East Coast Greenway Summit reflections
Following up on the East Coast Greenway Mid-Atlantic Summit last week, here are some notes.
Community engagement
To help someone, listen, understand their needs, and don’t push your agenda. A city might have funds to install a bike share location at a community center. People who use the community center may only care about lights for the basketball court.
The Better Bikeshare Partnership, incorporates equitable access into bike share programs. Waffiyyah Murray presented about this.
Other sentiments in a community:
- We don’t need outsiders coming in and wrecking our community
- We have bigger problems, and your project doesn’t address them
- Don’t give me something that doesn’t work
Quiet
Andy Clark and I talked a bit about the Netherlands and France and Richmond, VA. The lack of noise in the Netherlands came up. Quiet is an important environmental factor for me.
One of the reasons I walk and bike at 5 am is so that I can take advantage of the quiet punctuated by song birds. As traffic increases, it is hard to have a conversation along a busy road.
Online map that Andy likes
Andy said I should look at Ottawa’s interactive maps with photos. We talked about the concept of a word cloud based on Toole Design Group WikiMapping projects. It’s a great resource.
Jenkintown/Abington bike connections
I talked with Randy Waltermyer, who worked on the Abington Bike Plan. We talked about other projects in the Lehigh Valley and Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.
Traffic Planning and Design, Inc., where Randy works, opened a new office in Ashville. Christy Staudt, who I assume works in that office, was a board member of PA Walks and Bikes.
James Stevens had attended meetings for the Abington Bike Plan. James and I discovered that we live about a three minute walk from each other. James works for ConsultEcon, Inc., and we have since gone on several lunchtime walks.
Need for Pennsylvania Statewide Bicycle Advocacy
Sarah Clark Stuart said that there’s a need for statewide advocacy. There’s going to be a trip to Harrisburg in the next month.
I’ve been discussing the idea of a bicycle Political Action Campaign as a way to raise money. Andy Hamilton suggested creating a 501c3.
Patty Elkis & DVRPC
I appreciated hearing Patty’s talk, and we talked about Copenhagen and trips on trails. DVRPC is pretty excited about the Level of Traffic Stress analysis.
Final thoughts
Over the past week, I’ve reflected on the ECG Summit. I was glad to see Dennis and Niles, Niles is using QGIS as part of their operations. They are making a lot of maps.
Conversations at the Summit reinforced in my mind that I’m on a good path. I can help people who want it, be supportive, celebrate successes, and have time to do things I like to do.
