Bikeways And Walkability Committee Meeting

THEY'RE OFF AND RUNNING, ER, BIKING
The Costa Mesa Bikeways and Walkability Committee met again Wednesday night and got it's marching orders.  All the members were present except Jim Kerins, who was out of town on business, and he sent his wife to observe and take notes so he wouldn't lose ground in this process.  Member Kathleen Brown showed up late and left a few minutes later.  All the other members were attentive and actively participated in the discussions.

THE BROWN ACT
City Clerk Brenda Green provided the obligatory official Brown Act briefing so the members will not inadvertently violate the state open meeting law.  Special emphasis was placed on the dangers of social media "conversations" and the pitfall of the "Reply All" choice in email messaging.

FOLEY AT THE HELM
Councilwoman Katrina Foley took a greater-than-normal role in directing the agenda to be sure that the committee understood their role and the urgency of the first part of their task.

RAJA PROVIDED AN OVERVIEW
Transportation Services Manager Raja Sethuraman, shown above with Foley and member Andrea Marr, guided the brief orientation of the General Plan and how the update of the Master Plan of Bikeways is integrated into it.  He provided guidance on their Mission Statement, which reads as follows:

The mission of this committee is to:

• Focus on the review and update of the City's Master Plan of Bikeways and improvements to be made to bikeways in the City, and
• Evaluate the bikeability and walkability of our City in order to make recommendations for improvement to the City Council.

GOTTA GET CRACKING
This will be no easy feat, since the recommendations for the Master Plan of Bikeways must be ready for presentation to the City Council in early fall, which means they only have one or two more meetings to accomplish that task.  That's a very tight timetable.

THE TASK AHEAD
Consultant John Holloway provided an overview of the task he and his associates have been working on regarding the definition of an East/West Crosstown Bike Plan.

NOT MUCH TIME...
Now the group, chaired by Ralph Taboada, must get started... it should be very interesting to see if they can actually pull this off in the short time available to them.  They will meet again on the second Wednesday of August - the 12th.

Second Bikeways/Walkability Workshop

 SMALLER TURNOUT THIS TIME
A small turnout - 23 people, less than half the number who turned out for the first one - attended the final Bikeways/Walkability Workshop conducted Wednesday evening in the Emergency Operations Center by Costa Mesa City staff and consultants hired to do the work.

RAJA TO JOHN...
Transportation Services Manager Raja Sethuraman kicked it off, then handed over the meeting to consultant John Holloway of the firm KTU+A, who spent the next hour guiding us through the presentation, which will be available for viewing online shortly.

THE EASTERN SEGMENT
This meeting covers the second segment of what might become the East/West Multi-Use Trail system, taking users from the Santa Ana River Trail across Costa Mesa past Orange Coast College on eastward to the Back Bay on the far East side.  Holloway told us that OCC is the geographical center of this trail layout, so the segment studied today went from that point eastward.  The western segment was discussed last month in the first of these workshops, which I covered for you HERE.

NOT JUST FOR BIKES...
Holloway reminded us that this trail system is not just for those on bikes, but would be used for any non-motorized form of transportation - walkers, runners and including folks in wheelchairs.

THE ROUTE
As you can see from this image, this half of the trail includes segments on Fairview Road, the Paularino Channel, Bristol Street, the Santa Ana Delhi Channel, Mesa Drive and a possible alternate to that segment along Santa Ana Avenue and University Drive.

LOTS OF BIKE COMMUTERS, NO FUNDING YET
We were reminded that Costa Mesa has the highest percentage of bicycle commuters in Orange County, and that this process is simply to gather input from the community regarding their ideas for further enhancement of the bikeability/walkability of our city.  The City has no funding to do the design and construction of any new trails at this time.

WHAT ABOUT THE NEW COMMITTEE?
A member of the audience asked how this process, using consultants to take the pulse of the community, will differ from the scope of work to be handed to the about-to-be-formed Bikeability Committee - 15 members of the community that will probably be selected at the council meeting on April 7th.  Sethuraman indicated that the committee's work would be broader in scope, covering the entire city.

WHAT ABOUT BIKE RACKS?
There was a brief discussion about the dearth of bike racks throughout the city.  It seems curious to create a system and processes that encourage greater bike use when there are so few bike racks in town.  (I was amused to find three bikes chained to poles and a tree outside the EOC when I left.)  We were told that more bike racks would be placed around town, and that new retail and commercial projects would be required to provide them.

TOOLS FOR INPUT
Following that hour long presentation/discussion the audience broke into groups to study city maps and make notes on them regarding concerns, desires and preferences.  There were also some charts on the walls to which participants could affix colored stickers in response to questions posed, plus a place for inclusion of other unanticipated issues.

ONCE AGAIN, NO FITZPATRICK
Although the turnout was smaller this time, it still seemed like a worthwhile exercise.  Once again, former Planning Commissioner Jim Fitzpatrick - the guy who fancies himself as "Mr. Bikeability" - failed to show at this meeting, just as he was absent from the first on.  I thought it was curious, but he's probably too busy making money shilling for medical marijuana interests to attend these meetings.

PRESENTATIONS WILL BE ONLINE SHORTLY
The data collected from these two workshops will be compiled by the consultants.  Both presentations will be available on the City website soon, for those of you interested in this process.