is cassidy one block
west of
remington is or is it casting ham
cassingham okay so i'm i'm crossing at
cassingham regularly when i'm crossing
with my family
and i swear to god the uh the the
signa or the um the crosswalk button
doesn't do anything
it has no impact on how quickly that
crosswalk light changes
um and to the point where
like every time i i use it i get angry
and i'm like i'm
i'm gonna email ben and let him know
that something's broken or something
like that i need to not just complain to
my wife all the time
but i feel like um those
uh those crosswalk signals i mean they
don't
do anything i get there i push it and
then you wait forever
i could almost see as far as calming on
broad goes
i would love a lower speed limit um i
know things like that are
hard to do i could also imagine a world
where
we timed the lights so that you're
just guaranteed to get stopped every
couple lights you don't have the
opportunity to
travel unimpeded at 40 or
more miles an hour so that you know that
even if the speed limit isn't lower uh
that section of street you're just
you're always going to get stopped at
lights and so you're not riding the
accelerator quite as hard
um this is robert i'll i guess in one
thing i agree with catherine this is
this is cross jurisdictional so i think
there's
only so much we can do in bexley um i
actually personally i think the signal
timing works pretty well i feel like i
definitely can
go faster in columbus and once i hit
parkview and start going up the hill on
broad to parkview
uh things slow down i crossed brought
at least twice a day as a pedestrian um
at roosevelt and i'd say my only
complaint there is
people blow through the first red light
depending on what direction they're
going in
people do not know how to navigate that
tandem light
i always tell my kids wait for those
cars to stop because i
on a regular basis someone's blowing
that red light they stop at the second
one but not the first one
but i like the leading interval i think
it gives us more time
um it might be somewhat of an
enforcement challenge at least at that
roosevelt light
i should also add i am not the typical
bike rider but i regularly ride broad
street
when i if i'm heading from columbus to
whitehall
it's just the quickest route for me um
and as scary as
people describe broad street to be i
have found
drivers pretty courteous there it's
just very loud and i understand why it
feels
scary
my actual experience is
if it can be navigated
and it is i find it more convenient than
going out of my way
someplace else um but when thinking
about the appetite that exists
uh in the last year and a half we
i've i've even taken people on those
small group bike rides i took
four groups out onto broad street to
help show people how to navigate and
just
fill in response to you i worked really
hard to get people interested in
thinking of those 152 people interested
in
and doing something more on broad street
and
the appetite isn't there now that
doesn't mean it's not going to be there
as we do other things but
i i haven't seen it yet yeah i mean to
me i look at the media and the meeting
is very nice but it was i think it was
an opportunity to put like a bike lane
or something
um but instead because yeah i'm i yeah i
admire you writing on broad street
um i mean i stopped now that i have a
family that i have to look out for
it's just not this is not it's not worth
it um
yeah you could mostly because because
it's br wide there's two
lanes there's nowhere to go to escape
bad drivers
right that's that's you know that's kind
of my my concern about broad street
right i mean you know on broad street i
can probably max out around 25 miles an
hour
and they're going 35 45 and they weigh
and they outweigh me by two or three
sure so
not not a good matchup
well let's move on to drexel
um before you do i just a quick question
after just listening to some of this
feedback
in the past we talked about um
multi-use path replacing sidewalk at
least one side of broad street and i
know that there's lots of issues with
mature trees and i know that you have
issues with
curb cuts from driveways and some of the
safety issues from that
did we talk about that at all through
this planning process
it didn't come up in this planning
process um
but that that could be an opportunity
yep
yeah and one thing i just want to just
share with people is if you know
uh i think eric mentioned enhancements
to the casting ham crossing
what has been very frustrating to me is
the limitation on what we can actually
do like
i i we we tried very hard to put in
additional activated beacons on
cassingham but ohio
law just doesn't allow us to do a lot of
things that you would want to do to try
to enhance
intersections in order to protect
pedestrians and that's been a real
frustration
in and having to comply with ohio law
which
limits your tool set um it's been
frustrating
this is mark hathaway again about the
activated beacons
is there a place you need to position
yourself on the road to be picked up by
those
i know the the light at pleasant ridge
and main street
i mean i get off and go over and push
the the button for the walk signal
because
you can sit there forever and it'll
cycle through light after light
and that's been recently you've
experienced that mark yes okay and
andy baseball is director drexel in
maine too
okay andy could you speak to that i i
think it's if you're up front it will
detect you but andy maybe there's
something we need to check with that
then it was drexell and maine
and i was the first wasn't rich in man i
mean
do you uh do you have somebody on a bike
come out to calibrate that i mean how
does that work
we have not mark um that is something we
can check into
the new detection system should be
picking up the bikes
um but we can for sure check that out
with a bike
yeah it'd be interesting to have
somebody on the bike just go by there
when there are no cars around and see if
it really works okay
i mean i know i still have problems with
that
you could even use your andy you could
use your dirt bike too if you wanted to
just
if it would make it for you now we're
talking
that would make it all worthwhile let me
skip forward a couple slides here it
might be
helpful to um so these are the markings
that mark is talking about um even
without the
inductive loops i've seen these sorts of
markings
placed on the road where
um
just to help people on bikes know where
to position themselves
to activate a light particularly since
these are fairly new
treatments you've added this marking is
about the size of an eight and a half by
11 sheet of paper
and it just gives guidance to somebody
on a bike
and could be just a cue that things are
different now
a fairly inexpensive way to to let
people know they can activate a signal
catherine um we'll check that out here
um
asap and uh once i know for sure it's
working
um ben do you think that would be a good
idea we could put something on the blast
or
yeah and i think the pavement markings
or now that spring is
paintable again would be good and and
of course robert will also check or
whoever oh eric
check out the uh the pedestrian button
at uh
casting him and broad and see what's
going on there
yeah i'll do that and and for what it's
worth
as we're talking about uh signal
triggers
on on bikes that um that clifton
uh crossing um oh god what is it just
west of the pool
nelson no listen to nelson yeah that's
right
for what it's worth that's that's been
part of my regular commute for quite a
while
uh i haven't been riding it much the
last few months so if something has
changed in the last couple months
um but i i feel like that
that trigger doesn't do anything so i
that's another one of those ones where
i'll stop and if there's no traffic
i just go because i know if i wait the
the crosswalk will cycle through
like it's it's cycling but it's not
seeing me and so it's not triggering
um the the green light if unless there's
cars behind me
and they have to be close enough to
trigger the light
so that's heading west on on clifton
yeah that that's outside of our
jurisdiction but robert ferran is is
reporting that right now to three one
one
i will i will
can i say something for a second this is
uh david i jumped in the call a little
later today
but um regarding safe crossing on broad
street
some areas with high traffic where
they've made upgrades
in columbus area for pedestrian and
other crossings that come to mind are
worthington downtown westerville
old town and near near children's
hospital
and um what some of these have in common
is they
might use different pavement
in the area near the crosswalk which
signals to drivers
in a way that zebra striping might not
especially with salt and other wear
that they should look out more for
other road users who might be crossing
there
and um it's almost like the tree medians
and calming the traffic
the other thing that they sometimes have
is bump outs and i guess
it may not be feasible on broad street
but that seems like the other obvious
possibility is if this is really a
parking lane on the right side
or then maybe um a bump out
at a strategic crosswalk maybe
maybe two crosswalks going through
bexley somewhere where you want to
funnel the
the kids going across to the high school
or whatever
to those safer crossings with the bump
outs could be considered
okay i'm going to take us to
drexel for a minute here
so drexel avenue between broad
and maine is a fairly wide corridor with
traffic calming initiatives planned in
the next
um coming up soon this
would be an ideal location for bike
lanes even
protected bike lanes that would not only
accommodate people biking
but if it was a protected bike lane it
could also assist
with traffic calming measures
the case for protected bike lanes
includes a dramatic improvement and how
comfortable people would feel riding
bikes on drexel avenue
there's plenty of right-of-way to add
bike lanes without having to consider
widening the street or reducing travel
lanes
bike lanes on drexel could eventually
extend
to connect to cassidy avenue
um which i mentioned earlier has a
multi-use path
planned for construction in the columbus
portion
just north of bexley so this
could connect maine the main street
business corridor to a wider audience of
potential customers
and employees traveling by bike
the primary case against bike lanes that
we heard during the engagement process
is the loss of on-street car parking
it would no longer be possible to park
cars on both sides of the streets
now on-street parking appears to be
highly underutilized
by residents though the columbus school
for girls
those drivers regularly use on-street
parking
with significant activity happening
during drop-off and pick-up times
it is important to note that other
on-street parking options are available
in the block surrounding the school
additionally there are over 200
underutilized surface parking spaces
that exist
in three surface lots within a half a
mile of the columbus school for girls
and those lots are underutilized during
school hours
a half a mile is an easy 10 minute walk
or two to five minute bike ride
150 of those spaces are found
at two public parks the park
the jeffrey park in bexley and wolf park
in the city of columbus
the jeffrey park in bexley has a bike
share station
co-located at that park which could
accommodate people who
were trying to get to and from columbus
school for girls who didn't want to walk
bike share could be an option there
so if the primary impediment is
car parking for columbus school for
girls
against bike lanes on drexel one
potential solution is to create some
shared use agreements
that allow the use of idle spaces
during and around school hours
this would be an ideal location for a
temporary demonstration project
sometimes those are called tactical
urbanism you may have heard it by that
name
but it's basically a temporary
demonstration
um which is an intermediate step
it allows community members and leaders
to understand how a new street design
might work before
committing permanently to a change so
temporary protected bike lanes could be
installed
using planners to reduce the width of
the regular travel lanes and create a
protected riding space
for people to experience on drexel
they could be placed one on each side of
the street
or as a wider bi-directional lane down
the center of the street
and there are advantages and
disadvantages to each configuration
which
would need to be more closely examined
but this could be an ideal place for a
demonstration project
to see how protected bike lanes might
work any
thoughts on that
hi this is dana adler i
love the idea of a bike lane on drexel
but
as a stakeholder at columbus school for
girls as well
i think you're going to find a lot of
pushback there
and until you mentioned that that would
be a conflict i really didn't think
about it
and then i immediately realized that
that
could be a huge stumbling block
yeah this is robert i think i think
parking is a challenge
uh certainly but i think the bus
operations on drexel
are uh uh you'd have to just look into
that further i think it's a fantastic
idea and there's plenty of right-of-way
pavement with but
i haven't seen that firsthand morning
and afternoon that's gonna be a
that'd be a big change yeah
the buses are huge you're right i mean
they're obviously huge but it's a huge
impediment as well it is one reason to
consider
the bi-directional center lane protected
bike lane as a configuration
on drexel yeah i agree that would
probably be preferred
so catherine question for you regarding
the the drexel
bike lane or or some sort of bike lane
solution for drexel and
um i'm an advocate of bike lanes
everywhere and
i think we need to make biking way
easier what's the
what's the primary problem that we're
trying to solve with that particular
uh bike lane is it to create this
north-south bicycle thoroughfare
um or is there something else that we're
trying to solve specifically
i think a couple of things one uh an
invitation to people
to come ride you know bike lanes
particularly a protected bike lane
is it functions like a trail um
and really and is a cue to the community
um to invite people onto the street and
in particular to invite people
in a in a place that isn't a straight-up
residential street
drexel is you know clearly a much
more trafficked street and a treatment
like a bicycle boulevard isn't going to
work
on a street like drexel so it's to
increase the comfort level of people
riding
it also has this added benefit um
well let me say this there is some
significant research out there that
shows
bike lanes actually improve conditions
for people who are driving they help to
calm traffic and create a more pleasant
experience for those driving
i think a local example of that anybody
who's ever
who remembers what summit and fourth
through the university district used to
feel like
and who's driven those now whether
you've biked or walked those
the street is dramatically different for
drivers
um with with the addition of a protected
bike lane on summit
and drexel is a street that is being
considered for traffic calming
and so it could help solve that problem
also
i have a question catherine um
richard pointed out in the tech in the
chat
it's a good point that when the direct
soul is open and main street restaurants
are fully open cars do park
extensively on drexel north of uh main
street but
what if what if at the intersections
we had bump outs but they were
they had a channel that like allowed by
cyclists to pass between them and the
curb does that make sense and so what
they would basically do is force drivers
towards the center so in those areas
where often there aren't cyclists
or sorry cars parked most of the time
cyclists have this degree of protection
where they
whether it's still a share row they're
off to the right hand side of the berm
but they're feeling
you know it's very difficult for a car
to kind of veer over because it's
constantly
uh does am i explaining that properly is
that a solution that
has been used before i have not seen
that used before and i
i think the conflict is if you're
continuing to maintain it as a parking
lane and so you sporadically have
cars parked in that lane which is what
the bump outs would do
you're going to encourage a weaving
behavior among bicyclists
so they'll so
one you're less likely to invite that
interested group of riders that are
concerned
that type of configuration isn't going
to invite them onto the road
and people who are willing to ride on
drexel
as it currently exists or as it might
exist with those bump outs
might be inclined to move over into the
parking lane
in the places where there's no parking
but then they have to come out back out
into the travel lane every time they
encounter a parked car
which creates a potential conflict for
motorists
um it's like the it's like traveling
behind an eight-year-old that's kind of
all over the place
at the speed of bike it makes sense at
the speed of car
you're encouraging unpredictable road
use
other thoughts about drexel
they are definitely concerns
particularly as it relates to columbus
school for girls
which is i think one of the things that
makes it really ripe for
a demonstration project something to
test over the period of
several months to see how would it how
does it function
if we uh add a bike lane here
um yeah one other thought can you hear
me i'm on
headphones craig thank you yeah hey
katherine
um you know as as we talk about
concerns about parking in the business
district on drexel or
uh at csg near broad
it seems like the area that's affected
um you know is only about a block or so
and i'm wondering like one thing i've
seen in chicago recently when i was
riding around was having the bike lane
in both directions be on one side of the
road
i'm wondering if that might
be a solution that would work on drexel
if if there's bus
and parking needed near csg and if
there's parking needed for businesses if
that's what people decide is a priority
i wonder if the bike lane that's
bi-directional could be on the other
side of the road and just one side could
be reserved for cars and buses
it's certainly a configuration that
could be considered
if if we're looking at a bi-directional
lane we may be better off with it in the
center but i think either
either location um could be considered
yeah i like the center option too i
guess i wonder is
is drexel wider near csg than it is
uh when you get close to main street or
am i just imagining that
maybe it's because there's usually cars
parked here near maine
[Music]
yeah that's what i thought i just
wondered how that might work if we had
something in the middle there
if that would still be a possibility
and i think before craig spoke i heard
someone else attempt to speak
yeah that was me um it's derrida
uh i'm kind of wondering about the csg
situation with the side streets
and columbia with the idea of
testing moving some of the bus parking
to perhaps the side streets um
when i taught in columbus we had to move
our school buses
uh at some of our schools the pickup and
drop-off was
on broad which might seem appalling in
bexley but
we did it in columbus because you're
loading from the sidewalk onto a bus i'm
just
wondering if there aren't ways to solve
the bus
and car issues by moving to broad
columbia and i'm forgetting that first
side street there
just south of broad with some of the bus
traffic and loading how old is this what
you're thinking of
excuse me powerful is the story
yes thank you thank you
thank you
okay i'm going to move us on to cassidy
now
as i mentioned earlier there is a
multi-use path
getting ready for construction on
cassidy
north of bexley if we were to consider
adding a multi-use path
through from from columbus
to broad street
that's that's an area where we could
connect
to destinations within the city of
columbus
um if we end up with some sort of bike
accommodations on drexel avenue
um it could help you know
make make a longer corridor make those
connections
over to main street um
beyond increasing the comfort for people
traveling by bike within bexley
it would connect the main street
business corridor to
again a wider audience of potential
customers and employees traveling by
bike
[Music]
columbus is doing north of
i guess it's probably going to be north
of fifth avenue up there on cassidy
what is that going to actually connect
to
[Music]
robert do you want to jump in here
sure i couldn't find my mute button fast
enough um
so as i understand it phase one will
uh put in place a multi-use path on the
west side of cassidy
from the corporate limit there at the
railroad tracks up to fifth avenue
a second phase would go north
i'm not sure all the way to johnstown
but at least to a future
rec and parks connection that's planned
to get to allen creek trail
um and then over to crum park east to
west
that's further down the road but that's
that's the plan and
and why we're moving that project
forward
and sorry we as in i work for the city
of columbus as well so i'm wearing
two hats tonight and we're also
coordinating to bring the multi-use path
to del mar
so i mean it's obviously we're talking
like 20 feet within the city
but it would come to del mar at which
point in time
del mar which i don't think we talked
about as a bike boulevard but i think is
a very logical one
because of the way that it connects all
of the other streets could serve as a
conduit
thank you absolutely
okay let's jump to
corridor planning so as was mentioned
earlier
we are in the midst of corridor planning
regionally
the east-west connector which has been
talked about both on broad
or maine that
alignment uh
that's coming so transit corridor
planning examining that east-west
connection
um we need to be thinking about that
particularly as it relates to
whatever whatever the alignment is how
that
impacts the comfort level of people
biking
on or across whatever the corridor ends
up being decided
we should think about prioritizing that
for a couple of reasons but but one the
the interaction of transit with biking
is a first last mile solution
to many folks it will determine whether
bexley residents access
become users of this corridor
or whether or whether that corridor ends
up being
functions as a pass-through in the
community
so we'll want to make sure that as that
corridor planning happens we're
thinking about what the experience is
for people
within bexley who are walking and biking
to whatever that high transit corridor
becomes
way finding signs i mentioned earlier
that we had some opportunities on the
bike boulevard
both north and south of main street
we've got parallel streets much closer
north of main street but then also
south of main street the corridors that
travel parallel to main street
could provide an opportunity for people
who have a main street destination
but don't yet feel comfortable riding on
main street or might not ever feel
comfortable riding on main street in its
current configuration
it could give them a sense of
what businesses are within
a block of those intersection um so if
we had
way finding signs pedestrian scale
wayfinding signage
um it could help accommodate people who
want to travel by bikes
to destinations on main street they
could travel the low stress corridor
and then
then to main street where the
connections are
and then get off and walk their bike on
the sidewalk
the half a block or so to whatever their
destination is
um so both on the sherwood route
um and the mound street cross streets
those are places where we could think
about wayfinding to the main street
businesses
another location for bicycle wayfinding
would be at
park hill at the alum creek trail
in that location i would recommend
something larger a trail head
style map with main street destinations
um highlighted on that particularly if
um i'm going to talk a little bit later
about potentially a bicycle-friendly
business program
but if that map could highlight the
businesses on main street particularly
any that are
designated as bicycle friendly
businesses where public restrooms are
and public locations to refill water
bottles that's another way to
invite that traffic that is
using the alum creek trail in a regional
way
off of the trail into the community to
spend
their dollars within the borders of
bexley and at bexley businesses
that park street that park hill location
could also add
amenities like um i mentioned earlier
drinking fountain or fix-it station
that while they serve a purpose both
to travelers going through bexley or
people in bexley
to assist those needs they can also
function like a spider web
if they are connected to trail head
wayfinding map
if somebody stops to put air in their
tire to refill a water bottle
right next to a map that might be a way
to invite them
into the main street business corridor
other locations for fix-it stations
that came up were schneider park the
bexley high school
middle school complex area
the bexley library or some other
location within the main street corridor
the swimming pool and the swimming pool
all as locations to
provide residents of bexley access
to air to keep their tires inflated
and other basic bike mechanic tools
any thoughts on wayfinding or fix-it
stations
okay keep us moving
to oops
well i didn't need to do that there we
go
so stop signs and speeding were
a significant part of the conversation
in the community engagement process
there are concerns that
about stop sign and speeding behavior
there is a perception that both people
driving and people
biking do not comply with stop signs
the observed behavior might be an
indication of
unwarranted or too many stop signs
which the research has been shown to
discourage good driving habits
some of the research out there studies
have shown that stop signs that are
overused or located where they
may not be necessary creates behavior in
drivers where they become careless about
stopping at them
further research has shown that stop
signs are not necessarily
an effective tool for controlling speeds
between
intersections oftentimes people want
stop signs to control
speeding behavior and those are not
those are not effective at controlling
speed um
in fact some drivers increase speed
between stop signs
to make and end up making neighborhoods
more dangerous
this can be especially dangerous for
pedestrians and bicyclists who may have
a false sense of safety from the
existence of a stop sign
i've got links in the in the final
document with more information on
problems related to unwarded stop signs
um but it may be worth an overall
examination of the use of stop signs to
evaluate
whether existing stop signs
how they're being used and if there are
other traffic control measures
to address whatever problem the stop
sign is trying to address
are there stop signs that need to be
removed
and do we need to look at other
solutions like road diets
bump outs traffic circles like we see on
gould um
any thoughts about stop signs
recommendations
this is robert i feel like that's a
that's a big
issue or not issue but conversation
point for bexley i mean mayor i'd love
to get your opinion on that i
i agree with the overuse and the but i i
also
know people in bexley are that's a
source of pride to have
everything for the most part stock
controlled
yeah so we get a lot of requests to add
stop signs all the time
um and you wouldn't think that we have
anywhere to add them but it's actually
there um and we
i have never once gotten an ever request
to re get rid of stop signs
i mean i i uh i understand
catherine and your data i also know that
like the the stop signs that i have
gotten rid of have been
where they were used at a curve
inappropriately
um you know where there wasn't it wasn't
actually even regulated intersection at
all
and so we put in the proper you know
curve ahead 10 mile per hour and
all the stuff you're supposed to do and
i had a ton
like it was a very difficult thing to do
even do that and that that is
that was just outright wrong i mean like
it was there's nothing right about
the stop sign in that situation so um
it would take uh i don't you know
i don't know i don't know i just know
the places where we've added it
residents have felt very satisfied with
that as a tool you know richard
richard and i live on college avenue and
we've added two stop signs there in the
past decade
for sure i hear people rubbing at that
stop sign
you wouldn't necessarily get that but i
at the same time i think there's been a
general feeling
that traffic has slowed and so
maybe catherine that's a time where we
test it you know but i think it's it's
it's a little different testing removal
of signals and bringing
it back on and there honestly may not be
community will
to to to consider this recommendation
um there certainly
is an interest in
the community in what is felt as
inappropriate behavior at stop signs
and as i examined ways to solve that
um
one thing i will tell you as a driver of
an electric car is you you start to
become acutely aware of
everything that reduces efficiency of
your vehicle and you realize
how incredibly inefficient like stopping
every block is
in in resources
and so there is an environmental
argument to be made as well
yeah look i'm i'm in the same boat mayor
with mine um
i i bring it up i mean and not to put
you on the spot i just
if we're gonna put out recommendations
of a bike plan
amazing work's been done and i wouldn't
want anyone to
take that recommendation and kind of uh
derail everything else
so that's all just something to consider
because it is a
it's a sticky wicket as you would call
it bexley
hey guys eric here again another another
perspective
maybe this is part of the plan at some
later point and maybe
not if uh if i had a magic wand
and i could make one change that i think
would would
have the biggest impact on making bexley
this super bike friendly community
the one thing that i would do is i would
and this ties into stop signs too or
could um
i would decrease the speed limit on all
the residential streets from 25 to 20. i
mean you guys have probably all seen the
the data about
crash survivability at 20 versus 30
versus
40 miles an hour it's it's significant
but i think
when i think about it more than that
it's uh
cars going at 20 or closer to 20
creates a totally different feel on all
of these roads
meaning it's much more friendly
uh kids can ride on them on their way to
school without being
feeling unsafe i know i i walk my son
to school and then we walk home um down
uh cassingham and they're like i would
say more than half the kids
are not riding their bikes on the street
they're riding their bikes on the
sidewalk
and i i mean i don't blame them because
cars are flying down cassingham whereas
if cars are going 20
22 25 miles an hour that's a lot
different than 30 or 32.
so where where i think and you and i had
an interesting conversation catherine
where i could see some interesting
things happening is uh
a 20 is plenty movement from a speed
limit perspective which makes
every road feel much more comfortable
for riding your bike on
and then at the same time maybe there
are some concessions for drivers i mean
the goal isn't to keep drivers from
getting where they're going
it's to to make this more bike friendly
unfortunately it seems like in general
things that are good for bicycles
feel like they're bad for for drivers
like
removing parking spots to put in bike
lanes
feel like it's bad for the driver
whereas
i i i could imagine a world where
maybe there's fewer stop signs and
there's more bump outs so a lot of these
roads
feel the traffic calming is there they
don't feel like big wide boulevards they
feel like narrower roads where
you're interacting with with bicycles
you're navigating around bump outs
and in that world maybe you don't have
to have stop signs to
calm the traffic because people are
going 20 to 25 miles an hour instead of
30 miles an hour and maybe more
i'm sure the mayor is getting ready to
say this um currently ohio revised code
is
um doesn't allow that um but that is
within the policy recommendations that
we're going to get to in a few minutes
here
working to help persuade the general
assembly
uh is is certainly something that
is a long-term plan that should be
considered
we'll just screw those 20 mile per hour
signs on with a special type of fastener
that the
state statis can't remove
[Laughter]
i'm in give me a few i'll go out this
weekend
and that was the birth of the gorilla
signs
led by the ship of bexley
to really briefly rip let's say in this
world where we could do 20 miles per
hour and what eric said i
that's a really what about if what what
better way to enhance these boulevards
say these are the areas where we're
going to
put all of our tools in the basket for
safe pedestrian
cyclists and vehicular activity so not
only are they bike boulevards but
they're also 20 miles per hour and they
also
we've reduced stop signs there but we're
using bump outs and like we're doing all
these things
so that you're getting to where you want
to go as a behave as a
as a driver just as quickly because you
don't have to stop at every stop sign
but you're doing so in a safer way for
everybody that'd be kind of an
interesting i think that's a cell
like if you packaged it all as one thing
maybe we get somewhere with that
assuming we could do 20 miles per hour
even if it's still 25 but we do these
traffic calming
infrastructure devices then i think
maybe maybe there's a way to try to sell
it because you're not just simply
removing stop signs
yeah i think i mean just from my
perspective that's a really interesting
idea
in that it doesn't just create a more
friendly
uh cycling environment but those become
the roads that as a driver
maybe that's the road that you're you
enjoy driving down more
it's slower but you don't have to stop
and accelerate it's less annoying
i could see that being a win for
everybody
i love this conversation
bike parking i there there's a uniform
agreement that we need to add bike
parking and the variety of locations and
uh before we got very far
into this plan i think racks were
already purchased and
installation is happening so that's
a huge win uh
when thinking about bike parking in
addition to availability
um the design of the racks
and the placement of the racks are are
really important
um and both the design of the racks that
the city has purchased
um are you know meet that
touching the frame at two points so that
you don't have bikes falling over in the
right of way and
perhaps potentially creating a hazard
and making sure the placement is
doesn't interfere with pedestrian
traffic in particular wheelchairs or
strollers
or or other folks who need wheels to
travel
and that bikes are placed in a visible
location as we see here at giant eagle
so that they're not hidden behind
businesses
in the area where dumpsters are making
the choice to to park easier than
than it is to parking is better as a
bicyclist than it is as a driver
um there are some communities that have
a bike parking installation program
both to meet the public demand and
assure appropriate design and placement
where business owners or residents can
make requests for
bike rack locations in these
uh bike parking installation programs
the city purchases racks
and then places them on a somewhere
between a quarterly to annual
basis at appropriate locations
okay let's move into hey catherine quick
question can you
can you speak a little bit to the bike
parking with respect to schools
so uh we certainly have not met the
demand
of bike parking at schools um i think
one of the first uh groups that lobbied
me when i started this process were the
middle schoolers
who really feel like they need more bike
parking
and that's awesome that there's that
there's such a demand
uh i think when we look at the middle
school we also
see racks that are um not necessarily
the best design
that may cause damage to bikes and not
necessarily
placed well placed in a way in which
things could be muddy it could be
helpful for the school to have
some support in thinking about
how to purchase place
and install racks to meet the demand of
students who are interested
in biking to school or who are
encouraged to bike to school
is there more you wanted to add to that
no i think that sounds great i mean from
my perspective anything that we can
do to make biking to school more
convenient for from middle school all
the way to high school i know
maryland the the bike parking is
i think it's mostly either dirt or
or mulch and so if it's rainy it's
it's muddy um your bike is uncovered it
looks like at uh
bexley high school or cassingham
same situation big uh big dirt
lot for parking the bike and it it
definitely doesn't
it doesn't make it feel like a first
class citizen at least it's closer to
the building so that's good but it's
also
you know you're you're in mud or you're
in dirt and your bike is
uncovered so yeah i feel like that feels
like a place where
there could be a win in making that
more palatable for students
and david i think you have something to
add
yes um as this was being discussed
earlier i
recall noting that the giant eagle
has cover structures for
the shopping cart corrals and they're
very practical
for possible repurposing similar design
for
covering bike parking to me if i'm going
to park my bike for more than
a couple hours i would prefer
covered location because the weather can
be
an issue as the day goes long and if i'm
parking all day long
to really gamble if the weather is going
to shift in the rain
on my bike and that will
definitely deter people from riding if
their bike is going to be
wet and rusting and so to me i would
like to see covered bike parking be part
of the plan for
the schools where kids are going to park
all day long
and possibly um some other locations um
off this list if people are going to
commute to those locations and be there
for more than a couple hours
thank you
so let's move on to the encouragement
and education recommendations
um there was significant interest shown
in campaigns designed and i'm going to
speak about children first campaigns
designed to serve children and families
the public elementary schools the middle
school the high school as well as the
two private schools
are within easy biking distance of every
household in bexley
encouragement ideas included campaigns
to incentivize
walking skating scooting or riding a
bike to school at least one day a week
campaigns that address parental concerns
around
time spent with children particularly as
it relates to busy schedules
are going to be important to the success
of any type of program that encourages
kids to bike to school
also parental concern about safety was
identified as a barrier to children
biking
encouragement campaigns like a biking
school bus
led by parents or other adult volunteers
could help to assure safe passage for
younger
writers educational campaigns around
safe writing practices
particularly experiential education
there was also significant interest in
that and those can be effective at
increasing parents comfort with allowing
children to ride to school and other
places
um other types of educational content
might include
dressing appropriately for various types
of weather
solutions for carrying books paper and
electronics and wet weather
this type of information assists with
the adoption of biking as a year-round
activity
uh incorporating bike rides into the
school curriculum or as part of field
trips is another way to model and
encourage
safe writing practices and all types of
weather
one policy idea that came up in the
process was setting a policy to create
a car free zone for 45 minutes before
and after school or a no stopping zones
where that's not possible these were
also discussed as a way of discouraging
parents from driving children to and
from school
significant culture change or
charismatic leadership would be
necessary
for successful adoption of this type of
policy
at this time there's
certainly interest and there's also
significant
pushback for that type of policy
educational and encouragement campaigns
for adults
um that were talked about um
well let me start with talking about
encouragement campaigns they give people
a reason to ride and
are really important to creating a
culture that normalizes biking as moving
from one place
to another campaigns can focus on group
experiences or
incentivizing people to act on their own
um
activities that community members showed
an interest in included
hosting fun weekly or monthly
recreational bike rides that travel at
an easy conversational pace
and that are accessible to people at a
variety of abilities with all types of
bikes
and just wearing their typical wardrobe
ride themes days of the week time of day
and the demographics of leadership will
influence the likely population
attracted to these rides
so if that's a it would be important to
identify
who the priority populations are in
as we're thinking about these types of
rides and to engage people with those
demographics to assist
in planning and implementation so that
we're sure we're going to reach
whoever the prioritized audience is
these types of rides also provide an
outstanding opportunity for informal
education
among participating riders
and they can help change cultural norms
both for
people who are participating in rides
and those that observe them
other encouragement campaigns included
um
social media games like photo tag or
bicycle ride and seek
that could be promoted um through bexley
city of bexley channels
that encourage people to ride on their
own for fun
this increased solo riding also helps
influence a cultural norm
among writers and those observing them
other social media campaigns like show
us your grocery trip
or just fun ego point type games can
encourage people to try
new activities by bike and to learn from
the experience of others
the idea of movie nights with fun
inspirational films
curated by organizations like filmed by
bike
or book discussion groups can be really
helpful
in connecting that audience of people
who's really
interested in biking um connecting them
to others who are currently writing
um and then an idea came up a couple
more ideas one a
bexley bike festival to celebrate all
things biking
and invite people from outside bexley to
come and see
everything that's great about living and
working and playing in bexley for people
who like
biking and then a mayor's
challenge ride some sort of friendly
competition between communities to
encourage
cultural norms around biking i
personally would love to see
a challenge between mayor kessler and
mayor maggard in whitehall who also
rides
uh or uh you know mayor ike in grove
city
i can imagine those three communities
uh up against mayor ginther being a very
interesting and ego boost for some of
those communities
some educational recommendations that
came up
educational bike rides that teach safe
riding practices
are effective at helping people
interested in riding
but concerned about safety increase
their confidence and competence
biking under what the current conditions
are
making sure there are leaders that break
the stereotypes and images that promote
these rides that break the stereotype of
people who belong on bikes
can be particularly effective at
inviting new riders onto bicycles
transportation demand management
campaigns
those are campaigns that have often been
led by workplaces
health departments communities or
metropolitan
planning organizations to increase
biking or
other forms of active transportation to
regular destinations
both the columbus health department and
the mid-ohio regional planning
commission are
currently currently piloting
transportation demand management
campaigns
and could be really good sources of
support
or resources to a similar campaign in
the city of bexley that encourages
people to use their bike
to travel to the places they might
normally use a car
for a bicycle friendly
business program is run by some
communities to encourage
bike travel by residents and to invite
visitor
visitors as an economic development tool
even a really low cost simple program
can be effective at inviting new
customers to a business
a simple program has basic components
that might include
marketing through the city or the
chambers website
trailhead signage like we've talked
about at on the allen creek trail at
park hill
static clings on participating business
windows
and earned media at a minimum these
campaigns
offer make have bike parking that's
easy to access for people visiting those
businesses
those businesses agree to refill the
water bottles of folks who
travel to those places by bike and
access to toilet facilities some
businesses also have tire pumps and
patch kits available for people
experiencing flat tires or
provide discounts to people who bike
i've mentioned this a couple times but
given the alum creek trail's proximity
to the main street business corridor a
bicycle-friendly business program has
the potential to really
increase traffic to some of the local
businesses from regional trail users
and bicycle tourists looking for places
to rest or refuel
or even easy places to get to the eye
doctor by bike
um some of the professional services
that exist
on the main street corridor for people
who are traveling by bike it may be
attractive
those types of professional services are
often located in places that are
are very difficult to travel by bike so
really promoting the main street
business business court or to people
currently traveling by bike through a
bicycle friendly business program could
be a win
there was little interest in engaging
dry in campaigns targeted at driver
behavior during this process
focusing on driver behavior it might
most
effectively be managed by addressing the
street infrastructure
are there any thoughts or comments on
the
education and encouragement campaigns
for children or adults
and i know we are running late here
we're almost done
i'm going to move on to policy
recommendations um
whoops let's back up a little bit here
so a variety of recommendations that
have come up
could be augmented through changes in
policy or code
like the fixed bicycle parking
special event bicycle parking car free
school zones
other policies to increase bicycle
friendliness and safety might include a
campaign like 20 is plenty
an examination of snow removal policy
an idaho stop slash delaware yield
type stop policy
bicycle subsidies and abandoned bicycle
removal policy
further examination beyond what we were
able to do
through this process could be given to
to policy recommendations as it relates
to
potential policies
within the the city of bexley
i do want to also mention evaluation
recommendations
um evaluation tools for any
any of the big ideas that that may
include some sort of pushback because
change is hard on people
are going to be really key so that one
we understand the actual
impact of the interventions
a good evaluation tool is useful in
helping the general
public to understand the reasons for or
against
investments and making temporary
infrastructure or projects permanent
evaluation tools can also influence
private investment
in educational encouragement program and
determine whether those programs are a
good use of public dollars
so a component of each intervention will
be well served by an evaluation tool
that
guides decision making and investment
i do want to say that i believe bexley
is
really well positioned to become the
most bicycle friendly community
in the region with the highest ridership
bexley is a manageable two and a half
square mile
area with relatively flat topography
they're approximately 48 miles of public
roadway which is primarily made up of
low speed neighborhood streets
it really is possible for residents to
get their daily needs met
within the city or nearby there are
preschools
public and private schools that
serve kids from kindergarten through
high school
and capital university and the seminary
both
exist in the in within bexley's city
boundaries
bexley has well supported parks
recreational facilities a library
a thriving business community that
includes restaurants
grocers and a variety of other retail
establishments including a bike shop
there are many places of worship
representing a variety of faith
traditions and a variety of housing
types are available at many different
price points
from market rate home ownership and
rental to subsidized rental and group
living facilities
it really is possible to get your needs
met
by bike within the city of of bexley but
bexley is also
very close um to
the largest employment center in the
region downtown columbus
it's within an easy bike or bus ride or
a combination of those which is
connected
to the other most significant employment
center in the city of columbus
the university district by way of the
ole changi trail and high frequency
transit
bexley is even within a short bike ride
or
bus ride of three world-class hospitals
in addition to just the community
resources that exist there's also
external support for bexley residents
choosing to travel by bike
high frequency transit travels through
the community
and we know each bus has a rack for two
bicycles
on it the mid ohio regional planning
commission provides a free insurance
program for people traveling to work by
bike who experience an
unexpected emergency that will pay for a
cab ride
including tip home
triple a in our region provides a
bicycle breakdown service as part of its
regular membership
and kogo bike share has three docking
stations in the city of bexley that
connect to the larger regional network
that include standard bikes and pedal
assist e-bikes
which can be parked anywhere
pogo bike share also offers membership
at a variety of levels including one
that is deliberately accessible to
people with low income
certainly the leadership in bexley the
elected leadership
is supportive of bicycle friendly
initiatives the volunteer community
leaders are advocating for the creation
of
a bicycle friendly community children
are lobbying for more bike parking at
their schools
and we already have many residents of
all ages and abilities
traveling by bike i cannot imagine
more ideal connect conditions for
really going after some of these
recommendations
um this does not mean change will be
easy
creating a bicycle-friendly community in
a national and regional environment that
is built for car travel
and in a culture that regularly shames
people who don't drive
won't be easy but the city of bexley has
a history of bold leadership and
persistently working to address
impediments and succeeding at hard
tasks and i think if nothing else when
we
look at the moment in history that we
chose to take this
on between the fall of 2019 and the
spring of 2021
it missed distractions none of us
could have guessed would be in front of
us
there the leaders and residents of
bexley dedicated
time and creativity to imagine and plan
for a more bicycle-friendly community
clearly creating a more bicycle-friendly
bexley is a priority and
it has been a privilege working with all
of you on this project
um i am available
if people have other comments that they
didn't have a chance to make
during this process and i'm also happy
to hang out for another 15 minutes for
anybody who wants to chat
thanks thanks for staying past our
allotted time
catherine thanks so much for uh the
presentation tonight it was super
super interesting your fruit flight and
it never ceases to amaze me every time
we talk about this
new ideas come forward and and percolate
and kind of build off of each other so
thanks to everybody
who participated uh and for your time
tonight
so um feel free to stick around and chat
uh take take catherine up on our offer
um and it's fine if uh if you guys
uh don't want to do that that's cool too
we'll continue to keep people updated
uh on the blast uh and then uh our next
step here is
uh for catherine to make any changes
that she
feels makes sense and then to bring this
in front of mexico city council to
discuss
i want to also recognize and thank
council member richard sharp who's the
chair of our service committee
um for being here and uh for all your
all of your time richard uh as we've
worked through this process
and i was gonna thank catherine on
behalf of council for
your work and all the residents who
added their input to this project
thank you
as one of the residents catherine thanks
for for all the effort and energy and
expertise that went into this and ben
thanks for being a champion
on this i i mean bexley's amazing and
if if we can ignite even more
uh more cycling and bicycle-friendly
culture
it'll only get better thanks eric
all right just so we i don't know i've
never done an open ended maybe
zooms over maybe it's not over so i'm
not quite sure how to do this so
catherine
you uh do you have any insight
are there people that want to hang out
and talk that's good that makes sense
do you have a vision for the next steps
so the next the next step will be
presenting to council
council
in any particular phases that you would
envision
so it's interesting robert ferran
you know was alluding to like it takes
time which it does but i think like the
especially the bike boulevard and the
wayfinding signage and
um some of the policy stuff i think is
the sort of thing that we're pretty well
to get on
underway pretty quickly um you know if
especially at the level as presented if
we if we get into bike boulevard
conversations where they
you know they unfold these kind of more
complicated concepts then that
that obviously takes time but there's
definitely
uh i would call it low-hanging fruit
here or things that you know
the richard you and i have talked about
some of these ideas years ago when we
were working on the broad street project
and and we knew that we needed to build
consensus to understand where would
some of those boulevards go what would
what's what would the signage look like
where would it go so
having having a plan like this helps us
kind of move forward pretty quickly on
the next step
if any of the residents have any ideas
as far as
their preference on phasing as
you know like which route might be the
first one
um if the council approves the plan
which i
i don't think will be a problem of that
which one would be the most um effective
low hanging freak to start with or that
maybe we can experiment with one route
and temporarily bagging stop signs
not that not removing them during the
trial period but
maybe bagging them to test things out
you're more than welcome to email
catherine ben or myself
um if residents have thoughts on that
phase in process
catherine
well and i think councilman sharp there
um
are going to be opportunities that uh
like the corridor planning study there
and some some things are going to be
more obvious than other that are going
to require
court uh coordination across
jurisdictional boundaries
um that may seem
[Music]
like oh my goodness how are we going to
do this now um
other opportunities may show up for
example
just this week at
the active transportation steering
committee group
at morpsy
a uh potential network was
laid out um which was basically
every street in the morpsy region
so basically franklin and delaware
county that's eligible for attributable
funds
which signals to me that
morpsy may be ready to have a more
serious conversation
about prioritizing
bicycle um and sidewalk infrastructure
um
the the the use of federal funds to
build that
um then than they have been in the past
so there's an opportunity that exists
two years from now
that i would not have guessed two years
ago was even a possibility
i'm gonna just making an observation
while we have this line open here
david holman talking and in the last
year
um i've been biking for over 10 years
with bike commuting but um
due to the virus i haven't been lately
but i'm noticing
a lot of um trends
accelerating towards the e-bikes that um
even more than i would have thought it
really seems like
more people are being drawn to biking
with the idea of electric assist as
a way of smoothing out the hills and
somehow reducing the the burden of um
or perceived burden of writing i've i've
tried e-bikes myself on my commute and i
didn't find them
uh adding a whole lot for me
in terms of you know being able to get
there any quicker or
easier but i do think we're gonna find
even more people
wanting to do transportation that is not
in the car with the e-bike as a
possibility
and i think there might be some tax
incentives to
um e-bike purchases um in the works i've
heard little rumblings in the news about
so
um there could be even more people
wanting to go around on two wheels and i
think
this plan is great timing for all that
and just just to add to that david eric
bjorn here
so i i commute by e-bike i'm on i'm on
my third e-bike we've got an
e-cargo bike that my wife gets our kids
around bexley on it's got like a big
wooden box on the front
and we can fit four kids in there and
it's great
i could see some again going back to
public awareness
public awareness campaigns uh
opportunities for people to get on
ebikes to experience it
i think there are a lot of people that
that aren't
um i don't know brave enough or or
strong enough or willing to ride their
bike downtown four miles and then
and then sweat for a little bit after
they get there
whereas riding an e-bike can can totally
change that
so i generally i ride my e-bike around
bexley
not as an e-bike i'm just riding with my
family and i don't need the electric
assist but
i think it can open up uh other
neighboring communities
having that electric assist and making
people aware of that
all right well thank you all
thanks for your time today thanks thanks
everybody thanks catherine
hope you guys have a great rest of your
week enjoy the sun