NCTCOG "BPAC"

I went to the first meeting of the new North Texas Bike/Ped Advisory Committee today. Highlights follow chronologically:

• Bike rack was around the back as promised - there was a locked door nearby, but all the unlocked doors were around the front of the building. One guy came on a bike. Maybe two. I was on vacation and rationalized that I hadn't started up the Land Rover in a week.
• Special signin sheet for APBP (landscape people that like to do bike facilities & paint).
• Among attendees were 2 from Euless, 1 from Haltom City, & Max Kalhammer from Dallas. None said much. There were only four people who didn't identify themselves as affiliated with some group/consultant company/government.
• Webinar started things off - email response to our questions was promised. My question was polite, but relevant.
• At the intro, mention was made of PM & talked a little about the new committee, which Don Koski of Fort Worth will chair. The next two meetings will be on Aug 19 & Oct 21.
• Koski gave two short presentations - one on sidewalks (the "P") and one on the FW bike plan (the "B"). I actually found the "P" talk more interesting. For example, FW now considers 5 feet the minimum width for a sidewalk along an arterial/collector road for purposes of ADA compliance. I see "bike paths" narrower than that. In the bike part, the bullet about 295 miles of bike lanes by 2020 flashed out.
• Renee Jordan of Plano - Besides Plano having been at their plan for the last 25 years, she also noted they'll use sharrows as lane positioning devices.
• Copies of the pitches/proceedings promised for the NCTCOG website.
• Met Velociped. He cheered me up by noting Koski basically said they didn't have money to do any of that stuff anyway. Maybe the economy isn't all bad.
• Met Eric Jackson and gave him a hard time about BikeDFW taking money for advertised Traffic 101 Classes & not holding them. "I just want to take the class" was the real message. I do feel for the guy - it's not fun trying to run a volunteer organization.
• Told Koski after the meeting his real opportunity was to not let FW mess up the 50% of the city that hasn't had its infrastructure put in yet (like around Alliance Airport), and it would be a tragedy if his son or daughter was up speaking in 30 years about how expensive it was to fix this generation's mistakes.
• All in all, an interesting meeting, if a little sterile.