GAIT: Getting Around Issaquah Together

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.

We had 10 people at the Issaquah Brewhouse on Wednesday night for our meeting: John, Lisa, Don, Barb, Bob, Mary, Erik, Jeff, Becky, and Bev.

We checked in with folks who agreed to do stuff at our last meeting:

• Jeff reported on progress on this year’s Complete Streets projects. We talked about the proposal to restripe SE 43rd Way. There was some frustration that relatively little money is being allocated to bike lanes even though we’re happy that the plans include many new sidewalks.
• Jeff didn’t have anything to report about making GAIT a formal non-profit.
• Erik talked about what he’d learned about the status of the East Lake Sammamish Trail (ELST). In short, the county’s web site is far out of date, and he was waiting to hear back from county staff for an update.
• Lisa and Jeff reported on the Kryptonite bike rack program. It seems to be an even better deal than we had thought with the company covering all of the logistics of placing racks once the locations have been identified. Other communities have had 20-30 racks placed. We brainstormed a few more locations and will be sending photos to Kryptonite so they can start their decision making process.
• John reported sharing some preliminary artwork with Jeff who forgot to bring it to the meeting.

I reminded everyone that we’ll be staffing a table in the Pickering Barn at the Farmers’ Market on Saturday (snow or shine!) for the city’s Earth Day observance.

That was it for the “formal” part of the meeting and we gabbed about pedestrian right of way, bike racks in Corvalis (Oregon), Citizen Action Requests (the most traceable way to request that the city make a change), proposal of a periodic “Amble Around Issaquah” bike ride to make bikes more visible and show new riders how to get places, and lots of other stuff I didn’t write down.

The Brewhouse was jumping so we were again having trouble hearing each other. I’ll try to find a more inviting location for next month’s meeting.

10 people (Jeff, Mr. B, Julie, John, Lisa, Pat, Becky, Erik, Karen, and Barb) made it to our meeting tonight at the Issaquah Brewhouse. Meeting in the banquet room was much more conducive to actual conversation.

• Kryptonite rack program is on hold until the coordinator gets back in the office after the 21st. Lisa agreed to be the lead for this project going forward.
• Talked about the city’s plans for Complete Streets (CS) improvements for this year. Jeff is going to draft a letter to the Transportation Committee CCing the council with our recommendations. Jeff will also provide a list of key points so the people of GAIT can write their own letters. Jeff will post that here on the blog and email the membership. Jeff will also try not to talk about himself in the third person so much. Barb also passed around a copy of the list of sidewalk projects planned for next year’s CS improvements.
• We talked about other opportunities for leadership in GAIT.
  • Jeff and Barb will be working on formalizing GAIT’s organization and seeking 501(c)(3) status.
  • We talked about having a Transportation Committee committee to ensure that GAIT is always represented at the city council’s transportation committee meetings. There was broad support for this idea. Then we were thinking that those meetings were held at 4pm and support evaporated. Turns out the meetings are actually at 5pm. I don’t know if that helps or not. In any event, Jeff will appeal to the full membership for folks with schedules that can accommodate that time.
  • Project monitoring is another volunteer opportunity. John signed on to make an expedition to City Hall NW to identify current transportation projects that we should keep an eye on. Erik agreed to be the monitor for the East Lake Sammamish Trail.
  • John is also working on a visual identity for GAIT in his copious free time.
• Barb gave us a crash course in interacting with City Hall. I think I’ll pull that out to its own post.
• This concluded the formal portion of the meeting. Discussion followed on topics including
  • Certain city council members wondering why they’re not on the GAIT mailing list (Jeff took action to offer all council members opportunity to join GAIT)
  • Speculation about the promotional opportunities inherent in the presence of four bike shops in town.
  • Announcement that GAIT will have a table at the city’s Earth Day event on April 19th at the Pickering Barn during the farmer’s market.
  • Ideas for other stuff we can do like improving speed limit enforcement on Front Street in the many times when it’s not gridlocked, adding crosswalks on Gilman, getting some flashing crosswalk signals installed, co-hosting a transportation forum with other area stakeholders, having a group in the Salmon Days Parade, installing a judging stand by the train track crossing on Front Street to score crashing cyclists, starting an Issaquah critical mass ride, starting a Fremont-style nude bicycling movement. We may have been having a little too much fun there at the end.

The next GAIT meeting is this Wednesday 3/19 at 8pm at the Issaquah Brewhouse. We’ll be in the banquet room to the right as you go straight past the bar from the main entrance. Should be quieter in there than the main room where we met last time.

We’ll be talking about the Kryptonite bike rack program and about the city’s plans for implementing Complete Streets.

Wednesday is also the date of an open house for the ongoing Central Issaquah Subarea planning process. That’s at the Pickering Barn from 4pm until 8pm. There’s no formal presentation, so stop by whenever you can and leave written comments. Be sure to mention you’re a member of GAIT if your comments are mobility related.

See you Wednesday!

Tonight GAIT had its first meeting. Ten of us sat at a table at the Issaquah Brewhouse and talked about bicycle and pedestrian issues in Issaquah. Rob, Nina, Barb, Karen, David, Kent, Erik, Karen, Becky, and me.

I have to thank Kent for giving us the kick needed to have a meeting when he forwarded some info about a program from the Kryptonite Bike Lock company to place free bike racks. We spent a fair amount of time brainstorming where we might like to see such racks. Here are the places mentioned:

• City Hall South
• City Hall North
• Issaquah Medical Center (on Gilman by the post office)
• Gilman Station near the end of the East Lake Sammamish Trail
• Bank of America on Front Street
• Mills Music
• Memorial Field
• Poo Poo Base
• Skate Park
• Community Center
• Target
• Caffe Ladro in the Highlands
• Safeway
• REI
• Barnes & Noble
• Pickering Barn
• Lake Sammamish State Park

Some of these may already have sufficient racks in place. We thought we’d prioritized public locations ahead of private businesses thinking we might be able to lobby businesses into installing racks on their own. There are a lot of unknowns about the program so next steps here are to refine the list and get some pictures taken of where we’d like to place racks, and then to contact Kryptonite to see what they’re willing to do.

Beyond the bike rack program a lot of ideas flew across the table. I’ll try to get some pages here on the website to capture some of that over the next few days. There were also some war stories told about various organizations, but you’ll have to come to a meeting if you want to hear any of those.

It was exciting to see so many interested people there. Suddenly I have no qualms about referring to GAIT as a “group” and using the word “we” when talking about it. That alone is a big step forward. Thanks, everyone!