Meeting Minutes and News
August 18, 2003
Guest speaker:
Gay Page: CDOT Bicycle & Pedestrian Coordinator.
- Gay has been with CDOT since 1995 and assists in
the development of policies and design guidelines that impact bicycle and
pedestrian usage. She also tries to keep the CDOT designers and engineers
aware of the policies.
- Her position is federally mandated however
funding for her work is at the whim of the Colorado administration.
Presently funding is down.
- In her position she is not allowed to advocate
and stressed that letter writing and meeting attendance by people outside
of government is the best way to advocate change and have an impact. The
best way to influence CDOT is through the Transportation Commission.
- Presently CDOT has in place a policy to add
shoulders to any road that is undergoing major renovation. CDOT is
presently considering changing this to include any road that is undergoing
repavement.
- Off road trails are difficult to maintain and
historically there has been money to build new trails but limited funds to
maintain and repair the trails that have already been built. Gay
definitely understands the advantages to bicyclists of shoulders on a road
as opposed to off road trails.
- For trail maintenance for the C470 trail in
Douglas County is the CDOT coordinator: Terry Farber at 303-757-9935.
However the C470 trail from Sante-Fe to Quebec is maintained in
conjunction with Highlands Ranch Metro District.
- Gay stressed that the TEA 21 legislation in
Washington is critical to obtaining Federal funds for bike facilities.
Last year the state of CO received $8 million from the “Enhancements” part
of this legislation, which helped to fund/build the bike bridge over
highway 285 near Bear Creek State Park. This year the House Subcommittee
has voted to remove this funding. We should all be active in letting our
state senators and representatives know our priorities on this issue.
Contact information is provided below:
Rep. Tom Tancredo, 1130 Longworth HOB, Washington DC,
20515
Sen. Wayne Allard, 525 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.,
Washington DC 20510
Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, 380 Russell Senate
Office Bldg., Washington DC, 20510
- The club discussed the possibility of an Adopt a
Trail program with Gay. Nobody else has done this previously and it may
be a great way to get publicity for the club. We will be looking into
this.
- Gay was very informative and we certainly
appreciated her time and energy.
Club
business:
- Judy Siel attended the Park Meadows Development
Committee meeting which included discussion on the new bridge slated for
the C470 trail over Yosemite. There are funds for this bridge and designs
and cost estimates have been solicited from design firms. They have
requested that our club comment on the submitted designs when they become
available.
- We presently have $400 in the club account and 54
people on the email list. We need to focus on getting more members so be
sure to inform your biking partners and anybody else you come across on
your rides.
- Gary Debus of the Highlands Ranch Community
Assoc./Development & Review Committee has asked for a 5-minute
presentation from our club. Judy Siel will be presenting for us and will
focus on maintaining bike lanes, bike access and bike parking etc. in
front of commercial development sites.
- Presently there is no plan for connecting the new
light rail station at Park Meadows to the C470 bike trail. The person to
contact for this would be the RTD bike coordinator David Krutsinger
at 303-299-2436 or davidkrutsinger@rtd:denver.com.
- The Web site is still not up but is inching
forward – if you want to help in this area please let Judy Siel know, as
this is critical to the club.
- Judy Siel asked for 6 month feed back on the
clubs progress. The response was very positive. In order to keep the
present momentum though we all need to get to the upcoming Town Meetings
at 6:30 pm as listed below:
- 8/28/03: Parker @ Parker Fire Joint Services
Facility, 17801 Plaza Dr.
- 9/11/03: Highlands Ranch @ Mountain View High
School.
- 9/25/03: Sedalia/Castle Rock/Larkspur@ Sedalia Elementary,
5449 N. Huxtable.
And thanks to Judy for all her hard work to date.
- Next meeting 9/15/03 @ 7Pm @ Red Rocks Credit
Union – see you there.
Hint of the Month!
- Don’t tell any motorists but, according to a very
good source, Highway 83 is closed at the bridge near Castlewood Canyon
State Park for the next 4-6 weeks. This translates into a beautiful road
to ride south of Castlewood Canyon with almost zero cars (via Lake Gulch
Rd in Castle Rock). Get out there and own it while you can.