The first “pre kick off” meeting of the Advisory Committee met on Friday. RCA members Andrew Dollard, Bill Collins, Richard DeSarra also representing Rochester Bicycle Club and myself (representing U. of R.) as well as others, were there as well as city representatives Chuck Thomas, Steve Beauvaias, Pete Siegrest and Erik Frisch. Scott Leathersich represented Monroe County and a proxy GTC rep was there.
This meeting was to prepare for the outside national bicycle planning/consultanting group Sprinkle from Tampa, Fl. who will be coming the week of May 24-28th to do their preliminary assessment. This visit will overlap with bike week and we are planning to see if we can get Mayor Duffy and Sprinkle to participate in some of our Bike Week activities. The details of this need to be worked out but it looks encouraging that this will fall into place. Local firms ERD a landscape design and engineering company as well SRF, which offers expertise in transportation planning, pedestrian and bicycle safety, traffic calming ect. will be assisting Sprinkle. They want to do this plan expeditiously in 8 months since all parties are eager to move forward because of potential funding opportunities.
We discussed a variety of issues which need to be addressed by the master plan including how to meter progress, weather, representation of low income groups and the format of the upcoming meetings. Overall everyone involved seems committed to making a difference in making Rochester a more bike friendly town. More later.
Scott