Safe Streets for All People
For those of you that missed the Safe Streets for All People presentation, you can watch the recording now! We learned a lot from our Dutch Transportation guests and highly recommend this type of workshop again in the future. Some of our key takeaways include the importance of prioritization of street type. Some streets need to focus on vehicle traffic flow and some need to focus on continuous bike routes or “keep on going” routes. The design of the street needs to tell a story about what it’s prioritization is. Design features need to match the intended use of the street. Another key takeaway was that protected bike infrastructure makes our cities safer for everyone, not just cyclists. It is possible to design streets that allows kids to get to school safely, vehicle traffic to flow smoothly, and people to cross at intersections. It is possible to design streets that are safe for all people! This is also backed up by studies in the United States. Watch the video to learn more!
City Happenings
Bike Infrastructure Feedback Form
We have launched a new page on our website to gather feedback on your opinions of the bike infrastructure we have in use in Bend right now. We’ve gotten some great feedback already and are in the midst of following up on a missing “no right turn on red” sign at OB Riley and 3rd Street. Please keep the feedback coming!
What type of bike infrastructure do you prefer? Fill out the feedback forms today!
Regional Happenings
[Photo credit: ODOT] Highway 20 in Bend.
Highway 20 Improvement Project Open House
ODOT has launched an online open house to get comments on some studies they are doing on improvements to Highway 20 from 3rd street to the edge of town in the east. They are evaluating widening the road to increase capacity, widening intersections by adding slip lanes to allow for higher speed turns from vehicles, and adding green paint to some of these intersections as bike improvements.
In our opinion, this will make the street much less safe for everyone but most of all for our most vulnerable street users:Â people who walk, bike, and roll. Please add comments to the online open house to express that safety improvements need to make sure that our most vulnerable road users are protected!
Find out more information and submit comments here.
Bikey Book Club
Next Meeting: September 25, 6:30pm
The Bikey Book Club met this month to talk about Street Fight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution by Janette Sadik-Khan. She was the Transportation Commissioner for New York City during the Bloomberg administration and began New York City’s process of building bike lanes and converting public spaces, such as Times Square, to places people can walk and meet without the stress of cars. We talked about the differences between New York City and Bend—immense, but with similarities in how people think about transportation choices.
Over the next two months, we’ll be considering how public involvement around transportation projects can be improved. Our book will be Inclusive Transportation: A manifesto for repairing divided communities by Veronica O. Davis. On September 25th, we’ll watch a video with the author and in October we’ll discuss the book.
Please join us—there is no need to pre-register. You can contact [email protected] or [email protected] for more information.
Upcoming schedule: Downtown Bend Library, Meyers Room
September 25, 6:30-7:45 Inclusive Transportation: A manifesto for repairing divided communities by Veronica O. Davis