GAIT: Getting Around Issaquah Together

This Friday, September 19 is PARK(ing) Day. This is the day when communities around the world take back a bit of their town that has been set aside for cars and turn it into a park.

That’s right, GAIT has partnered with our friends at artEAST to turn a parking space across Front Street from UP Front Gallery into a park for one day. The plan is to have (simulated) grass, (real) plants, (real) artists making (real) art, and a (real) bike rack.

There is more info about the event at the Issaquah PARK(ing) Day group page.

If you plan to stop by and enjoy the park, you can RSVP for the event.

If you can hang out at the park for an hour or two on Friday, keep an eye on things, and explain the concept to curious passers-by, fire me an email with your availability and I’ll coordinate. The park will be open from 5am to 9pm.

Tell your friends, and I hope to see you at the park!

The Council Transportation Committee will meet this Thursday 7/9 at 5pm in the Pickering Room at City Hall Northwest. The agenda includes:

Discussion of “Transportation 2040″
I assume this is some long-range visioning.

AB 5997 SE 56th and 221st Place SE Intersection Modifications
This is the intersection just west of East Lake Sammamish Parkway by the service station/car wash and FedEx.

AB 5990 Developer Agreement with the United States Postal Service for Quitclaim of Right-of-Way
Part of the planned freeway undercrossing by the old Zetec property

AB 5978 ITS Enhancements Funding
ITS is the Intelligent Transportation System which is supposed to help smooth traffic flows around town

This Wednesday 7/8 is Bike to Market day at the Sammamish Farmers’ Market. Be sure to check in when you get there. When I went last month they gave me a nice reusable grocery bag. Almost made all those hills worthwhile ;-)  The market runs 4pm to 8pm at the Sammamish Commons right by city hall. More info on their website: http://www.sammamishfarmersmarket.org/

Later in the month, mark your calendar for these events:

7/22 7pm Sustainability Movie Night: King Corn
Not really about transportation in any way other than that when you get around by walking or biking your fuel is food and this movie is all about the industrialization of America’s food system. Plus it’s a free and fun night at the movies with other folks from Issaquah.

7/23 5:30-8pm at the Community Center, Project Porchlight is distributing FREE compact fluorescent light bulbs and they need help from people willing to go door-to-door in their neighborhoods to spread them around. Let’s do that on foot and by bike! Let me know if you want to get involved, or just show up. I’ll nag again when we get closer to the day.

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.

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!

The weather cooperated again on Saturday for six stalwart GAIT members who spent an hour and a half of their weekend pulling an unlikely number of bottles and candy wrappers and other detritus out of the little creek that runs past the community center along the trail. There was some stuff we couldn’t get to through all the brambles, but otherwise there’s a lot less garbage in the stretch from the start of the trail out past the skate park.

Here are some pictures (click for bigger versions):

I sent out email announcing this event only 13 hours before it was going to start so I didn’t really expect anyone else to come, but I was pleasantly surprised when Kate McWiggins joined Becky Brooks and me at 9am last Saturday to pick up trash along Front Street.

We spent about an hour and fifteen minutes and the three of us managed to clear all the unsightly leavings from the whole stretch along the east side of Front Street between Gilman Blvd and the center median of I-90 including a little ways down the eastbound onramp. This resulted in a big full bag that weighed probably 40 pounds. The folks at Stereotomy were nice enough to let me toss the bag in their dumpster for disposal.

We had a good time doing it and I’m looking forward to having more people for our next event. We’ll plan on the last Saturday of the month for these, so the next one is on February 28th. I’ll announce the location when it gets a little closer. If you have suggestions for an area that could use some attention, let me know!

Here are a few pictures:

No, this isn’t a dead site.

We had our first GAIT meeting of 2009 this past Wednesday and spent the time talking about goals for this year and who might want to take charge of them. Here’s a summary of what we decided.

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

Barb Shelton will coordinate moving us toward 501(c)(3) status.

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

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.

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.

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 joined Bob Miller for the “Bridges of Issaquah” ride this evening. There were four of us plus Bob. I put a version of the ride pretty close to what we did up on Bikely if you want to see where we went.

The most fun part of the ride for me was when we were cutting through the school administration parking lot to take the trail over to Dogwood (it’s not a bridge, but it’s a handy bit of ped/bike infrastructure that Bob chose to highlight). As we were reaching the end of the pavement, Bob noticed a bike off in the blackberries. It turned out to be a bike and a trailabike attachment.

The amazing thing is that Bob had just heard of a fellow cyclist having a similar rig stolen from in front of his house a couple of days ago. David Kappler was with us on the ride and happened to have the Issaquah Police non-emergency number on his cell phone (it’s 425-837-3200) so he called to see if the theft had been reported. But the more Bob looked at the bike the more sure he was that this was the one. The suspected owner was just a little ways out of our way, so I offered to tow the bike (and trailabike) there with my Xtracycle. Here’s a picture David snapped of the rig:

When we got to the bike’s suspected home we discovered that yes indeed, this was the stolen bike and the owner was very happy to be reunited with it.

Everybody left there pretty happy and we finished up the ride catching the last couple of bridges on the route.

Bob Miller’s Bridges of Issaquah ride is now a weekly event every Thursday at 7pm starting from the Issaquah Community Center. If people are there at 7 then Bob will lead the ride. Don’t let light rain stop you, either!

This is a great way to get used to riding around town if you’re new to bicycling around. And if you’re a veteran rider it’s a great way to make bikes more visible to our car driving friends and neighbors.

For more info about the ride see the Cascade Bike Club page.