Albany Strollers & Rollers
Meeting Minutes – January 19, 2014
Attendees: Harry (host – thanks Harry!), Nick, Sherie, Tony, Alan E, Ken, and Amy (arriving later).
Agenda Items:
-Runners/Pedestrians in the bikes lanes or in the road
Patch conversation – runners in the street, sometimes in the bike lanes. Perhaps they are there because of the state of the sidewalks? Perhaps we should get in touch with Run About Town and we should see if anyone else on the discussion list is encountering this. Alan E. agreed to reach out to them and maybe post on the discussion list.
It was also mentioned that there is not complete compliance with the three lane striping on the Albany section of the Ohlone Greenway. Sherie R reports frequently observing users in the wrong lanes in the Albany section of the Greenway (walkers, baby strollers, small children, dogs, etc. in the bike lanes, as well as cyclists in the pedestrian lane). She says this poses a considerable safety hazard to those users NOT complying with the striping as designed, as well as to other users of the path. Some things that might help: Aleida from the city has agreed to put down ped stencils in the ped lane on the Greenway.
Also, Ray Chan has 3 projects to improve sidewalks. Make it easy to do temporary repairs, setting up a program where people can get together and get a contractor to do a whole bunch of sidewalks together, and, more long term, make sidewalk repair part of the city budget, as a parcel tax.
-Peralta Ave. traffic calming
Alan E reports that the speed survey indicates 55 highest speed, 31mph is the 85th percentile, warrants the beginning of the discussion of traffic calming. Already some measures in the ATP that will likely help with calming here – bike lanes. Turning out of Francis onto Peralta is a problem, also posen/peralta island changes perhaps warranted, http://peraltaposenalbany.weebly.com is where neighbors are gathering to get information.
-Wayfinding signage
A Caltrans project for wayfinding signage at Buchanan and 80/580 is underway. AS&R wants to make sure that finding one’s way from Albany to Target (eastshore highway) is done and well done. Preston put forth some suggestions to the city which the city is take into consideration. Not much else know about specifics. This is NOT the bigger Wayfinding signage project.
-Sprouts
AS&R is happy with the outcome and was glad to lend its support to the approvals by Planning & Zoning
-Looking forward, events and advocacy:
-2014 and beyond – what do we want to do? (Please chime in!)
Onging projects to follow:
Sprouts
Marin/Buchanan upgrade – phase III
Wayfinding
San Pablo complete streets
Valet parking at events
Sidewalks maintenance
Racks around town
Fixes to buchanan phase II like curb cuts, bike lane cracks in the westbound bike lane, the Eastbound bike lane on Buchanan at San Pablo (or lack thereof, rather)
Events in 2014-
Art and green sponsorship. It’s May 4. We are an in-kind sponsor, we are providing a service: Valet parking
Solano Stroll
Chamber of commerce health fair (we are a CoC member), March 22, community center, 2-5, Amy will be out of town
Alberrito Streets, bike smoothies
Triathlon
Dinner with Albany (probably no need for racks)
Bike to Work Day (added post-meeting by Amy)
-Website hack – we still have to eliminate some users, do we need to? Harry and Nick will look into this.
-Agreed to continue as members in The Alliance for Biking and Walking
-Valet parking bike racks – should we buy more? Yes!
We have 8 new aluminum racks. We still have 5 galvanized steel ones that are slowly breaking. How many more should we get? get another 8. Our request to GPC included support for racks. Valet parking has been a very successful service for us.
-Traffic and Safety items – agenda http://albanyca.granicus.com/GeneratedAgendaViewer.php?view_id=9&event_id=255
Includes 2014 work items: http://albanyca.granicus.com/MetaViewer.phpview_id=9&event_id=255&meta_id=72473
-Getting a Meeting place
How much should we spend? Can we pass the jar? $50/meeting seem reasonsable? We can reach out to more of our membership. AS&R email and facebook post, 1-ideas about public meeting spaces, free or low cost, 2-would anyone like to volunteer for the March meeting, possibly for a small stipend. [Sherie R volunteered to host March meeting, no stipend necessary]
-Facebook discussion
Some good ideas by Alan E.
Meeting adjourned.
