Meeting Minutes from 2/7/2011 Meeting at the SC Municipal Building

Agenda Item #1 | Presentation | Ballengers Battle the Beast 

CRBC member Jess Ballenger and his family have turned their love of cycling into a game. As a family they are making an effort to ride more than drive. Recorded car miles included vacation travel and trips to the market. The Ballengers only have one car and have been cycling for many years. 2011’s stats so far are 219 Bike, 769 beast including holidays. 219 miles through some of the coldest weather we have had in long time.  People at the meeting asked a lot of really great questions.

Agenda Item # 2 | Working with the SCASD

Tom Gasda phys ed teacher at State college Area High School talked about the SC High School’s efforts to include cycling safety into the curriculum. Members of the CRBC is working with the State College Area School District to help promote safe cycling. Physical education classes have been going on group rides, with the blessing of excursion permits signed by parents. There are a number of teacher that are excited about a bicycle education. The school is participating in bike to school day, as of this writing exact details have not been worked out, although there was some speculation about bike rack capacity.

Agenda Item #3 | Bike to Work Month

Bike to work month will be held in cooperation with anyone and everyone able to ride their bike to work.  Some of the events currently being proposed: bike rodeo, treasure hunt, vineyard ride, yoga/bike.  There will be a flyer that will be circulated with details. It was determined that Bike to work month includes all students riding to class. Places we hope to get advertising, CATA, Print Shops. There was even talk that we could use C-NET time to show some bike to work month stuff.. The group discussed making Critical Mass part of the event -> it is suppose to be a spontaneous event. It happens on the LAST FRIDAY OF EVERY MONTH AT THE MAIN GATES.

Side Notes:

The group discussed having 8 business meetings and 4 fun meetings a year. This was generally thought to be a good idea.  Business meetings would include the attendance of all officers, executive committee members, and those interested in agenda items to get involved. Fun meetings may include food, music, bike riding, children’s laughter, slide shows, bike stories, demonstrations, demo rides, and or any number of other exciting event/topics.

Treasurer LB said most people have paid their dues, and those that haven’t should.

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:

1. A bicycle cooperative
2. Special events
3. Bike share
4. Winter rack maintenance & PSU’s registration policies
5. Safe Routes to School and traffic lights
6. Cooperating with PSU’s Office of Sustainability
7. 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.

Meeting Minutes from June 14th, 2010, 7PM, Room 202

Opening Comments

June 24th there will be a meeting at Ferguson Township buidling on Whitehall Road

Reports from the three Committees: Special Events, Bicyce Friendly Community, and Planning

Special Events

• Special Events is working with SCASD, PTO’s, YMCA, CRPR, and other local organization to get the drop on Bike to Work Week/Month(?) 2011.
• There is a thought that CRBC should transform Bike to Work Week should be changed to Bike to Work Month
• CRBC will seek sponsors for bike to work month/week.
• Future event should feature special events taking place at bike shops and other bike related businesses.

Bicycle Friendly Communities

• Pittsburgh is now a Bronze BFC
• Pittsburgh has a dedicated bike/ped coordinator
• Coordination between all municipalities is critical in helping State College to become a BFC.
• Web site improvements would help to create more energy surrounding bicycling and pedestrian activity in the region.
• The CRBC group expressed interest in beginning to work with Center Region Planning on the application process

Planning

• Recapped meeting minutes from May 8th, 2010 meeting that took place at the Corner Room.
• Recapped a phone conversation with the Chris Metka, PA’s Safe Routes to School Coordination.