Come out and voice your opinion on Transportation Matters

Transportation Planning

OPEN HOUSE

FY 2014-2017 Transportation Improvement Program

2035 Transportation Plan

March 18, 2013 from 4 PM – 7 PM

Citizens Square - Omni Room (Room #045)

The Northeastern Indiana Regional Coordinating Council (NIRCC) would like to invite all citizens to attend an open house to review the Draft Fiscal Year 2014-2017 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) and the Draft 2035 Transportation Plan (long range plan).  The Draft Fiscal Year 2014-2017 TIP includes transit, highway, pedestrian and bicycle projects funded with federal funds in Allen County during the next four years. This public notice, and time established for public review and comment on the Transportation Improvement Program, satisfies the program-of-projects notice requirements of the Federal Transportation Administration Urbanized Area Formula Program (Section 5307) for the Fort Wayne Public Transportation Corporation/Citilink.

The Draft 2035 Transportation Plan has been updated to reflect the future needs of the urbanized area. The Transportation Plan includes transit, highway, pedestrian and bicycle improvements. Staff will be present to answer questions and take any comments.  We encourage you to attend. 

If you are unable to attend and wish to review the Draft Fiscal Year 2014-2017 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) projects or the Draft 2035 Transportation Plan Projects, you may visit our office where material will be available for review following the March 18^th Open House. You may also view the materials on our website (NIRCC.com). 

You may send comments by mail or e-mail to the locations listed below.  The intent of the open house is to solicit input and comments from the public regarding the documents. NIRCC will accept comments through March 31, 2013. There will be an additional formal comment period later this spring. More information regarding the upcoming spring comment period will be forthcoming.

NIRCC

Citizens Square Room 230

200 East Berry Street

Fort Wayne, IN 46802

Phone: (260) 449-7309

Email: Dan.Avery@co.allen.in.us

Website: www.nircc.com

2012 Year in Review

2012 Year in Review

Yes this is an opinion piece so please, if I have forgotten anything please comment or shoot me an email.

Highlights in no particular order

1.        3 Feet Passing Law – From the Bike Fort Wayne Plan - The attention to local and state regulations and laws pertaining to bicycles represents another aspect of the policy orientation of the plan. Changes in laws and policies that define and promote safe use of roadways will reinforce the project and program components of this plan. For example, a state law that requires motorists to give cyclists at least three feet of space when passing, raises awareness of a safe practice and, since it is enforceable, can quickly facilitate a desirable shift in motorist behavior.

I have to tell you that this is by far the highlight of the year.  Thanks to the Planning and Policy Office for pushing this forward and for the City Council to see the value of safety for Fort Wayne Cyclists.  Next up on the Legislative Agenda, according to the Bike Fort Wayne Plan, Complete Streets.  Let’s do it!

2.       Fort Wayne named Bronze Level Bicycle Community by the League of American Bicyclists.  It is totally sweet that the efforts over that last few years have been recognized!

3.       The Towpath Trail Completed and Dedicated – All of those wishing to get near downtown from the Aboite area can now do so.  I haven’t been on this section as of yet but I hear it is awesome.  Read about it HERE

4.       The Fort 4 Fitness Spring Cycle Criterium and Bike Tour – I did not participate in the tour but I heard that it was a nice route and fairly well attended.  I actually spent all day at the Criterium and it was so cool that I will be there again next year!

5.       Return of Courteous Mass – Last year a couple Lawyer friends of mine scared the crap out of me about liability regarding the marginally popular Courteous Mass Ride so we quit it.  That changed this fall with the return of the ride thanks to 3 Rivers Velo Sports sponsorship and most importantly, insurance.  Every 2^nd Friday at Lawton Park.  Leaves at 6:30PM.

Not Necessarily Highlights

1.       The Fort 4 Fitness Bike the Fort – I volunteered and worked at a stop station for this.  I feel as though in order to increase participation in this event it needs to be free!  Cyclovia. Close the streets and let everyone ride everywhere with not a car in sight. We can make this happen!  I was surprised that anyone participated in this at all.  Why does it always have to be about money?  They actually charged people to go ride their bikes on City streets and quite a few people paid.  Obviously I am not the target market.

2.       The Lack of Implementation of Bike Fort Wayne Plan – The Bike Fort Wayne Plan was approved over 2 years ago and it called for bike infrastructure to be built all over town including on Calhoun and Fairfield and Ewing among many others.  It has not materialized at all!  We, the cyclists, are the losers here.  I have said it before and now I will say it again.  Trails (which I love!) cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per mile to get built.  Bike lanes/Bike Routes are a fraction of that cost per mile yet we seem to be hung up. Why?  I don’t get it.  

Hope to see you all at the Chilly Challenge tomorrow.

Later

Bicycle Culture by Design

Breathtaking

How the Dutch got their cycle paths

I think I might have posted this before but who cares?  It's AWESOME!

Cycle track appears in Cleveland

Found this on Rust Wire.
Great bicycle infrastructure planning exercise!

10 Most Bike-Friendly Campuses Across America - Best Colleges Online

10 Most Bike-Friendly Campuses Across America - Best Colleges Online

Should the bicycle friendliness of a University help to sway where you go to college?  If you are a huge biker then maybe it would.
I also was pretty stoked that my Alma Mater is listed at #8!  Go Northern Arizona University!

Getting More Women On Bikes

Getting More Women On Bikes

We need more Roads not less cars! Huh?

General Motors battle cry from the 50's!
In a way, it seems as though the Fort Wayne area still subscribes to this notion.

Next American City » Buzz » The Closed Street as a Living Street

Next American City » Buzz » The Closed Street as a Living Street

A woonerf is a low-speed street where pedestrians and cyclists have legal priority over drivers. In practice, cars, bikes and people on foot mix freely. Unlike a standard woonerf, Pennsylvania Avenue doesn’t have regular drivers, but it has taken on many of the elements of the woonerf. Security needs can also close them at a moment’s notice. Therefore, I like to call this a “security woonerf.”

Lack of walkability = fat people

The True Cost of Unwalkable Streets - Commute - The Atlantic Cities
15-19% of Indiana's population was obese in 1994.  25-29% in 2008.  Yikes.
Is this part of the reason that we are getting these brand new, huge hospitals?  Is obesity economic development?

Public Comment needed to ensure Bike/pedestrian facilities!

Stop by the Transportation Planning Open House to voice your support for Bikes and Pedestrians in our community!

Your voice is critical to continuing support for our trails!

MONDAY, March 19, 2012 from 4 PM – 6 PM

Citizens Square - Omni Room (Room #045)

These are two INDOT road projects where we should have sidewalks, but none are currently planned: But we all know that they are necessary to make our great City an even better place to live.

1.  The State is not including a sidewalk on the north side of SR930/Coliseum and the south side of Coliseum where we don’t have the Rivergreenway.  

IPFW and Ivy Tech are along this section of Coliseum and sidewalks make sense.  

2.  The State should consider adding sidewalks to “U S 27/ Lima Rd at Clinton Street north to SR 930/Coliseum Blvd,” basically Lima Rd between Clinton and Coliseum.    These sidewalks would connect with the future Pufferbelly Trail.  It would be great if they put in an 8 or 10 ft wide trail on the west side of Lima between Fernhill and Ice Way to make a shorter connection for trail users.  

The State takes public comment very seriously and any attendance you all can give would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry for the short notice but I just heard about this.  Hope to see you all there!

Very insightful. I have felt this as a newcomer.

The Tension Between Newcomers and Oldtimers in an Old City | Rust Wire

Great idea

Los Angeles Seeks Pedestrians - Neighborhoods - The Atlantic Cities
Which street in Fort Wayne would you like to see closed to car traffic?

Dan Burden came and spoke in Fort Wayne a couple years back

Walkable 101: Road Diets from Martin County CRA on Vimeo.

Walkability is all the rage these days

Walkable 101: The Basics from Martin County CRA on Vimeo.

And that is AWESOME!

Riding out of a recession: Bicycle commuters can power the economy

By Neil H. Simon of The Oregonian
Cities across the world should follow Portland and Copenhagen's lead and adopt progressive urban planning and bike-friendly transportation policies, not just to lessen the environmental impact of cars, but as part of a wider strategy to climb out of recession and increase the economic impact of sustainable commuting policies.

The Whole Story

It's Time for Cities to Favor People, Not Cars

It can be done.....

Los Angeles and countless other cities - Phoenix, Houston and Atlanta come to mind - are far more friendly to cars than people, having been built according to land use policies that all but put people behind the wheel. It's an unsustainable model, and it must change.

That was the message transportation planner Timothy Papandreou brought to "Expanding the Vision of Sustainable Mobility," a symposium sponsored by the Art Center College of Design. The school could be called the Harvard of transportation design, and two-day conference drew experts in fields as varied as urban planning and aerospace engineering to discuss where the future of mobility lies.

Papandreou called for an end to "state, federal, and local land use policies that are literally forcing people to have to drive" and told Wired.com we're on the cusp of an inevitable "mode shift" away from individual car ownership toward a greater reliance on mass transit and sustainable transport.

"We're already at that crossroads," he said.

Papandreou is a former transportation planning manager for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and he's currently with the San Francisco Municipal Railway, so he's got some idea what he's talking about when he says too many big cities favor cars over people.

"There's this cycle of automobile dependency," he said. "You have to have a place to park at home, a place to park at work, and a place to park at retail establishments." In an absurd "market distortion," cities have become places where "cars have a right to housing and people don't."

That distortion, he says, is the result of years of increasing capacity for automobiles and shifting funds away from alternative forms of transportation. It's brought us to the point where most Americans consider automobile ownership an essential key to a productive, fulfilling life. Papandreou suggests a sea change in how we view personal mobility.

Car-friendly policies have created a "carbon shadow" that vehicles can't escape -- the result of "all of the regional consequences of all these policies and collective actions," he says. Instead of the "manufactured value" of personal car ownership, we should adopt "demand management" by creating disincentives for driving that will, in turn, encourage people to walk, ride mass transit, carpool and use other means of getting around.

In Papandreou's eyes, freeways are wasted space. Consider this: 200 people can jam the I-405 riding along in 177 cars (the average ratio). Or they could use just two lanes in three city buses, or have plenty of personal space around them if they rode bikes.

"All that road space could become something else," he said, stressing that the only way to achieve that vision is with a total "eco rehab" that avoids the sort of ineffective piecemeal programs that only survive due to their political popularity. The Obama Administration's economic stimulus package could be a first step toward that future.
"It's a down payment to a massive mortgage," Papandreou said. "I'm hoping that the stimulus gets the ball rolling."

BIKE SUMMIT in the Summit City!

Dear bike survey respondent:
Thank you for participating in the City of Fort Wayne's 2008 Bicycle Use Survey. We got an outstanding response from Fort Wayne's current and future cyclists with more than 4,000 surveys submitted. As you probably already know, people in Fort Wayne enjoy riding their bikes for recreation, but also want to use pedal power to get to the places where they currently drive, like parks, libraries, downtown and work, if it were safer and more convenient.

Mayor Tom Henry recognizes the value of improving our city's bicycle infrastructure, both with on-road facilities like bike lanes and continuing to expand our popular trail network. It's an investment in Fort Wayne's quality of life and plays a role in economic development. Alternative transportation infrastructure offers opportunities for improved health and fitness, while also reducing traffic congestion and improving air quality.

To continue the process of gathering public input for the City's Bicycle Transportation Plan, Mayor Henry is hosting a bicycle summit 9 a.m. to about noon Saturday, March 21 at the downtown branch of the Allen County Public Library. The event is free, but space is limited and offered on a first-come, first-served basis. If there is enough interest, we will schedule a second public input session at another date.

In addition to the summit, we are also hosting an expo of bike- and health-related vendors in the library's Great Hall from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 21. The expo is free and open to the public, including those who did not attend the summit.

Planning

It is exciting news that the Mayor has started the data collection phase of the Bike Planning process. Thanks to Ashley (Commentor on this blog) for reminding me that this is something that needs to be spoken about.

Currently, the City is asking members of the community to give input so that data can be compiled for the City's bike lane/route planning. If you ride a bike, thought about doing it, whatever, please follow this link and fill out the questionaire.

http://www.cityoffortwayne.org/forms/bicycle_survey.php

From what I have heard there have been literally, hundreds of responses sent in so far and it has only been a week or so since the thing was launched! (A hard copy survey is also in this month's City Utilities bill) That is great to hear.

Let it be known to all of you out there that this is the beginning of something that could be great for this City and all who choose to commute on a bike. But, this survey is just the very beginning. Planning can be a long process, and for good reason. To look at everything involved takes a while. Below is the definition of Planning according to the American Planning Association.

What Is Planning?

Planning, also called urban planning or city and regional planning, is a dynamic profession that works to improve the welfare of people and their communities by creating more convenient, equitable, healthful, efficient, and attractive places for present and future generations.
Planning enables civic leaders, businesses, and citizens to play a meaningful role in creating communities that enrich people's lives.

Good planning helps create communities that offer better choices for where and how people live. Planning helps community members envision the direction their community grow and will help them find the right balance of new development and essential services, protection of the environment, and innovative change.

Planning is done in many arenas and involves professionals who are planners and those who are professionally certified by the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). Planners work with elected and appointed officials, such as mayors and planning commissioners, to lead the planning process with the goal of creating communities of lasting value. Planners help civic leaders, businesses, and citizens envision new possibilities and solutions to community problems.

The American Planning Association and its professional institute, AICP, help planners, officials, and citizens better serve their communities by providing research, educational resources, practical advice and tools, and up-to-date information on planning. Planners working with community members help communities meet the challenges of growth and change.

You really start to understand what is involved, who is involved, and what the stakes are after reading the above. Don't you? Lines like, "that works to improve the welfare of people and their communities by creating more convenient, equitable, healthful, efficient, and attractive places for present and future generations. " I mean that's great stuff! This bike plan could do all of these things.

I will make a confession here that I was a professional Planner in a past life and I am a firm believer that Planning, when done right, can do a great deal to improve the quality of life of the residents of the community. To be honest, I am just so happy that the can of worms has been opened. What do I mean by that you ask? I think that by asking for public input on this subject, the Mayor and the City is now going to gain a much clearer understanding about how many people bike, where they live, where they want to be able to bike to safely, what specific roads they want to do all of this on, etc. (I really feel for the lowley planners that have the job of complilng all of that information!)

Where are you going? Planning takes a while. We need to be patient. I want bike lanes everywhere yesterday too. But chill. It will take months to even compile all of this data! It is okay. This is not going to be a quick win, but, I guarantee you that in 10 years when we all look back as to what happened to get Fort Wayne to be such a bike commuter friendly town, it started with Planning.