August 9th, 2010 CRBC Meeting Minutes | 7-8:30PM @ SC Municipal Building
This meeting was a lot less formal and had some great discussion surrounding:
- A bicycle cooperative
- Special events
- Bike share
- Winter rack maintenance & PSU’s registration policies
- Safe Routes to School and traffic lights
- Cooperating with PSU’s Office of Sustainability
- Topics for the October meeting
1. Bike Cooperative- Wouldn’t it be great if we could collect orphan bikes, and give them a new home, a place where people will care for them. CRBC members discussed what we would need to do to get a bike coop going here in the Center Region. Why couldn’t we have a place where the community could fix bikes, teach people about bike maintenance, refurbish bikes? Would it be possible for CRBC to take bikes people no longer wanted, donated bikes, and then give folks a tax write-off? There was also talk of refurbishing bikes to help those in places where they really need bikes, perhaps in another country?
2. Special Events-Special events committee is working out bike to work month, with some possible changes that include eliminating bike to work week in exchange for a more robust bike to work month that would include activities at local venues like the YMCA, as well as events hosted by local bike shops. In their efforts to encourage biking at all levels, Special events committee members found out that State College Area School District High School has a physical education program to educate about safe biking, as well as bikes.
3. Bike Share-CRBC fully supports the idea of Bike Share, the group talked about other towns and cities that have successfully implemented bike share stations in their town, and how something like this would have significant benefits for university folks, town folk, and visitors.
4. Winter Rack Maintenance- Recently the server at PSU that holds all the bike registration information got shut down by the ITS folks because it was vulnerable? Whatever that means? This highlighted a problem that OPP faces with bikes that are registered, but don’t move…at all. Meaning, if a bike is registered it can not be removed from the bike rack. But, if you bike is not registered they can “tow” it. This sparked discussion surrounding a bike rack rule that would limit time you can leave your bike on a rack to 72 hours, with exceptions of course like East Halls and other places where bikes “live”. This would help OPP to get rid of abandon bikes before they get tires kicked, and hamper snow removal effort.
It was also noted during this discussion that the bike rules they give newly registered bike owners were out of date, and need revised.
5. Safe Routes to School (SRTS)- One CRBC member brought up a discussion they had wth a mother who’s child wanted to ride to Park Forest Elementary who lived over in the neighborhood behind the College 9 Movie Theate. Yes, the child wanted to bike to school. The mother has had discussions with SCASD transportation, as well as the police, with little head way. The SCASD has a policy of not busing children that live within 1 mile of a school, putting the onus on the parent and child to arrive safely on time for class. The discussion moved to light sensors. Wire sensors are not “tuned” to feel for bikes, but could be with a little bit of effort. Photo sensors work better for bicycles, but don’t work in blizzard, and are possibly more costly.
6. PSU’ office of sustainability manned the bike info table on bike to work week, and would like to repeat that event this fall when students return. CRBC fully supports this effort. As part of the discussion the group voted to spend $200 on creating new handouts that support the website, CRBC, and biking in the Center Region.These brochures would be used by PSU’s Office of Sustainability (OS) in the fall at an event similar to the bike to work event where a table was staffed by PSU OS Staff where they educated folks about biking to and from campus.
7. The meeting concluded with some ideas for the October meeting….which was decided will be great.
