Bike Plan

[Thomas Harned]

Holly Parker and I have been working to finish up the bike plan by the end of today. Looking at the document in its near-final form and thinking about how it will be received by the city, we're considering a couple changes to the presentation, but not the substance of the plan. Specifically, estimating a budget and costing out various improvements has proved to be difficult if not impossible to do accurately. Instead, we'd like to remove  discussion of budget entirely and simply schedule a meeting with Mike to discuss numbers after he's had a chance to sit down and read the plan.

Also, the plan is very ambitious, which is good. However, it may be a little too ambitious for one year, especially since we're halfway through the current year. Holly and I thought it would be a good idea to present this as the ECC 2010 Two-Year Plan. That way, rather than presenting an overly ambitious 2009-2010 fiscal year plan 6 months late, we'd be presenting a through and doable two-year plan right on time.

Please let me know if anyone has any  major objections to this. As I said before, the content of the plan is excellent and will not be changed. If everyone is in agreement, we can finish this plan today.

-Tom

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Thomas Harned
New Haven, CT
(203)-444-6380
http://twitter.com/Tom_Harned

[Mark Abraham]

Based on other urban plans, my opinion is that these requests are very modest. 

Mike said a lot of striping will go in at the beginning of 2010.  I think we should keep this as a 2009-2010 plan. 

If it is late in being implemented, that's something we can track over time.  Look at how many of the 2008-2009 plan items were actually completed -- very few.  Our goal is to be an advocacy group and significantly increase the level of citywide cycling over the next 5-10 years. 

That becomes impossible if we make our plans even more modest than they already are.

Mark

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[Brian Tang]

How about making it a calendar year 2010 bike plan?

[William Kurtz]

I agree that what's being asked for is modest and doable, but it's a good idea to set up for success rather than failure.  If the plan itself is just being released and we're already six months into the fiscal year, it's better to go with Tom's suggestion.  When the new striping begins, it looks good all around and we don't start off keeping track of the lack of progress right from the starting line. 

[Thomas Harned]

If it's a 2009-2010 plan, it's a six-month plan, which means the city would have from now until July to get these routes, planned, designed, funded, bidded out, and striped. I don't see that happening, but I would love to be wrong. If this plan we're completed in two years it would represent a dramatic increase in the number of bicycle routes.

[Steven J Brown]

I agree with Brian's suggestion of making it a calendar year 2010 plan as a compromise solution.

Regarding the budgeting question, I agree it shouldn't be in there if it's not at least loosely based on reality.  Hopefully the meeting with Mike and the requested documentation on the cost of completed and ongoing improvements will allow us to tailor the plan to a more precise budget number in future years.

On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 12:09 PM, William Kurtz <william...@gmail.com> wrote:

I agree that what's being asked for is modest and doable, but it's a good idea to set up for success rather than failure.  If the plan itself is just being released and we're already six months into the fiscal year, it's better to go with Tom's suggestion.  When the new striping begins, it looks good all around and we don't start off keeping track of the lack of progress right from the starting line. 

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[Mark Abraham]

I like Brian's suggestion of a calendar year plan.

I think we should stay consistent with one year plans, at the very least.  Two-year plans are too long of a time horizon for the kinds of specific infrastructure asks we are making. 

Bill, I haven't seen you at any Bike Plan meetings so just wanted to clarify -- we actually have a separate process going on for the ECC long-term plan -- that is more of a "plan," whereas the one-year document we are talking about here is more of a one year implementation document.

I also do not think it is fair to switch this to a two-year plan at the very last minute, given the amount of time our volunteers have put in on this over the past year.

Mark

On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 12:09 PM, William Kurtz <william...@gmail.com> wrote:

I agree that what's being asked for is modest and doable, but it's a good idea to set up for success rather than failure.  If the plan itself is just being released and we're already six months into the fiscal year, it's better to go with Tom's suggestion.  When the new striping begins, it looks good all around and we don't start off keeping track of the lack of progress right from the starting line. 

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[Mark Abraham]

Agree w/ Steve.  We have to get the process squared away - that's more important than anything else.  Having plans every year is a good way to do that.

[Mark Abraham]

If too ambitious, I would rather cut items out now and put them in for 2011 than make this a two year plan.  The process we had discussed was finalizing this thing, then going to Mike, and tailoring the document as necessary so that everything was doable within a one year time frame (Jan 2010-Dec 2010).

I hope the city will prove you wrong!  Mike has said several times that large amounts of striping will be going in beginning in April or May.

Mark

[Thomas Harned]

Based on the feedback on this topic it seems like the general consensus is for  2010 Calendar Year Plan. Let's do it.

-Tom