Michigan Transportation Paula Reeves and Barbara Culp Making a Difference

Thursday, September 7, 2006
8:00 AM - 9:30 AMPeriod Four:

Trail Project Keys to Success (Meeting room E)Workshop 22 - Bob Otwell, (TART Trails, Inc.) will describe an 8-year dream in Traverse City, Michigan: stitching together a lost railroad right-of-way to connect a city trail and a country trail that ended a half-mile away. Barriers included 13 private property owners, wetlands, and significant safety issues. Follow the collaborative effort that ended in trail success. Then Peter Lagerway, (Seattle, WA, Dept. of Transportation), Paula Reeves, Michigan Transportation Committee, will describe a success story you can copy: Seattle’s Chief Sealth Trail. This ten million dollar multi-purpose trail is being constructed through a unique public/private partnership with a local contractor. Using clean, recycled materials from the construction of a new light rail system, the contractor is paying for most of the trail construction costs. This workshop will provide sample agreements (handouts) along with a step by step guide for how to do this in your community.

Long Distance Bike Routes - Then and Now (Meeting Room F)Workshop 23 - Jim Sayer, (Adventure Cycling Association), will discuss the collaborative process under way to create national, signed networks of interconnected bicycle routes; partners in this effort include The American Assoc. of State Highway & Trans. Officials (AASHTO) Adventure Cycling, and other leaders. John Piazza, (East Coast Greenway Alliance), will discuss the construction of an off-road trail from Maine to Florida. With 30% completed, the Alliance is launching a campaign to "Close the Gaps." Jean-Francois Pronovost, (Velo Quebec), will explain how the Route Verte, a city to city bicycle route, has, since 1995, been extending all across the province of Quebec. More than 80% of the itinerary is now completed and its international official opening is planned for the summer of 2007.

Crash Analysis - Uses and Approaches (Meeting Room G)Workshop 24 - Ruth Steiner, (Univ. of Florida), David Henderson (Miami-Dade County, FL), and Paula Reeves (Ann Arbor, Michigan Transportation) will discuss the collaborative efforts to map and analyze the locations of bicycle and pedestrian crashes in Florida counties with the most bicycle and pedestrian crashes. Tom Huber and Michael Amsden, (Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation) will discuss a statewide crash analysis undertaken to type all 2003 bicycle/motor vehicle crashes, then to identify relationships between reported bicycle/motor vehicle crashes and roadway characteristics. Libby Thomas, (Univ. of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center), will describe recent improvements to the Pedestrian and Bicycle Crash Analysis Tool (PBCAT) software; in addition, she will describe present examples of applications of the previous version.

Tools for Local Pedestrian and Bicycle Planning (Meeting Room J)Workshop 25 - Susan Sauve, (City of Peterborough, ONT), will describe how a team of City staff are creating a Sidewalk Strategic Plan by applying weighted criteria to an in-house GIS mapping system. She will discuss how little time is required if municipalities have GIS mapping systems in place. Bruce Landis, (Sprinkle Consulting, Inc.), will present a new bicycle level of service model that accurately measures bicycle accommodation along urban arterials, based on an innovative "Ride for Science" event. Jason Patton, (City of Oakland, CA), will describe three analytic tools for examining the feasibility of proposed bikeways. The tools are simple enough to apply over large areas while robust enough to guide the planning and implementation of new facilities.
Complete Streets - Who's Doing It and What They're Doing (Lecture Hall)Workshop 26 - Roger Henderson, (Kimley-Horn and Associates), will discuss the benefits of interconnecting urban street networks (e.g., shorter pedestrian paths, direct bicycle routes, efficient private vehicle travel, etc.). Barbara McCann, (McCann Consulting), will describe how "Complete Streets" campaigns can help make connections with constituencies far beyond bicycling and walking interests. She will discuss how the National Complete Streets Coalition can help build strong coalitions. Tracy Newsome, (Charlotte, NC, Dept. of Transportation) will present Charlotte's Urban Street Design Guidelines' Six-Step planning and design process and show its application to a sample case study street segment. Barbara Culp, (Bicycle Alliance of Washington), and Paula Reeves (Michigan Transportation) will describe how two dozen bicycle activists collaborated with a city councilman to create the framework for a bicycle master plan -- complete with a complete streets policy.
Neighborhood Advocates Speak Out (Meeting Room I)Workshop 27 - The Active Living Resource Center, a project of National Center for Bicycling & Walking (supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) has invited eight neighborhood delegates to this year's Pro Walk/Pro Bike Conference. These delegates, chosen from applicants around the country, are representatives of hundreds of local organizations trying to make changes in their neighborhoods and communities. In this session, each of the ALRC delegates will have a chance to briefly describe their local projects. Then they'll discuss how their needs (requests for help, tech assistance, etc.) have been met by local professionals the municipal engineer, planner, public health official and by transportation, planning, health advocates. Who has been there for them? What can we (those of us who are in the know) do better for them? What tools and resources do they need, and what can we provide? NCBW's Bob Chauncey will moderate the panel."