aprilwebster / bicycling_advocacy Goto Github PK

Description

Summer events at the Shoreline Amphitheater draw large crowds. In the past 3 years, transportation to the amphitheater by bike as increased significantly. However, bike parking has not kept up. In the 2019 year, the volume of bicyclists of all ages at the Fourth of July celebration leaving the Amphitheater and heading south along Stevens Creek Trail was shocking. In years before that I would encounter maybe a dozen other bicyclists. However, in 2019 the trail was entirely clogged. This is wonderful to see!

Bike parking was woefully inadequate with very few empty spots along bike "fences." Bikes had to be locked in multiples, racks fell down under the weight, and the racks that were used did not support front-wheel in secure parking.

This is in follow-up to the August 26th Mountain View B/PAC meeting.

Tasks

• Reach out to SVBC to gather more information about bike valet costs
• Reach out to SFBC to get bike valet costs data
  • email sent to Rahul Young re SFBC's Bike Valet program
• Research concert attendance data for the past 5-10 years
• Add photos as visual evidence to build the case for better bike parking and bike valet
• Determine who owns Shoreline Amphitheater
• Determine who rents out Shoreline Theater for events
• Research city ordinances for monitored bike parking (e.g., bike valet) in other cities in the US, and more specifically in the Bay

Description

The City of Mountain View would benefit from a bike parking policy to ensure adequate coverage of parking facilities. Other cities of the same size (MV's population is 82,739) and neighbouring communities in the Bay area.

Tasks

• Research bike parking policies in the Bay
• Consult with SVBC and MV City staff to determine what might be a reasonable policy

Description

The Ellen Fletcher Bike Boulevard (also known as the Bryant Bike Boulevard) was the first bike boulevard created in the US. Efforts were spearheaded by Ellen Fletcher. The boulevard has had a number of traffic calming improvements and community art added since its creation on the Palo Alto side. On the Mountain View side, however, there are a number improvements that can be made to mirror the quality of the boulevard on the Palo Alto side. In spots on the Mountain View side, the boulevard wouldn't technically qualify as a bike boulevard given the width of the roads, the volume and speed of traffic. In particular, Montecito is the likely the biggest issue. There are other minor way finding and intersection improvements (San Antonio and Meadow are the two major issues).

Description

Find a way to increase the reach of the Google Maps bike rack point category. Also encourage the public to add/maintain this information.

Tasks

• Write a tutorial blog post (like ones from Watson sdks)
• Create a youtube video of the process for adding a new bike rack point

The first segment (Meadow to Churchill) was created in 1981. This year would mark the 40th anniversary.

Cliff Chambers (MVCSP) was on the team of bicycle advocates who pushed for the creation of the Ellen Fletcher Bike Blvd.

Description

The City of Mountain View has a static bike parking map. A shapefile with points and metadata would be far more useful, easier to maintain and could be used in generating new maps that integrate other spatial data layers (e.g., bike route line data, points of interest point data, etc). Moreover, a shapefile could be converted to gml/kml and uploaded to a Google Map that would be more available to the general public.

Tasks

• Contact Ria Lo at City of Mountain View to ask if they have shapefile
• If no shapefile is available, collect the data and create a shapefile using QGIS.
• Figure out how best to keep this shapefile current - would this involve passing it along to the City for ownership?
• Figure out how to determine the difference between private and public bike parking.

Description

Most bike education efforts in the Bay area to date have been focussed on children. However, if we hope to move the needle on more widespread adoption of bicycling as a viable method of transportation, other demographics will need to be targeted. Bicycling is one of the best options for staying active and healthy for seniors, particularly those with any sort of chronic joint issues.

Tasks

• Research studies that have been done re the benefits of bicycling for seniors
• Research studies that have been done re the need for bicycling education for seniors
• Research collisions and accidents in the Bay area (and Mountain View) involving senior bicyclists

Description

The Ellen Fletcher Bike Boulevard (also known as the Bryant Bike Boulevard) was the first bike boulevard created in the US. Efforts were spearheaded by Ellen Fletcher. The boulevard has had a number of traffic calming improvements and community art added since its creation on the Palo Alto side.

On the Mountain View side, however, there are a number improvements that can be made to mirror the quality of the boulevard on the Palo Alto side. Moreover, there are segments of the Boulevard on the Mountain View side that wouldn't technically qualify as a bike boulevard given the width of the roads, the volume and speed of traffic. In particular, Montecito is the likely the biggest issue and would greatly benefit from traffic calming treatments.

There are other minor way finding and intersection improvements that could be made (San Antonio and Meadow are the two major issues).