June 25, 2012

Transportation movie night: Forterra

Next up in our virtual recap of May’s transportation movie night is Forterra (formerly known as Cascade Land Conservancy). Forterra has been active in community engagement efforts around the Central Issaquah Plan and recently received a grant to continue that work in a more official capacity.

Forterra presented a series of four short films highlighting how bikes can contribute to a more livable accessible community, and some of the obstacles riders face.

How Bikes Make Cities Cool – Portland from Kona Bikes on Vimeo.

3-Way Street from ronconcocacola on Vimeo.

Copenhagen – City of Cyclists from Copenhagenize on Vimeo.

June 18, 2012

Virtual transportation movie night: Hopelink

Back at the beginning of May, the city’s Office of Sustainability did a film night entitled “Happy Mobility in a Livable City: How you Can Have It, Inform It and Use It”. There was a good turnout, but the weather was too nice to ensure a great turnout. I thought I’d do a virtual version of the show here for anyone who missed it.

The evening started out with a segment hosted by Hopelink, a local non-profit which (among many other things), provides access to public transportation for folks who wouldn’t otherwise be able to use it. Hopelink is distinguished among the evening’s presenters in that they actually produced the films they showed. They did a series of instructional videos explaining how to use public transportation in our area both in English and in several other languages. They started by showing one of the videos in Russian to highlight to our English-speaking audience the need for providing transit instructions that will be comprehensible to all potential audiences. After a short taste of that they shared the English version:

The other videos in that series are also good. “Riding the bus” explains the process for someone who hasn’t ridden public transit before. “Paying to ride the bus and light rail train” gives info about all the ways you can pay for your trip on transit.

Next up was an overview of the Hopelink transportation services:

And finally a short clip highlighting the difference these services make in the life of one user:

This is getting kind of long already so I’ll continue the evening’s entertainment and edification in another post.

June 6, 2012

CTC Agenda for 7 June 2012

Agenda for this week’s Council Transportation Committee meeting has been posted. Reproduced here for your convenience. The meeting starts at a convenient 5pm and is held in the Pickering Room at City Hall NW next door to the Holiday Inn.

  1. Pavement Management Program

    Staff Support: Bret Heath

  2. AB 6404 2013-2018 Six Year Transportation Improvement Program
    Exh A;
    Exh B;
    Exh C;

    Staff Support:  Gary Costa

  3. North Issaquah LID – Roadway Section Briefing –

    Staff Support:  Sheldon Lynne

I believe the “North Issaquah LID” is the little-known plan to smack another new road from NE 62nd St (road that runs between Fred Meyer and Home Depot) west to connect with the roads in Pickering Place. Costco wants more (car) access.

June 4, 2012

Issaquah to create bike-ped master plan

One of the goals adopted by the Issaquah City Council for 2013 is to create a bicycle and pedestrian master plan for the city. Big thanks to councilmember Paul Winterstein for proposing the goal and to the other members of the council who supported its adoption. Props too to Mary Joe de Beck and the crew from the city’s Office of Sustainability for the efforts they’ve already expended to make this a reality (see the PDFs below for some of their work). There have been a lot of people calling for an actionable bike-ped plan and all their efforts at highlighting the need are greatly appreciated too.

Now we’ve all just got to get together and do the hard work of actually writing the thing!

You can read the materials from the council retreat listing all of the proposed goals. Paul’s proposal starts on page 62. I’ve taken the liberty of breaking just that goal out to its own document for faster downloading and easier navigation.

If you’re wondering what a Bike/Ped Master Plan looks like, here are a few examples (with no comment or opinion implied about their quality):