GAIT: Getting Around Issaquah Together

Formerly known as the Issaquah Park & Ride, the new Issaquah Transit Center is going into operation on Saturday 5/31. Note this is not the garage, just the bays where the buses stop. The garage opens later this summer. Here’s the info from Metro:

There will be new boarding locations for Metro routes 200, 209, 210, 214, 269, 271, 927 and ST Express 554, 555 and 556 at the Issaquah Transit Center (formerly the Issaquah Park-and-Ride) located on State Route 900 between Maple Street and Newport Way. Starting May 31, passengers should board at the new transit platform located between the construction area and SR 900. Bus riders can still park at the Tibbetts Park-and-Ride south of Newport Way or in the interim lot on the west side of SR 900 until Sound Transit opens the new transit center garage later this summer.

 

I’m going to be out of town on the third Wednesday in June, so there will be no official GAIT meeting in June.

For July I have reserved the Eagle Room at the Police Station on Sunset Way for 7pm on Wednesday July 16th. Mark your calendars for that.

The Council Transportation Committee meeting for June will be next week on Wednesday June 4th at 5pm at City Hall Northwest. The agenda is up on the city’s webpage. Here are the items on the list:

• AB 5841 Development of Position Statement for Safety Improvements to Issaquah-Hobart Road
• AB 5837 Letter of Support to Sound Transit
• AB 5842 ITS Bond Measure
• AB 5844 Evaluation and Determination of ‘A’ List Projects for Concurrency
• Proposed Accomplishments for the Maple Street Study

I plan to go and would encourage any other interested folks to attend.

Bob Miller has come up with a bike ride that visits many of the bridges in Issaquah. He’ll be leading the ride next Thursday, June 5th starting at the Community Center at 7pm. This is an easy ride of approximately 10 miles at a leisurely pace.

The ride is organized through the Cascade Bike Club and there is more info about it here.

Come out and meet fellow GAIT members and be a bicycling presence on the streets of Issaquah. If you’re still nervous about riding on the street this is a great way to get some practice with some more experienced riders.

If you have questions leave a comment or send email and we’ll get Bob to give us answers.

Last Wednesday nine of us (Becky, Paul, Ed, Erik, Bob, David, Barb, Karen, and Jeff) met in the quiet and comfortable clinic room at the back of REI.

I put our mission statement up on the wall:

GAIT’s mission is to promote and enable walking, bicycling and bus riding as practical and fun ways to get around Issaquah.

And we talked about ways our little shoestring non-profit can achieve that mission. Here’s the list of things we came up with:

• Offer a class on how to use a bike for errands around town
• Be visible walkers, bikers, and bus riders
• Wear GAIT-branded leg bands when cycling
• Start some organized rides on the lesser-known corridors in town
• Take city council members and city staff on rides/walks
• Identify problem areas to city
• File Citizen Action Requests
• Follow development projects through the process tracking ped/bike/bus impacts
• Communicate to local businesses to promote ped/bike/bus to employees
• Ped/bike/bus passports (get stamps at various Issaquah locations)
• Work with Chamber of Commerce
• Get Cascade Bike Club to do some of their bike training sessions here
• Sponsor a Car-free/car-lite shopping day
• Make GAIT stickers so members are visible
• Map local ped/bike/bus amenities (trails, bike racks, toilets, benches, sidewalks, etc.)
• Create bike rack standards and sources to help interested parties do them right
• Promote bike racks to businesses
• Tabling at community events
• Work with police on bike enforcement
• Ped/Bike/Bus tips in Issaquah Press
• Work with service clubs
• Lobby for completion of missing links (e.g., sunset->high point)
• Colorized bike lanes/bike boxes
• Bus routes up the hills on Squak, Cougar, and plateau
• Designated “bike buddy” to help with trip planning
• Trip partners to help new users on their first ped/bike/bus trips
• Salmon Days Parade
• Catchy slogans (e.g., $0.00/gallon)
• Loaner bikes
• Bike maintenance collective
• Ped/bike accident tracking and investigations
• Bike theft tracking, investigation, and stings
• Park and walk promotion (combine trips)
• Find out when the right time is to make sure ped/bike/bus amenities are included in development projects
• Form a city website monitoring team to identify new developments
• Alert membership at pivot points so they can contact council/staff
• Monitor transportation committee
• Monitor land use committee
• Cooperative effort with bike shops (e.g., maintenance classes)
• School bus bike racks
• Sponsor school bike clubs
• Get metro/sound transit to give us free ride tickets to give out
• Highlight time/cost savings for ped/bike/bus
• Help people over their first efforts at using ped/bike/bus modes
• Help people with gear selection for ped/bike

Then in the last few minutes of the meeting we talked about how it would be valuable to have some measurements that we could track over time to show how ped/bike/bus utilization is improving. We came up with the following thoughts about measurement

• Bike lane traffic monitors
• Work with the Commute Trip Reduction program and help businesses make their targets
• Do a survey
• Check what Portland is measuring
• Measure bike/ped/bus traffic at specific locations over time
• Grab results from recent East Lake Sammamish Trail survey
• Measure miles of trail/sidewalk/bike lanes
• Measure number and distribution of benches, picnic tables, etc.
• Find out why people are using ped/bike/bus modes
• Measure time taken between different destinations

The folks at the meeting were predominantly bicycle fans so a lot of this stuff skews that way (though if you squint at it right, most of it applies to all three modes). If you have ideas about how GAIT can promote and/or enable walking and bus riding leave a comment.

Next month we’ll work on narrowing down the list into a set of goals and objectives.

Our next meeting will be 7pm Wednesday May 21st in the clinic room at the REI store on Gilman Blvd by Safeway. The room is on the right at the back of the store.

Hope to see you there.

I guess we should point out that May is Bike to Work Month. If you have been thinking about trying to commute to work by bike it’s a great time to get some help over the initial challenges. The full calendar of events is at Cascade Bike Club.

May 16th is Bike to Work Day. Stop by the City’s booth at West Lake Sammamish Parkway and SR-900 from 6am to 10am.

After we talked about Citizen Action Requests at our last meeting, member John wrote one up about the excessive speed of drivers on NW Juniper Street.

Two days later a temporary radar speed sign was placed at the problem area. How’s that for fast action? John speculates that there had been many other complaints about this street, so maybe the sign was already in the works before his CAR, but it’s still pretty cool that the city is responding to this need.

Let us know if you make use of the CAR process to address a ped/bike/bus transportation issue.

Here’s an event close by that will extend bicycle transportation to our neighbors in Africa.

The ARAS Bikes for Africa Project

YOUR USED BICYCLE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN AFRICA!

In Ghana, an impoverished country, the main form of transportation is walking – lucky ones ride a bike to work, school and the market.

Please consider donating your bike to ARAS, a local non-profit foundation that is supporting the African Bike Project.

All bikes accepted, regardless of their condition or size (no tricycles).

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!

BIKE DROP OFF:

Saturday, May 17th 9am-1pm

Sammamish City Hall 801 228th Ave SE

For more information: Mary Trask 425 868-8448