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Racism is a Public Health Crisis

The brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are the latest incidents of unending violence perpetuated against black people and other communities of color in this country. Racism is embedded in the very fabric of the Greater Rochester region – our justice system, our schools, our housing policies, and certainly our transportation system. This must change.

We also acknowledge that our organization contributes to this system in certain ways. Reconnect Rochester was founded more than 10 years ago to champion transportation choices that enable a more vibrant and equitable community, and yet our membership, board, staff, and leadership are not representative of the Rochester community.

As an organization, we are reflecting on how we can hold ourselves accountable for living up to our professed values of equity and inclusion, and how we can center anti-racism in our work. Over the next several weeks and months, we will develop and share a clear set of actions aimed at holding ourselves accountable to advancing equity and inclusivity in all of our efforts. As a first step, we have signed the Greater Rochester Black Agenda Group’s declaration that “Racism is a Public Health Crisis.”

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Rochester Cycling Alliance Joins Reconnect Rochester

We have exciting news! (It may be the worst kept transportation-related secret in Rochester, because most of you already know.) 

Reconnect Rochester and Rochester Cycling Alliance, two groups that work to promote transportation alternatives in Monroe County, are combining their operations. We will be working together as our own little dream team; wonder twins; transportation alternative superheroes. Together, we will continue striving to create a transportation network that allows all people — regardless of age, ability, income and mode of transportation — to get around safely in the Rochester region.

Reconnect Rochester was founded in 2009 by a group of ordinary citizens who saw a need to create a more multi-modal and robust transportation network that prioritizes people, regardless of their mode of transportation. Over the last decade, our organization has rallied and engaged the community and local leadership to create more robust public transportation, more complete streets, and better, safer transportation alternatives for all. 

The Rochester Cycling Alliance (RCA) began in the summer of 2008 with the goal of uniting local bicycling advocates, enthusiasts and organizations to provide a public voice for all cyclists. RCA has promoted the use of bicycles as transportation, sport, recreation and health. It advocates for improved cycling infrastructure, education, programs and legislation. It strives to help implement active transportation plans, training and outreach programs to help encourage more people to ride, and local governments to provide more complete streets to allow them to safely do so. 

This shared vision of a more multi-modal region was at the heart of the decision for the two organizations to join together. Reconnect Rochester, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, is expanding our mission and purpose. Our newly blended team welcomed Jesse Peers as Cycling Coordinator this summer. He joined our Director of Planning & Development, Mary Staropoli, as our second official employee. Bill Collins, Brendan Ryan and Susan Levin joined Reconnect Rochester’s board of directors as representatives of the RCA, whose membership will continue their bike advocacy efforts as a work group of the larger organization. Reconnect Rochester’s other active work groups will continue to concentrate on furthering bus system innovation, rail transit, and pedestrian safety.

“People tend to attach themselves to their vehicle of choice, but it’s not about bike people versus bus people versus car people,” says Mike Governale, founder of Reconnect Rochester. “Our hope is that by bringing the groups together, we can begin to break down ‘mode silos’ and encourage the community to view transportation options as an interconnected system. Transportation planning is about moving people, not vehicles.”

Dr. Scott MacRae, Immediate Past President of RCA said, “Under the leadership of the late RCA co-founder and past president Richard DeSarra, the RCA has been instrumental in helping create bicycle/pedestrian master plans in the City of Rochester and the multiple surrounding municipalities, introducing bike share to our community, and expanding bike lanes and infrastructure to keep moving us toward the goal of being a top tier bike friendly community.  It was Richard DeSarra and others who envisioned combining forces of the two organizations synergistically.”

Jesse Peers, Reconnect Rochester Cycling Coordinator: “We’re better together. The youthful energy and creativity within Reconnect’s organization, and the decades of experience in advocacy work that RCA members bring to the fore, is the perfect combination.”

As our organization evolves and learns new things, so too does our leadership team. After almost a decade at the helm as president, our incomparable founder Mike Governale stepped into a new role on our Board of Advisors. In January 2019, Renée Stetzer and Pete Nabozny moved into new roles as president and vice-president, respectively. And the tireless work of our board members picked up steam with the addition of Michael Damico as the new Pedestrian Work Group Chair. He joined longtime board members Brenda Massie, Jason Partyka, DeWain Feller, Dan Speciale, John Lam and Daniel Cordova.

It takes a village to bring about change in our transportation network. Our collaboration will give our collective multi-modal efforts a huge boost, as we share resources, infrastructure, ideas and energy.

Join us to help celebrate our growing organization on Thursday, December 12 from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. at Fifth Frame Brewery Co. (155 St. Paul St.). No RSVP necessary. Complimentary appetizers & cake. Cash bar.



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Parsells Ave. & Greeley St. Will Get a Complete Streets Makeover

Rochester Complete Streets MakeoverCongratulations to the Beechwood NeighborhoodParsells Ave. & Greeley St. is the winner of our Complete Streets Makeover!

In May, we asked you to help identify the intersections and trouble-spots where you live, work and play that could be redesigned to make them safer for everyone.

We received over 90 nominations for roughly 39 City and 11 suburban locations. After a careful process to examine each and every submission, we selected the following locations:

  • Parsells Ave & Greeley St. – WINNER
  • Lake Ave. & Phelps St. / block encompassing Lakeview Tower – FINALIST
  • Monroe Ave., Canterbury Rd. & Dartmouth St. – FINALIST

We and our team of partners had a challenging task to choose from so many quality submissions and deserving locations! A set of established judging criteria helped guide us through the selection process. In the end, we decided that Parsells & Greeley presented the right mix of community support, unsatisfactory current design and feasibility for making a real change for the better through our project.

What Happens Now?

Our winner, Parsells & Greeley, gets a Complete Streets Makeover! The makeover kicked off last week with a community input session to hear from the residents of the Beechwood neighborhood. No one understands what it’s like to use our streets better than those who walk, bike, roll and ride along them everyday.

Based on feedback from this session, the complete streets design team at Stantec will draft conceptual design improvements of an improved streetscape that will be brought to life through an on-street experiment. That’s right. With the help of Healthi Kids and the City of Rochester, we are going to be testing the design improvements through some good old-fashioned tactical urbanism. Our goal is to demonstrate a successful project and move towards making the change permanent.

 

Our finalists won’t walk away empty-handed. The design team at Stantec will provide each of them with conceptual drawings of possible street design improvements. The neighborhoods can use these illustrations as a tool to help advocate for changes that would make these streets safer for everyone.

Monroe Ave., Canterbury Rd. & Dartmouth St.

Lake Ave. & Phelps St. / block encompassing Lakeview Tower

But, wait. There’s more…

Our filmmaker, Floating Home Films, is capturing all the action and will produce a short documentary film about the project to be featured at our Street Films event on Wednesday, November 14 at The Little Theatre.  Save-the-date and stay tuned for more project updates!

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Tell City Council You Support Lower Speed Limits

Every year in Rochester, hundreds of people are struck by vehicles while out walking and biking on our community streets. The top two factors in traffic fatalities in this country are alcohol and speed. And the percentage of crash deaths that involve speeding is higher on minor roads (like our neighborhood streets) than on highways and interstates.

How fast we drive on our community streets impacts that safety and quality of life for those who live, work, play and shop along those streets. Around the country, cities such as Cambridge, MA, New York City, and Seattle, are lowering their speed limits to make residential streets safer. Many are hoping Rochester will soon follow suit.

Join the effort led by HealthiKids to reduce the City speed limit from 30 to 25 mph on residential streets.

The Connection Between Transportation in Rochester, NY.

Can 5 or 10 mph really make that much of a difference?

Yes.

Here’s why:

The higher the speed, the greater the risk to a pedestrian or cyclist.

A person has more than a 90% chance of surviving if hit by a car traveling 20 mph. If that car is traveling 40 mph, there is about a 90% chance that person will die. Those risks increase if the pedestrian is a child or older adult. The human body can only handle so much.

[Courtesy of HealthiKids]

Reduced speeds are good for pedestrians AND drivers.

Lower speeds allow drivers more time to notice things and react. If something is in the road 100 feet ahead of you when driving 40 mph, you will hit it going 36 mph. If you are traveling 25 mph, you can stop well within 100 feet.

At lower speeds, crashes are likely to be avoided altogether. And if they do occur, they will be far less severe.

Reduced speeds can benefit the entire community.

       [Read more about the benefits beyond safety]

Reduced speed limits on our residential streets alone aren’t the silver bullet, but are an important tool in the overall solution to safer streets. Done in concert with education, enforcement and design, the culture of how we use and share our streets can begin to change.

Let City Council know you want Rochester to be the next city to make streets safer by lowering the speed limit on residential streets!

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City of Rochester’s Pace Car Program Asks Drivers to Be Part of the Solution

Rochester's Mayor Lovely Warren held a press conference today to announce the expansion of the Pace Car program citywide.
Posted by: Renee Stetzer, Vice President & Pedestrian Safety Committee Chair at Reconnect Rochester

We were proud to be part of today’s launch of the City of Rochester’s Pace Car program! We joined Mayor Lovely Warren and other community leaders to introduce the new citywide initiative that asks drivers to be part of the solution to make our community streets safer for all who use them. Pace Car drivers sign a pledge to drive within the speed limit, drive courteously, yield to pedestrians and be mindful of bicyclists and others on the street. Drivers display the yellow Pace Car sticker on their vehicles to show others that they are taking accountability for how they drive on our community streets.

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Construction Begins on Rochester’s First LEGO Bus Stop

A new LEGO bus shelter is being constructed at the corner of Monroe Avenue and French Road in Pittsford. [IMAGE: Reconnect Rochester]
What could take the doldrums out of waiting for your bus? How about waiting from within a giant LEGO® bus shelter? Oh yeah. If you’re traveling from French Road on the #47 bus this spring, you’ll be able to do just that…

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Introducing “Streets for the People”

Streets for the People
Posted by: board member Renee Stetzer, pedestrian safety advocate and blogger at RocVille.com

Regular, everyday citizens rallying together can set in motion great change in our communities. After all, the people who are most in touch with what is needed in our neighborhoods are those who live, walk, ride, play, drive, shop and work in them every day.

Reconnect Rochester is happy to announce a new initiative that is a direct result of everyday citizen action: Streets for the People

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Mayors’ Challenge for Safer People, Safer Streets

Crosswalk [PHOTO: Renee Stetzer]
Posted by: board member Renee Stetzer, pedestrian safety advocate and blogger at RocVille.com

In January, DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx unveiled the Safer People, Safer Streets Initiative external link. The goal is to address “non-motorized safety issues and help communities create safer, better connected bicycling and walking networks.” He called it the most comprehensive and forward-thinking initiative the DOT has ever put together on bike and pedestrian issues. It aims to engage transportation specialists, safety experts, leadership and the public to make streets safer for a variety of transportation options. And it recognizes the vital role biking and walking play in a reliable multimodal transportation network…

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Congress Introduces Safe Streets Act of 2015

Pedestrian Sign Park Ave [PHOTO: Renee Stetzer]
Posted by: board member Renee Stetzer, pedestrian safety advocate and blogger at RocVille.com

Congress introduced a bill this week that will help streets across the country become safer for all people, regardless of their mode of transportation. With bipartisan support, The Safe Streets Act of 2015external link, was introduced by Representatives Doris Matsui (D-CA) and David Joyce (R-OH):

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Finding a Solution for Sidewalk Clearing in Rochester

Sidewalk off Mt. Hope [Photo: Brenda Massie]
Posted by: board member Renee Stetzer, pedestrian safety advocate and blogger at RocVille.com

It’s been a tough winter for anyone having to be outside in Rochester. Transit riders have to hike over ice encrusted snow drifts and stand in streets, because their stops are buried. Pedestrians have to wear crampons to trudge across the uneven icy places where sidewalks once were. Those who are less steady, have things to carry or have to walk with assistance, have been forced to use the plowed streets. Cyclists hold on as they brave traffic, since the bike lanes are no longer there. And drivers cautiously turn corners blocked by snowbanks higher than their cars, taking turns on residential streets with only enough room for one car at a time. But the people walking out in the elements have clearly been given the lowest priority of attention.

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2014 the Safest Year to Be a Pedestrian in NYC Since 1910

In June, the New York State legislature passed a bill to let NYC lower its default limit to 25mph. Lowering speed limits is part of Mayor Bill de Blasio's Vision Zero plan. [PHOTO: Michael Tapp, Flickr]
Posted by: Renee Stetzer, pedestrian safety advocate and blogger at RocVille.com

This month marks the one year anniversary of New York City’s ambitious Vision Zero campaign external link, a plan to eliminate traffic fatalities by the year 2024.

As part of the effort external link, traffic calming and street design measures were implemented, bike lanes were expanded, speed cameras were installed in school zones, the citywide default speed limit was reduced to 25 mph, arterial slow zones were established, public education and awareness were ramped up and the NYPD significantly stepped up enforcement and ticketing for traffic violations. It’s an effort that requires all people, regardless of how they traverse those streets to rethink how they drive, walk and ride about their daily lives. It requires a shift in the culture of getting about in NYC, which is no easy task.

So, one year later, is the campaign making a difference?

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City Council Approves Additional Red Light Camera Study

Do Red Light Cameras Make Rochester Streets Safer? [PHOTO: Yousuf Fahimuddin]
Posted by: Renee Stetzer, pedestrian safety advocate and blogger at RocVille.com

Last week, the City Council approved further study of Rochester’s red light camera program. This isn’t a brand new study, but an expansion of the study that was released in November. The results of that study indicated a reduction in the number of accidents at 22 intersections external link that have red light cameras. Two intersections had no changes in the collision rates before and after the cameras were installed. And 8 intersections had an increase in the number of collisions. Those 8 intersections are the subject of the expanded study, as well as whether the cameras could be tied into traffic signals to help reduce operation costs…

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Mike Governale Nominated for Strasenburgh Activism Award

Mike was among the 2014 nominees for the Betty Strasenburgh Award for Activism. [PHOTO: John Derycke]
Posted by: Renee Stetzer, pedestrian safety advocate and blogger at RocVille.com

The Rochester Community Design Center hosted the fourth annual Reshaping Rochester Awards luncheon this week and we had a table full of Reconnect Rochester board members there to support one of our own – Mike Governale.

Mike was among the nominees for the Betty Strasenburgh Award for Activism external link. He did not win the award, but I’ll get to that in a moment…

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Rochester Extends Red Light Camera Program

Rochester Extends Right Light Camera Program [PHOTO: Renee Stetzer]
Posted by: Renee Stetzer, pedestrian safety advocate and blogger at RocVille.com

Last night the City Council approved the extension of Rochester’s red light camera program until December 2019. The 6 to 3 vote was originally scheduled for September, but postponed when the results of the red light camera study were not yet available. The official report was released last week…

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New Citywide 25MPH Speed Limit in NYC

New Citywide 25MPH Speed Limit in NYC. [PHOTO: Vision Zero, NYC.gov]
Posted by: Renee Stetzer, pedestrian safety advocate and blogger at RocVille.com

New York City’s new lower citywide speed limit goes into effect today. In June the NY State legislature passed a bill that allowed NYC to lower its default speed limit to 25mph external link. Part of the city’s Vision Zero plan external link to eliminate traffic fatalities, the new lower default speed limit was approved by the City Council in October and signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio last week. And the new 25mph signs are going up today…

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City Council to Vote to Extend Red Light Camera Program

Last week Governor Andrew Cuomo granted permission for several cities and counties in New York, including Rochester, to begin or continue red light camera programs until 2019.  [PHOTO: FringeHog, Flickr]
Posted by: Renee Stetzer, pedestrian safety advocate and blogger at RocVille.com

The City Council will vote to extend the red light camera program on October 14th. Rochester began its program in 2010 and there are currently cameras installed at over 30 intersections. The city recently completed its second study on the impact the cameras have on traffic accidents at intersections with cameras. Although the official report is not yet available to the public, some draft findings were shared at a City Council meeting in August.  Here are a few…
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Cuomo Approves Red Light Cameras Through 2019

Last week Governor Andrew Cuomo granted permission for several cities and counties in New York, including Rochester, to begin or continue red light camera programs until 2019. [PHOTO: Renee Stetzer]
Posted by: Renee Stetzer, pedestrian safety advocate and blogger at RocVille.com

Last week Governor Andrew Cuomo granted permission for several cities and counties in New York, including Rochester, to begin or continue red light camera programs until 2019. Red light camera programs remain a controversial topic, but cities all over the country are choosing to continue their programs as they strive to make their streets safer for all who traverse them. New York City Mayor de Blasio is leading the charge in our state with his Vision Zero external link plan, a multi-faceted approach to reducing traffic fatalities – and red light cameras are one of those facets…

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Can Lower City Speed Limits Make Streets Safer?

In June, the New York State legislature passed a bill to let NYC lower its default limit to 25mph. Lowering speed limits is part of Mayor Bill de Blasio's Vision Zero plan. [PHOTO: Dmitry Gudkov, Flickr]
Posted by: Renee Stetzer, pedestrian safety advocate and blogger at RocVille.com

All across the country, state legislatures are raising speed limits on roadways external link. I think the highest I’ve read about is a tollway in Texas, which is taking on the Autobahn with an 85 mph limit. Highways are getting faster it seems. New York City, however, has been pushing for the authority to lower speed limits on its streets. And in June, the New York State legislature passed a bill to let NYC lower its default limit to 25mph (from the default of 30 mph). Lowering default speed limits on its 6000 miles of roads is part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Vision Zero external link plan to eliminate traffic fatalities by 2024…

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Do Red Light Cameras Make Rochester Streets Safer?

Do Red Light Cameras Make Rochester Streets Safer? [PHOTO: FringeHog, Flickr]
Posted by: Renee Stetzer, pedestrian safety advocate and blogger at RocVille.com

The City of Rochester began installing red light cameras in 2010. There are currently over 30 intersections equipped with red light cameras (see the full list and a map here external link) The cameras are active 24/7 and get still photos and video anytime a vehicle runs a red light. Registered owners of vehicles that are “captured” running red lights in those intersections are sent a Notice of Liability in the mail.

Many drivers, of course, do not like the presence of the cameras. They feel like big brother is watching…

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