January 10, 2012, Oxford/Jimmy Lee Recreation Center.
16 people attended, including: Steve Bergman, Paul Teske, Eric Peterson, Bill Lindeke, Mike Madden, Ed Lehr, Jeff Zaayer, Jim Ivey, Joyce Fitzgerald, Matt Cole, Chris Budel, Deb Alper, Gary Fifield, Peter Grasse, Stefan Pomrenke and Andy Singer.
Erik Peterson gave out some flyers that he made to promote the group which should be posted on the website in downloadable form soon. In the meantime, contact Erik if you want to get more of them at— erikpn (at) gmail.com
We had updates on early planning for “Bike to Work week” (June 2-10) and are looking for people who want to collaborate on putting on some events in downtown to coincide with it.
We had some updates on the Union Depot bike station or “Bicycle Center” for which the city is accepting operator bids. Lower Town Bikeshop has supposedly submitted a bid. There was a walk-through tour of the facility on Tuesday but it was at 3:15pm and none of us were able to attend. I’m hoping to schedule another one.
Mississippi Market is offering a 5% discount on your groceries if you bike to the store. You pay a one-time $5 fee and get a sticker for your helmet that entitles you to the 5% discount. I got 4 bags of groceries last week and received $11 off.
We spent the rest of the meeting discussing new projects and goals that we’d like to work on in 2012 and beyond.
Stefan Pomrenke presented an idea for a food coop, bike shop and community space on the East Side of Saint Paul. He’s on the Dayton’s Bluff Community Council and a working group that is talking to Mississippi Market, the city and other groups about the proposed center, possibly on the Hospital Linen site, across from the Swede Hollow Cafe. He and Ed also discussed working on making Margaret Street into a Bike Boulevard (something that’s on our website project list). If you’d like to work on this with Stefan, contact him at— stefanpomrenke (at) gmail.com
Ed Lehr presented the recommendations the League of American Cyclists as possible future SPBC projects. These included– 1. Providing on-going input into the city’s Bicycle Comprehensive Plan and MnDOT’s regional Bike Plan 2. Perhaps helping the city work on a Safe Routes to Schools program and connecting with an upcoming, May 9th, statewide bike to school event. 3. Creating an SPBC subcommittee to gather, evaluate and map bike/ped crash statistics and bike/ped count data. 4. Arrange League of American Cyclist “Traffic Safety 101” training for everyone in the group (with an eye towards getting us certified as instructors who could run other bike education efforts) 5. Helping to arrange a “Bike/Ped Enforcement Week” for both bikes and cars, and a county or state wide diversion program of bike/ped education for drivers (or cyclists) who speed, fail to yield to pedestrians, blow stop signs or violate laws designed to protect pedestrians and cyclists.
Jim Ivey, Chris Budel me and others suggested creating a committee to map bike parking and other stuff and implement a simple way-finding marking system.
We’ll finalize this list and form a couple subcommittees at the next meeting on February 14th.