Please join us Monday, June 3, 5pm at

La Colonia Community Center
715 Valley Ave
Solana Beach, CA 92075

Agenda:

• Updates from the City
• Coast Hwy News
• Highland Drive / Solana Drive / Marine View speed survey
• CATS grant consultant selection
• Application for Bicycle Friendly City Designation
• Request to City Council to designate Bicycle Pedestrian Coordinator
• Envisioning Stevens Avenue
• The next big thing
• Wide sidewalks and bike lanes
• Solana Beach Elementary Schools Bike and Walk Day 11 June

Notes and Action Items from the Meeting:

Attendance: BikeWalkSolana Members: Douglas Alden, Kristine Schindler, Cheryl Alden, Karl Rudnick, Matthew Meunier, Don MacLeod, SB City: Dan Goldberg, Engineering, BikeWalkOceanside: Howard LaGrange, Carol Carr, BikeWalkEncinitas: Elena Thompson, Citizens: Kathy Keehan (SDCBC Board member), Ryan Wiggins (transformca.org)

Pedestrian incident during Fiesta del Sol

Kristine Schindler talked about the pedestrian that was hit on Coast Hwy in Solana Beach this past weekend. Driver fled the scene. The pedestrian had to get some stitches and is OK.  Pedestrian was crossing at future crosswalk at intersection that had not been striped or lights enabled yet. Both pedestrian and car were at fault and hopefully the current 101 improvements will cut down the possibility of a recurrence like this.

Updates from the City

Status from Dan Goldberg:

1. Sharrows outreach. 25 sharrows flyers to businesses. 75 newsletters with sharrows info on reverse side at train station kiosk and City Hall
2. Grand Opening of Hwy 101 Project completion – Sunday, Sept. 22, which coincides with both Arts Alive and Taste of Solana Beach. A discussion of a Solana Beach Joy Ride, in emulation of the Encinitas Joy Ride, to celebrate the new bikability features of Hwy 101 ensued. Elena Thompson, who headed up this event for Encinitas was there to offer valuable advice. Planning is required: find a good start and end location to build community spirit; get city delegates to speak; promote on BikeWalkSolana.org and Facebook, city eblast, etc.; get local bike shop participation (SB has 5) – free raffle tickets for stopping in stores during Joy Ride, about 50 (!) items were raffled [maybe not so many for us, but why not?]; have food and party at stop location; city put sherriffs on alert. Will need a funding source for this event. It was felt that the Joy Ride might be more effective on a day other than Sep 22. The fact that significant planning is required was impressed upon us to not hold this too prematurely.
3. Two CATS grant proposal for the $136K SANDAG award are currently under review, and consultant selection will be taken up by the City Council on 10 July.
4. Highland Drive. The city has responsibility to remove vegetation which blocks signs, but all other vegetation which is hindering pedestrians or cyclists are the responsibility of individual owners. Douglas Alden has been working with the group of citizens who are concerned about this and offering BikeWalkSolana advice for coming up with the best possible solutions to problems.
5. Residents on Acacia and Pacific, just west of 101, are complaining about speeding vehicles, some of which might be detour traffic because of 101 construction.

Bike Friendly Application

Douglas Alden wants to officially propose to the City to nominate a Bike/Ped Coordinator – most popular candidate would be Dan Goldberg. It would be good to then go for a LAB Bicycle Friendly Community application, one of BikeWalkSolana’s primary initial objectives. Howard LaGrange suggested that BWS fill out as much of the form as we can, with the City taking care of the rest. Kathy Keehan emphasized that the process is a game changer, even if we do not get the designation first go-around, which was also the case with Oceanside. It was also emphasized that we shouldn’t overly worry about infrastructure details, such as bike parking, getting in the way of our getting started. Much of the application focuses on areas outside infrastructure, such as education and encouragement.

June 11, final Bike/Walk to School Day

Douglas received a request for a repeat of May 15 Bike to School Day. June 11 is a special $4 day at the fair and this would alleviate traffic at the schools. Plan is to basically do a repeat, with volunteers at Skyline and Solana Vista to greet the kids and hand out stickers and high-fives.

Stevens Avenue Project

Douglas presented thoughts on really prioritizing Stevens Ave improvements with the City. This is an overlooked area which probably has more pedestrian traffic to schools and local businesses than any other area in Solana Beach. We need a bigger vision for Stevens Avenue than just finishing sidewalks and putting in bike lanes. The City should pursue something similar to 101 improvements particularly with wide sidewalks.  For comparison it was noted that the 5′ wide sidewalks on the bridge over the railroad tracks by 101 were insufficient for the foot traffic from Fiesta Del Sol, and therefore, people forced to walk in the street.  In the Stevens area many public events are held at La Colonia Park and there is a vibrant restaurant area.  Wide sidewalks and landscaping are the key for increasing local traffic and connecting the region to the rest of the community to the north to encourage people to walk. Dan Golberg mentioned that the City had bonded their Transnet funds for the next 30 years with the majority going to the 101 improvements.  There are still unspent small amounts available each year.  Ryan Wiggins mentioned leveraging state funds for such a project and getting legislators involved.  Cheryl Alden suggested everyone take the opportunity to go to the coffees that legislators hold in the community.  She said she went to one hosted by Tony Atkins.  Tony is a big proponent of what BWS is doing and is interested in learning more. Ryan Wiggins said that it is pretty easy to set up a one on one meeting with a legislator. It was noted that SB has bonded the Transnet contribution (only about $375K/yr for our small city) for 30 years. Also noted was that 2% of SANDAG’s budget goes to bike/ped improvements, but the next SANDAG grant request will not occur until 2014. Howard LaGrange, as head of the Bike / Walk sub-group under SDCBC, mentioned that a goal of that organization is to publicize funding sources so that we can take advantage of available funding for the Stevens project and more.

Fiesta del Sol Bike Parking Post Mortem

It was agreed that we need a much better location that is forefront to the event to encourage people to take advantage of this service. Arguments to the Chamber of Commerce, City, and others next year should emphasize the need to organize the bike parking, as many bike riders went straight to the event and locked their bikes to anything close by. Although this made the bike valet parking arguably unnecessary, it created clutter for other FDS participants and really exposed those bikes to potential vandalism and/or theft. It was thought that a place just north of the Plaza, near the food trucks, might be more suitable for next year. Better publicity for the bike parking prior to the event would also increase the number of bikes (and decrease the number of cars).

Karl Rudnick noted that Douglas Alden has created some nice, sturdy bike racks, suitable for overflow bike parking at City events at his own considerable time and expense. Dan Goldberg was asked to contact Public Works to see if the City would store this resource in the Public Works storage lot. Douglas currently keeps these at work in his Scripps lab, where they not only take up space, but are difficult to transport to Solana Beach events. The City gets something for free in return for the storage space.

Laurel Graziano Cargo Bike Pullover
Kathy Keehan was interested in a recent incident involving BikeWalkSolana member Laurel Graziano, who daily transports her 2 kids on the back of a cargo bike equipped to carry children safely. Details of the incident can be found here. Laurel was pulled over by the sheriff with lights and sirens for transporting her children to school on the back of her cargo bike. The sheriff felt it was unsafe but could not cite statute that made it illegal.  Laurel was educated on the law and informed him that the bike was designed for it and allowable to be used for transport in that fashion under the law.  Kathy felt there needs to be more dialogue with the sheriff. Karl Rudnick noted a recent meeting, including Jim Baross and Douglas Alden, with Evan Bollinger, County Supervisor Dave Robert’s community liaison, where improved law enforcement education was discussed. Kathy suggested that this incident might help jump start those improvements.  Douglas mentioned that as bicycling grows it will become require the same attitude and education for motorists in general. His sons were recently honked at while in a left turn lane on bikes waiting for a red light.  They were told to use the crosswalk.This emphasized the need for changes in attitude and education, including law enforcement, based on the fact that we expect and want more active transportation like this to our local schools. Kristine Schindler mentioned this might be brought before the Public Safety Commission for them to issue support for Laurel’s mode of transporting her children.

Other Bike Walk Committee Schedules

Bike Walk Encinitas meets the last Tue of the month at 5:30 Dudek, with a Two Wheel Thursday ride meeting at City Hall at 7pm on the last Thurs of each month [the June TWT ride will culminate at the Thompson’s house – check out BikeWalkEncinitas on Facebook later in the month].

Bike Walk Oceanside meets on the third Monday of each month at 9:30 in the Oceanside Library.

Bike Walk Solana will post these meetings on bikewalksolana.org.