Saving Fort Collins' Bicycle Coordinator - A Little History (October 2005)

In October 2005 a City Council seeking to save money was prepared to cut the small allocation of funds for the City's Bicycle Coordinator's position.  Those funds could be used to create a right turn lane on South College Avenue, it seems.

The fledgling organization, Bike Fort Collins stepped in to rally the troops.  Bike Fort Collins President and Co-founder, Rick Price, sent the following message to an ad-hoc mailing list.

From: Rick Price
To: rick
Date: Oct 28 2005 - 5:02pm

Bike Coordinator or No Bike Coordinator?

First of all you need to know that the approximately 200 e-mails that our City Council received before their Oct. 11 meeting were the most messages Council has EVER received on ANY issue.  It made an impression.  Though not a big enough impression.

Last Tuesday night City Council defeated a proposal for funding of the Bike Coordinator's position by a 4-3 vote.  This week there have been discussions among some council members about funding a possible part-time position or funding a volunteer position of some type.   So it looks as if they may take this up again at their next meeting, almost certainly for the last time for a year or two.

Many of you have expressed concern with continuing the current Bike Coordinator's position in SmartTrips.   I share your concerns.  But I think we should still push for a part-time position, at the very least, that might be housed in Transportation Planning and NOT in SmartTrips.

Here's why:

1) Funding history for the Bike Coordinator functions have been (numbers are approximate):
    2003 - $200,000
    2004 - $120,000
    2005 - $65,000
    2006 - 0    (proposed)
    2007 - 0    (proposed)

2) In 2006 the Transportation Dept. will revise and update the entire bicycle portion of the Master Transportation Plan.  A Traffic Planner will be assigned to this at about half-time.  Because of budget cuts this update will be done entirely in-house without the assistance of consultants as has been common in the past.  The planner will not have time to carry out grant writing and funding efforts to assure Fort Collins gets its fair share of Federal tax monies which are already flowing and which is very competitive.

3) All functions of SmartTrips relative to Bike to Work month, the Freewheels program, the Commuter Coach program, Bike Rodeos at Schools, and Educational Outreach to schools, businesses or others will end.

4) The chance of retaining our League of American Bicyclists Silver Medal as a Bike Friendly Community in 2007, when it will next be evaluated, is slim without a bike coordinator.
 
Here's what we'd like to ask your help with:

Making the case that it isn't fair to the community, to our kids, or to cyclists in town to shut this program down cold turkey without giving a group like the Friends of the Fort Collins  Bicycle Program, Inc. (OR any other group) a chance to step in and take it over.  We'd like a liaison, ombudsman, planner, PR person, or someone funded at least part-time to work with us as we take on the functions of the Bike Coordinator.

Call to Action

1) Send a message to your own or to all City Council members imploring them to reconsider at least a half-time position to be placed in the Transportation Planning office to help with the update of the bicycle transportation plan and to act as a liaison to the bike community to help as they assume roles as volunteers that SmartTrips has played in the past.

If YOU send a message and if YOU can get ONE friend to send a message, we'll get our message across.  Write it from the heart this time.
(This should make 400 messages this time.)

2) If one in ten of you can come to the meeting Wednesday at Council Chambers, 300 West LaPorte AND bring one friend a few of us will speak and try to convey the same message.   This would mean we'd have over 40 people at the City Council meeting.

Thanks for your efforts!
Rick Price on behalf of Bike Fort Collins








How did it turn out?  About thirty citizens turned out to express support for the Bicycle Coordinator's position.  Council began debate and Council Member Ben Manvel moved to allocate $44,000 for a half time position.  As the vote unfolded everyone move to support the motion, including all four who had voted against
it two weeks before. 

The rest is history, as they say. 

Fort Collins Submits Preliminary Requests for Bike Coordinator Funding, 2012-2015

FC Bikes Program – 2012 – 2015
Transportation Planning (David Kemp)
CMAQ $625,000 Local Match $110,000
The Bicycle Coordinator will expand and refine the FC Bikes programmatic scope of work to
encourage people of all ages and abilities to ride bicycles for transportation purposes. Expansion
of the FC Bikes program includes creating new encouragement and education outreach efforts,
collaborating with local public & private partners as well as surrounding communities to share
best practices with respect to encouraging bicycling, creating encouragement and education
programs specific to the universities and community colleges in the region, and working closely
with transportation and urban planners to plan for safe and efficient bicycle facilities. Evaluation
is also included and will consist of bicycle counts, participant surveys, and follow-up data.
Sources for this program application include the City of Fort Collins’ Transportation Master
Plan, Bicycle Plan, Air Quality Plan, Climate Action Plan, and the North Front Range
Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Regional Transportation Demand Management Plan.
Funding Request: $625,000 (total for four years, breakdown: 2012: $150,000; 2013: $200,000;
2014: $150,000: 2015: $125,000
Proposed Funding Source: CMAQ
Local Match: $285,000 (total for four years, breakdown: 2012: $40,000; 2013: $40,000; 2014:
$90,000; 2015: $115,000)
Sources: Transportation Master Plan, Bicycle Plan, Air Quality Plan, Climate Action Plan, and
Regional TDM Plan.

Source: North Front Range MPO (downloaded Oct. 14, 2010)   

At the bottom of that page click on downloads, 2010 CMAQ Project Abstracts (Oct-6-10)  and you’ll find all the projects submitted as abstracts in the region. 

What Does the Transportation Board Have to Say about The BAC 2010 Work Plan?

The Bicycle Advisory Committee is, technically, a sub-committee of the Transportation Board. Both have the mission to advise City Council on transportation issues and policy. The following, extracted from the November 18 minutes of the Transportation Board, includes a T-Board discussion of the BAC work plan.

You can read the complete minutes here by clicking here.

6. BICYCLE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (BAC) – David “DK” Kemp, Bill Jenkins

The BAC is a subcommittee of the Transportation Board. They bring issues the Transportation Board for forwarding to City Council.

DK shared the Bicycle Advisory Committee’s Work Plan. The Plan cmes out of the City Bike Plan. The BAC began operating in March 2009. The first thing they worked on was a Work Plan based on the major recommendations of the Bike Plan. The next step is to get into each of the five identified goals. FCBikes is dialed into the Work Plan, and is working collaboratively with the BAC.

Encouragement, Education, Engineering, Enforcement, Environment, Economy, and Community are elements of the Bike Plan.

BAC Work Plan Goals for 2010:
1. Bicycle safety.
2. Bicycling encouragement.
3. Bicycle-related economic development and affordability.
4. Bicycle facilities
5. Bicycle performance

Jenkins: Bicycle safety is the most important, and the other items feed into that. One person moved to Fort Collins because of the Bicycle-relate economic development and affordability
Miller: Has the BAC reviewed studies about automobile speeds and bicycle mortality?
DK: No, but that is a great suggestion. The Transportation Master Plan Update project is coming up, so those ideas can feed into that.
Miller: I saw some information on bicycle accident rates in the paper. I was interested in the percentage of injuries and deaths that occur in wrong way accidents versus same way accidents. It appears that the risk of an accident would be higher going the wrong way. There seem to be fewer fatalities in wrong way accidents. Have there been studies showing the actual risk? Has the City of Fort Collins looked outside itself for contest or mortality rates for the different types of projects? Statistical probability of dying in an accident is what I’m referring to.
DK: We haven’t had a great number of fatalities, fortunately.
Jenkins: We can take that back to the BAC.
Robert: We would welcome a more comprehensive perspective on bicycle safety.
Duvall: Are there rules or laws about bicycles being required to have lights/signals to be more visible?
DK: They are required to have front and rear lights and reflectors at night.
Duvall: Perhaps the rules and laws should be more strictly enforced. Drivers are frustrated by bicyclists who ignore the rules of the road.
DK: The mission is to get bicyclists to be seen, make eye contact, be safe.
Steen: Have you considered a bicycle license? We expect them to share the road and obey the traffic, but there is no licensing requirement.
DK: Traffic skills courses are being operated and educate new cyclists. We’d have to look at feasibility.
Miller: If you’re going to test and license you need to educate beginning in grade school. Today, as I was cycling south on Shields, a car turned in front of me. Had I not taken evasive action, I would have been injured or killed. The car made the error. In the case of a cyclist turning in front of the bus, the bus passengers could have been injured if the bus took evasive action.
Robert: 9th graders are now in high school and are subject to peer pressure discouraging bikes. Are we doing anything to encourage them to continue to use bikes?
DK: Yes, we’re actually getting more high school teachers asking us to come to the schools to teach bicycle safety.
Robert: The motor vehicle drivers test doesn’t have any questions on bicycles.
DK: The do now. It is one of the things that brought us up into recognition as a Bicycle Friendly State.

City should rethink stance on bike safety

Soapbox in the Coloradoan, Nov. 11, 2009
by Rick Price, Ph.D.
Safe Cycling Coordinator for the Fort Collins Bicycle Cooperative

Thanks go to City Council member Lisa Poppaw for questioning funding for bicycle safety at the Sept. 1 City Council meeting. That question, and the discussion that followed, gave us Traffic Engineer Joe Olsen's study of bike/car crashes, which appeared Nov. 1 on the front page of the Coloradoan.

Although data on bicycling are sparse and the statistics on bike/car crashes are preliminary, we can make some interesting inferences from the data we do have. Hopefully, these inferences will help the City Council rethink funding priorities for the city's bike program.

According to the estimates of the American Community Survey, a project of the U.S. Census, 5.4 percent of commuters rode their bicycles to work daily in Fort Collins in 2006 (about 3,800 people). In 2008, that percentage had risen to 7.4 percent (5,800 people), a jump of 37 percent. With this increase, we saw a 31 percent increase in bike/car crashes compared to annual growth in the single digits for most of the early part of the decade (one exception was the increase of 13.5 percent from 2003 to 2004). (We don't have data on the increases of cyclists during the early part of the decade as this information has been collected only since 2006.)

Based on these statistics and observations, most of us would agree that bicycling in Fort Collins is on the rise and so, it seems, are bike/car crashes. Is this because we reinstated the bike coordinator's position in 2006, or is it because there is a bicycle revolution going on across the country? Probably both, but the alarming increase in bike/car crashes and the deaths in the last year of two children suggest that we have an issue that needs the immediate attention of the City Council.

Our bike coordinator will be funded from federal monies at about $287,500 per year for two years beginning in 2010. Those funds are allocated as follows: $70,000 to promote bicycle events; $70,000 to fund the bike coordinator's position (including benefits and training); and $32,500 to fund "regional bicycle coordination and marketing" so we can help Loveland and Greeley become more bicycle friendly. Finally, $100,000 a year will continue to fund the Bike Library. By comparison, $38,500 of other federal funds will pay for a Safe Routes to School Program during 2009/10. As yet, no funds have been awarded for Safe Routes in 2010/11.

The council has scheduled a work session Feb. 9 to address "transportation safety." That session should focus on a review of the city's bicycle policies and take a serious look at reallocating funds from bicycle events and encouragement to bicycle education. And by education, I mean just that: "providing knowledge and training through formal schooling, teaching and learning," not through pamphlets and posters.

Is it not reasonable, given the present situation in Fort Collins, to suggest that federal funds be reallocated so that we are spending $250,000 annually on bicycle education and $38,500 on encouragement and events?

If you have an opinion on this, please let City Council know.

On Street Bike Parking in Downtown Fort Collins: The Back Story

The story that follows, from the Coloradoan, announces 5 brand new on-street bike parking racks in Old Town Fort Collins sponsored by New Belgium Brewing. This brief note brings you a few photos and a little bit of the back story of how these racks came to be. (Maybe our Bike Coordinator, Dave Kemp, will follow up with some further commentary). About 2 years ago the folks at Matter Bookstore and the Bean Cycle asked for an on-street bike corral to accommodate all the bikes in front of the Bean (bottom photo above). One business on the street objected to the loss of one automobile parking spot.

So Dave Kemp went to work and came up with five spots around Old Town for racks like the one shown in the first photo - a net gain of something like 100 parking spots since each rack holds twenty or so bikes! Nice work, Dave!

Now all we need is that on-street rack in front of the Bean Cycle!

Old Town Fort Collins adds On-Street Bike Parking

In a copyrighted story today, Trevor Hughes writes in the Coloradoan about new on-street bike parking in Old Town Fort Collins. (Although we don't like the lead sentence): "Depending on how you look at it, Old Town has either just lost five parking spaces or gained dozens more."

(Trevor, why not write: Downtown Fort Collins just got dozens of new, free parking spaces, thanks to New Belgium Brewing!)

Here's the rest of Trevor's story:

"Workers on Friday installed five permanent bright red bike racks in five downtown parking slots, blocking the slots off from vehicle use but offering dozens of new places where cyclists can lock up while patronizing downtown businesses.

The racks went up in front of Café Ardour, La Luz, the Rio Grande, Trailhead Tavern and Mugs Coffee Lounge. City bike coordinator Dave "DK" Kemp got signatures of support from business owners on each block, spending more than a year answering questions and addressing concerns.

"This makes a statement about our community," said McCabe Callahan, the owner of Mugs. "I think it's a great thing. It's encouraging more people to ride their bikes and not drive cars."

New Belgium Brewing Co. - the Fort Collins-based bike-friendly brewery - partnered with the city to create the racks. New Belgium provided the $10,000 necessary to design, build and install the racks, and the brewer's logo is featured on each. The racks,

designed by BHA Designs and built by M&R Fabricators, also resemble the city's new logo, with swooping curves topped by Horsetooth Rock.

The rack locations were chosen because the neighboring businesses see large numbers of cyclists al-ready. The existing racks outside Ardour, for example, are packed on weekend mornings; and on nice Saturday afternoons, bikes are locked to virtually every object in front of the Rio.

Kemp said moving the bike parking onto the street makes sidewalks more inviting and easier to travel, something Callahan said would help his business.

The racks also have the backing of the city's Downtown Development Authority. Executive Director Matt Robenalt said Kemp did a good job securing widespread support for the project.

"It's responding to a definite increase in bicycle traffic in downtown," Robenalt said. "Fort Collins is a cycling community. It's part of the lifestyle here."

On Friday morning, cyclist Sarah Uhl was one of the first riders to use the new rack outside La Luz. Uhl, originally from Philadelphia, said she's impressed with Fort Collins' commitment to cycling. Uhl works at New Belgium as a tour guide but said she had no idea her company was helping put in the racks.

"It made my day," she said. "It was a really wonderful surprise.""

Does CSU Need a Bike Coordinator or an Alternative Transportation Coordinator?

A Fort Collins landlord who rents properties to students near Colorado State University has built "the Cycle Pad" or bike storage facility “to promote sensible transportation to our CSU student tenants.”As he explains, “this may not surprise you but many of our CSU tenants drive their cars to campus each day, rather than walk or bike. Now when you consider that our properties are located within 300 feet of campus the car thing is bizarre to say the least. So we are trying to help tenants break the habit by focusing on the bicycle as a safer, quicker, healthier and more enjoyable way to commute the 300 feet to CSU. All our tenants have cars; many do not have bikes…yet.”

Mom Explains why Students Don't Ride

A CSU mom writes with some pretty clear reasons why her daughter doesn’t ride at to CSU:
“My daughter is a bike-riding student at CSU this year, but I can give you some insight into what needs to change for cycling to take off at CSU.

First, there are only a very few lockers at CSU, which must be rented, and none of them are large. It's hard to carry a laptop, helmet, removable bike light, large books, etc. all day. My daughter drove her car to school when she was a member of the Visual Ensemble because there was no other place to store her flags, but in her car.

Also, it would be a big draw for cycling if students were able to ride between classes and this advantage was pointed out to them. However, there seem to be large areas of campus where bicycling is prohibited, making it difficult, if not impossible, to ride to classes in time. Bicycle lanes need to be really well-marked and allow access to all parts of campus in as short a distance as is reasonable. In winter, my daughter has had real difficulty riding her bike when it's snowy. Perhaps a snowplow/sweeper thing for bike lanes?

One other thing, she's had her seat stolen, her basket stolen, and she interrupted a guy trying to take her fender.... They need publicized cameras on the bike racks and a program to prosecute and scare the hell out of thieves. I would also publicize the number of thieves caught to show that the program is working and to scare them off.

One other thought: lights are required to ride at night which most students have to do. Bike paraphernalia is expensive. And, they have to get their bike registered. Maybe a mid-campus registration week with free light giveaway. '

Just some thoughts.

What Universities Have Bicycle Coordinators?

You guessed it: UC Davis and Portland State, both in towns with Platinum Level Bicycle Community Designations have them. Here are some resources:

Explore the UC Davis Bicycle Program here: http://taps.ucdavis.edu/bicycle/
and read all about Davis as a bike town here:
“A Bicycle Friendly Community - The Davis Model”(a paper presented at Pro Bike/Pro Walk, September 1998, Santa Barbara, CA)By David Takemoto-Weerts (UC Davis Bicycle Program Coordinator)Read David’s paperhttp://taps.ucdavis.edu/bicycle/education/community.cfm

Portland State University
Has a transportation options coordinator and a campus bike co-op: http://www.bikeshop.pdx.edu/

Chicago
Chicago Department of Transportation has a University Marketing program that encourages students, faculty, and staff to bike/walk/take transit to campus in place of driving. The program is in place at the five largest universities: University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, Loyola, Northwestern, and DePaul. Each campus has a student intern who coordinates programming at the school. The intern is paid half by the University and half by the Chicago Department of Transportation. I coordinate the interns and assist with creating objectives and moving the program forward.

Univeristy of Minnesota twin cities campus
Has had a bike coordinator since 1996!http://www1.umn.edu/pts/biking.htm
I’m sure there are more.