Offered without commentary for now, but here are some interesting things I’ve stumbled across lately…
Lynnwood’s Multi-Choice Transportation system
Planning Complete Streets for an Aging America
Cycling hazard tracking: bikewise
Another cycle hazard site: Bicycle Watchdog
Bob reports that they had a nice Bridges ride last Wednesday. This week promises to be even nicer. Mark your calendar for every Wednesday at 6:30pm in the Community Center parking lot for this fun social ride.
Also on Wednesday, the Sammamish Farmers Market has declared the first market day of each month this summer as Bike to Market days. Their market runs from 4-8pm every Wednesday. I’m planning to huff and puff and clatter up the hill for this first one around starting time so if you want to ride along, let me know.
This week’s previously scheduled Council Transportation Committee meeting has been canceled so the next meeting of that group will now be on July 9th.
In weather like this it’s a better time than ever to walk, bike or bus to your destination. Give it a try!
Bob Miller will be guiding his famous Bridges of Issaquah bike ride starting at 6:30pm Wednesday 5/27 from the Community Center parking lot. If you haven’t been before this ride is an easy ramble around town suitable for all skill levels. If you have been before, let Bob know and he’ll mix things up for you.
Also Wednesday night 5/27, the city’s Resource Conservation Office is hosting their second Sustainability Movie night. This time they’re showing “Who Killed the Electric Car?” which despite its car-centric focus explores issues applicable to any “alternative” transportation in this country. The movie starts at 6:30pm at the KCLS Service Center building on Newport Way behind Target (not at the library!). I’ll be there talking to folks about GAIT, so be sure to come say hi.
This Saturday is the last Saturday of the month and that means it’s time for another Trash Walk. We’re going to return to an earlier site this time, so meet at the east side of the Community Center at 9am where we’ll tidy up along the trail that heads south from there. Bring gloves and wear blackberry-resistant clothing. Hand trimmers probably wouldn’t hurt.
Looking forward, Bob Miller will reprise his Fix a Flat class at the library on Tuesday June 9 at 6:30pm. Registration (required!) opens on June 1 through the library web page.
Despite it being the first weekend of May, this is the April trash walk. We’ll be cleaning up the Sammamish Trail where it runs along the north side of SE 56th Street (otherwise known as NW Sammamish Road). Meet at 9am on Saturday by the plantings at the wacky intersection where SR-900 comes into 56th across from Arco and Tully’s/PCC/Holiday Inn. This map shows the spot. We’ll work our way east from there. I’ll have a few trash grabbers, a couple of brooms, and bags. You should bring some gloves and any other implements of destruction you might need. There are some swampy bits that may need attention so if you have rubber boots then wear or bring them. We’ll work for at least an hour and no more than two. Hope to see you!
Normally we’d be having a meeting this Wednesday night (third Wednesday), but we’re going to skip that for this month. Instead here are a couple of other opportunities to do GAIT stuff in the next few weeks.
This Saturday 4/18 GAIT will have a table at the city’s Earth Day event in the Pickering Barn during the farmers’ market. If you want to spend some time talking to people about walk/bike/bus transportation and GAIT, I could use some company and help.
Next Saturday 4/25 GAIT will again have a table in the barn, this time for the Hobby and Volunteer Fair. I could use help at this event too, so let me know if you have some time that day.
The last Saturday is usually our trash walk day, but it’s being pre-empted by Hobby and Volunteer Fair. Instead we’ll do our next GAIT Trash Walk on Saturday 5/2. The location this time is the Sammamish Trail which is the trail that runs along the north side of SE 56th Street by the soccer fields across from PCC and Costco. I’ll send a reminder a few days before identifying our starting point.
Wednesday 4/29 at 7pm in the Eagle Room at the police station is another opportunity to find out about the new group Sustainable Issaquah. At the earlier kick-off meeting, groups formed to start a community garden, to work on home energy efficiency, to promote local businesses, as well as several other focus areas.
Monday 5/4 at 7:30pm at the City Council’s regular meeting, the city will be holding a public hearing on the draft 2010-2015 Transportation Improvement Program. This is the list of projects the city hopes to build in the next five years. You can view the draft plan and a map.
Hope to see you at some of these events!
CTC is the Council Transportation Committee. They’re meeting on a strange day this month: Tuesday 4/14 5pm at CHNW (City Hall NW)
Here are the agenda items of interest:
I know the time is extremely inconvenient, but if any of this stuff looks interesting to you I urge you to join me in attending.
The editor of the Issaquah Reporter, our area’s free newspaper, was at the kick off meeting for Sustainable Issaquah and wrote an editorial about the experience which includes a nice little shout out to GAIT. You can read it here.
Can you believe it’s the last Saturday in March already?
This month we’re going to work on the boardwalk along SR900. Actually more _under_ the boardwalk.
We’ll start soon after 9am on Saturday (3/28). Meet at the service station at the corner of Gilman Blvd and SR900. We’ll work our way away from the freeway (South) from there. This will be another soggy one, so bring your mucky boots and gloves. I’ll be out there rain or shine. Cancel for sticking snow :-)
If you come to help and we’re nowhere in sight, give me a call and I’ll let you know what’s going on. My cell number is 425-503-6815.
Hope to see you!
We’re having a virtual meeting for March right here on the blog, so please come to order.
I’d like to review the plans for the year as set out in the earlier post about our January meeting.
Jeff Youngstrom will do and/or coordinate the following:
- Inventory of facilities
- Monthly (or more frequent) trash walks
- Web page improvements
- Attend Council Transportation Committee Meetings
- Table at appropriate community events
On the inventory front, I’ve been working on a form for people to use to note different features as we review the streets of Issaquah. I’ll test that out myself then I’ll be looking for a couple of beta testers to survey a street and see if the process makes sense to them. I’ll also be working on a way to present our findings, perhaps using Google Earth.
We’ve had two trash walks so far, both quite successful. The third is coming up on the 28th. This time we’re going to take a crack at the area around the boardwalk on the east side of SR-900 working our way south from Gilman Blvd. This will be another squishy one, so bring those waterproof boots. I’ll send a reminder next week.
Web page improvements have not progressed yet.
We’ve had a presence at each Council Transportation Committee meeting so far this year. I’ll try to be better about getting the agenda out ahead of time and posting a summary afterwards.
We haven’t done any tabling yet this year, but we’re lined up for three events so far. On Saturday, April 18 we’ll have a table for the city’s Earth Day celebration. On Saturday, April 25 we’ll be at the annual Hobby & Volunteer Expo. Both of those events will be at Pickering Barn. The other one we have lined up is the National Night Out in August.
Barb Shelton will coordinate moving us toward 501(c)(3) status.
I don’t know if Barb has had a chance to think about this. Barb?
Bob Miller will do the following:
- Wednesday evening guided bike rides
- “Fix a flat” class or classes (details on the first coming soon!)
- possibly other classes
Bob’s first “Fix a Flat” class is coming up next Tuesday (the 24th). Check with Bob to see if there’s still space. The evening rides are waiting for the evening light which is coming along.
There was a lot of interest in working on Safe Routes to Schools, especially in connection to the planned redevelopment at Issaquah High School. We’d especially like to get parents of school-aged children involved in an effort to push this issue with the school district and the city. I can’t remember if one person was going to take responsibility for this, but Tina Anderson, Barb Shelton, Karen Behm, and Erik Schneider all expressed interest.
This kind of fizzled when we discovered that the specific sidewalk we were concerned about at the high school was being added into the plans. The paper announced this week that a contractor has been chosen for the redevelopment project so we’ll see how that shapes up as construction begins.
Safe Routes to School is a really big issue that can have a huge impact. However, with our current slate of active members it feels like the time isn’t right for GAIT to make a major push for it.
Karen Shively volunteered to become our parade coordinator for the year, so if you want to be in the 4th of July or Salmon Days parades, or have an idea for an entertaining entry in either focused on transportation, let me know and I’ll put you in touch with her.
Karen and I have some ideas. If you’re interested in walking or biking in the parade(s), check in with one of us so we can keep you in the loop and so we know how many people we can expect to have participate if we do get this idea off the ground.
Finally, Karen Behm had the idea that we should meet with our new Police Chief and discuss issues of common interest. If you have something transportation-related that you’d like to discuss with the police, give a yell and we’ll add you to the meeting or add your issue to our list.
I never posted a recap of our February meeting, did I? Chief Ayers generously came to our February meeting and was very helpful in giving us a better understanding of how the police see their role as it relates to walk/bike/bus transportation. Perhaps the biggest message we got was that the Chief encouraged us to report any issues we see around town whether it’s grafitti or people parking on sidewalks or specific drivers not observing crosswalks. Your report may not always result in a citation to the offending party, but it will be recorded and contribute to evaluation of specific issues as time goes on. The non-emergency number for the Issaquah police is 425-837-3200. It’s a good one to have programmed in your cell phone so you’ll have it when you need it.
Does anyone have anything else we need to talk about this month? Leave a comment here if so.
This week’s Council Transportation Committee meeting has some walk/bike/bus stuff on the agenda. I plan to be there, but more citizen presence is always welcome at these things. There isn’t always a chance to provide direct input, but hearing the discussion can be instructive.
The meeting is at 5pm on Thursday 3/5 (yes, extremely inconvenient) at City Hall NW which is by the Holiday Inn up north of the freeway.
Here are the agenda items with approximate times (these pretty much always stretch) and notes from me about what the walk/bike/bus relevance is:
5:00 Newport way trail oakcrest to lakemont
(more discussion of the mixed-use trail to be constructed along Newport Way west of SR900)
5:05 Black Nugget Road Re-Opening
5:30 AB 5954 Operations and Maintenance Agreement
5:35 AB 5955 SQUAK MOUNTAIN TRANSIT – PWE WORK PLAN
(forwarded from Council, study of options for a bus on Squak)
5:45 AB 5956 SE bypass project record of decision– PWE WORK PLAN
5:55 I-90 Seismic Retrofit Project – WSDOT
(no direct impact to walk/bike/bus, but will affect the undercrossing of the East Lake Sammamish Trail (you may have noticed all the orange fences that just went up))
6:00 April CTC Meeting Schedule