September 14, 2015
Meeting held at the State College Borough Building
Present:
- Jim Serene, President
- Anna Nelson, Vice President
- Joan Potter, Secretary
- Brian Dempsey
- Lynda Crow
- Paul Rito
- Kelly Doyle
- Jean Bemis
- Mark Davison
- Jen Davison
- Nathan Geiger
The meeting was called to order by Jim Serene at 5:30 pm.
Environmental AmeriCorps Member
Introduced Kelly Doyle, the new AmeriCorps member at the State College Borough. Kelly is from Butler, PA, and is happy to be here in this bike-friendly community. She’s looking forward to working with CentreBike.
Bicycle Friendly Business Support
CentreBike continues to encourage local businesses to apply for BFB designation from the League of American Bicyclists, and has offered five $100 gift certificates to purchase tools or something needed to improve BFB status. The Appalachian Outdoor House would like to use the $100 offer towards the purchase of a bike rack. This will be a positive impact for the BFB application they’ll be submitting in October.
Centre Inspires Grant Proposal
Anna will be giving the final CentreBike presentation to Centre Inspires next week for a series of Open Streets events. Mt Nittany Medical Center has agreed to be a major partner along with the YMCA. Jamie Bestwick will be on the Steering Committee. CentreBike’s proposal is one of 2 finalists for the $100k Centre Foundation grant, and the winner will be announced Oct. 24th.
Fall Bike to Work Event
This event will be held on Friday, Sep 18th. An information table will be set up at the Allen Street gates.
LION Bash
Paul Rito arranged for a CentreBike table at the PSU/Borough event LION Bash (Living In One Neighborhood) on Aug 27th to share bike safety information. FreezeThaw Cycles provided coupons for 20% off bike lights to distribute. It was a worthwhile event and should be scheduled again next year, too.
Warner Road Plan
The input received from CentreBike was considered and the Warner Road PennDOT plan was revised to include a 7’ wide shared use path.
Harris Township Bike Path
Harris Township has finally agreed to do winter maintenance on the bike path, which will now provide a clear pathway from Boalsburg all the way to campus.
National Bike Challenge Celebration
The CentreBike (Centre Region) team is currently 16th in the nation! Party planning is underway to celebrate the end of the challenge this month, as well as celebrate all the great work by CentreBike this year. Tentatively, Sunday, Sep 27th is scheduled for a Happy Hour from 4:00-7:00 at the Autoport Restaurant on S. Atherton Street. A $300 budget for appetizers was approved (motion made by Paul Rito and second by Brian Demsey). Attendees will pay for their own beverages.
2016 Officer Nominations
Nominations for new officers for 2016 will be accepted at the next meeting on Monday, Oct. 12th, and voting will take place at the Nov. 9th meeting.
Suggested Project
Nathan Geiger suggested a good project for CentreBike would be providing route signs at various locations that note how long it would take from that point to bike to campus, downtown or other locations. It was mentioned that Melissa Bopp might be interested in pursuing this with ActiveLions.
PennDOT Bike/Ped Coordinator
Roy Gothie is the newly appointed Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator for PennDOT. He will be meeting with CentreBike representatives in October. An agenda is being developed to cover topics of highest priority, which includes education/promotion of the 4-ft rule, adopting “Bikes may use full lane” signage, and giving districts the ability to increase shoulder additions on road projects from 2’ without authorization from Harrisburg to 4’.
There being no further business to come before the meeting, it adjourned at 6:40 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Joan Potter, Secretary
