What makes a good street to bike on?

Katie Bradshaw has come about this in a interesting way.  I want to put her email up here because it hits a number of important points.  So here it is.  Great write up Katie.

After the article in the Star-Herald about the downtown bike racks, there was some discussion about cycling in the downtown area, as some folks (including some city staff) thought that it was illegal to ride on Broadway. It's not - it's illegal to ride on the *sidewalks* in the downtown area (Broadway, 1st, Ave A - between the railroad tracks and 20th, I believe). I had a long email conversation with Annie Folck with the City of Scottsbluff over the idea of certain routes (like Broadway) being considered "dangerous" for cyclists (her words), and I suggested that use of the word "dangerous" was best avoided - that perhaps a route was more "difficult" than others - and that rather than highlighting what routes are "difficult" that we should highlight easier bike routes. I linked to the bike map of the last city I lived in, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, as an example of a map that points out the best bike routes through town, while indicating difficult or higher-traffic routes. http://www.champaigncountybikes.org/map/

Annie was super proactive, and asked if I would meet with her to discuss the issue. She invited Paul Snarr from the City of Gering, as well as Jon Reiter and Sergio Rodriguez, who are the mapping gurus for the respective cities. Paul and Annie are both very supportive of the idea of creating an online bike map route, which can easily be integrated into the "Beehive" mapping system, which Scottsbluff has linked on its website https://scottsbluffne.map.beehere.net/ , and which Gering will be getting soon.

I think this is a great opportunity, for several reasons:
1. It opens a good line of communication between cyclists and city staff, many of whom do not ride and do not understand the needs of cyclists. We can let them know where there are bad potholes / gravel patches / etc.
2. If bike routes are highlighted on an official city map, when other infrastructure projects are underway along a route, there may be potential to add-on some cyclist-friendly upgrades.
3. If local folks and visitors can look at a map and figure out the best way to get from point A to point B on a bike, we may see an increasing number of cyclists - a critical mass that could help us all become more visible to motorists.

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Here is the first information the city is requesting from us:

1. What commuter routes do you normally take through the cities? Where else would you want to go on a bike? What are the best routes, and the difficult areas along those routes? [I'm hoping to gather routes and sticky notes on those Chamber of Commerce maps.]

2. What are the characteristics of your preferred routes?

3. What are the characteristics of routes you tend to avoid?

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This is just a first step, but I'm excited about it. I had also contacted the folks who put together the Champaign-Urbana map, and they said they would send us some information on their process. They also gave the following advice:
Creating a bike map is a LOT of work.
It is TOTALLY worth it.
Hopefully you have, or will have a active and energetic group to help you.  (Like a bicycle advocacy group like CCB, that “knows the local roads” so the map is helpful.).
Maps take loads of data, so we had lots of layers of data shared with us from various county and municipal staff.
We contacted with a university cartography department to create the huge map file, that we could then get printed.
There is no “Right way” to create a bike map. When we made our recent major revision, we looked at some 30 odd bike maps from big cities to gather great ideas.  So there are some key style and content decisions you will need to make along the way.  The first is answering “Who is this map for?”  We designed our map with new riders in mind.
This takes money too, so you will need to raise funds.  We can share our budget list too.
You might look at the LAB list of Bicycle Friendly Communities that have won a bronze, silver, or gold awards that are close to the same size, and contact their bike folks asking for their maps to review.

If anyone has commentary on a direction to take this, or on how WNBC might best be involved, I'd love to hear it!

Cheers,

-Katie Bradshaw

Jon Heidemann answers questions posed at the last meeting...

The question brought up during the meeting was if his clinic was to be 5 separate days or 5 days in a row.  From his email it sounds like he can tailor just about anything to fit us.  Sounds like a great experience.  I'm up for a little training if anyone else is.

Here's the email from Jon -

Hello all,

I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to this meeting as I was in Colorado Springs, CO over the weekend at a USA Cycling Camp Managers Meeting making decisions on how best to identify talent in our nations young competitive cyclists and a productive way to develop that talent.  However, your meeting seemed full of purposeful content with lots of discussion that impacts cycling in, around and throughout Gering & Scottsbluff.  You may not realize this but your planning, conversations with local leaders are laying down a framework in which to manage these same issues in other western Nebraska towns and communities (ie, Sidney, Chadron, etc).  I’m thrilled this is happening.

As I was skimming the meeting notes, I saw you all had questions regarding the scope of my prospective camp I offered.  I can offer many versions of a camp for this group but I think one idea I was milling over was a multi-day (in a row) camp that offered BOTH road and mtn disciplined activity.
With limited single track trail access in Scottsbluff/Gering, I suggest a weekend get away to Lakewood, Colorado.  This area offers ample road and mtn trail usage as well access to classroom space for training topics (nutrition, body mechanics, bike mechanics (not the persons but the actual concept), training concepts & event preparation. I can even arrange for massage therapist to be on call for those interested.

So in a nutshell, 3-4 day weekend (Thurday/Friday~Sunday), multi-discipline (bring both road and mtn, if you’d like), tons of scenery, great food. Lodging would be on a local  college campus apartment based type with its own kitchen & showers.  We would hit three -four significant rides during this time frame (both road and mtn) with post ride recovery and talks that covered topics you have some option of choosing (basically, I send you a list of 8 topics, you choose 4 or we choose 4 of the most popular).
If this sounds interesting, let me know and I can get you a per person estimate.


Cheers!


Jon Heidemann

News on LB39

A few pictures of today's hearing on LB39. We had a good turn out in support of the bill.

Nobody showed up to oppose the bill, but a few individuals who don't like bicycles have emailed the Senator Smith opposing the bill.

What can you do?
Please continue to email Senator Smith or any of the senators on the Transportation Committee. jsmith@leg.ne.gov

If the bill makes it out of committee, then we will need to email all senators to support the bill as it is debated on the Senate floor.

We can't say enough about Senator Rick Kolowski for Legislature support and Everyone that testified today. THANK YOU!

 

 

January Notes -

We talked about the need to attend a OTD meeting to form contacts for getting some support from volunteers, contact info for the trophies and t-shirts.  Since then Sounds like we need to contact Bill Schlaepfer and attend a meeting to see what's going on.

Jerseys will have more info on next meeting.  Hopefully I'll have design and pricing info next meeting.  Tshirt order is just about ready to go in.  We have 18 signed up for orders and about half of those are paid.

2015 sounds like a busy year for events.  Feb 1st is sign up for the
Laramie Enduro.  The Oklahoma Freewheel is June 7th - 13th more info here - http://www.okfreewheel.com/ 

The Numb ride June 27th to July 1st.  Sounds like a great ride. http://www.numbride.org/

Bran of course - http://bran-inc.org/wp/

Odin's Revenge - http://odinsrevenge.com/

And of course its already full but Bob and I are doing Dirty Kanza.

I'm sure there's more but these are the events we discussed.

We talked about taking Jon H. up on his training camp.  Some questions were raised about if it was a five separate days or five days in a row?

We discussed LB39 and what it does for cyclists and what we can do to help out.

We did a creative grab for ideas on the down town bike racks.  A lot of great ideas came up.  Dead line for submissions are Feb. 13th.  Submit all ideas to
afolck@scottsbluff.org.

Katie Bradshaw had a discussion with some city planners and they want our info on what routes we take and don't take when we are riding around town.  Is there a street that you take to get from point A to B?  Why do you take that street?  Please bring all this info to the next meeting to be collected.

Next meeting is Febuary 21st @ 4pm at Caddies.

That's all I have for now.  If I missed anything please email me and I'll get it added in.

Thanks

Garrett