Provo Bicycle Study
13 November, 2011
Well, it has been almost a year since I posted here. Life has been busy, and a lot has happened in the past year, but time to blog has been hard to come by. I’m very involved with Bike Utah as a member of the Board, and it is taking an increasing amount of time. There are some great things happening in Utah Valley with regards to bikes right now, and I’ll make you all aware of them as details become available. The first is the Provo Bicycle Study. It is very similar to what we did in Orem last year, so I’m excited to see the same thing happening in Provo. Details on the first open house are in the image above. Go and let your voice be heard. Let’s make all of Utah Valley a great place to ride, one community at a time!
Orem Planning Commission
20 October, 2010
Tonight was the Orem Planning Commission’s turn to critique and talk over the Orem Bike Ped Plan. I’ll make this short. They love it, even those who don’t ride bikes. They forwarded it on to the City Council with a unanimous approval and recommendation. Afterwards, I heard two commissioners in the hall talking, saying that they want to get some new bikes and start riding. There is hope after all!
Joyride
3 September, 2010
I am not quite to the point where I can call Mia a friend of mine, but it is coming. I can feel it. She is the Principle in Charge of the Orem Bike & Pedestrian Study. I had the opportunity this summer to spend the day with her in Boulder, Colorado, along with some of Orem’s city council and staff. Mia is a great advocate, and has done a lot to promote cycling. I look forward to getting my hands on a copy of this book. I bet I can get her to sign it for me if I ask really nicely… To order a copy, head to her site, or to the usual spots online.
Walk or Bike to School?
2 September, 2010
Image Courtesy of Streetsblog
Today someone encouraged kids to walk or ride their bikes to school, in Utah. It was a neighbor of mine. He is a politician. And it struck some people as nearly comical. The following is the transcript of the story found on KSL.
By Amanda ButterfieldSALT LAKE CITY — Gov. Gary Herbert started his day Wednesday with elementary school students, encouraging them to walk to school safely.he governor met as many students as he could while at Rosecrest Elementary School. He was there to kickoff the Walk More in Four program — a statewide safe walking and biking to school challenge.
“It starts with young people,” Herbert said. “Walking and biking to school is a good, healthy lifestyle.”
The challenge for all Utah students in elementary school and junior high is to walk or bike at least three times a week for four weeks during September — and to do it safely.
“They sometimes forget, especially when they’re with friends, and I think that this will help them remember to watch for cars and be aware of things around them,” said parent Jennifer Jessop.
Salt Lake County sheriff’s deputies were also there to teach and remind the kids to always be safe. The deputies gave the students a map of the best route to take.
“It is a very good program, especially around our school because we have busy streets. And if we know how to walk safely, the map in place, they know where to go; it’s a great program,” Jessop said.
The students will chart their progress during the month and have chanced to win prizes like helmets, bikes and scooters.
The governor hopes even after the four-week challenge is up, kids and parents will keep moving.
“It’s also about lifestyle. People need to think in terms of walking. We sometimes, as adults, park too close to Walmart. We ought to park out in the far side of the parking lot and walk in to do our shopping,” Herbert said.
The Walk More in Four challenge leads up to the International Walk To School Day in October.
E-mail: abutterfield@ksl.com
Now, I don’t know about you, but walking through the Wal-mart parking lot doesn’t strike me as a healthy thing to do. Also, and most importantly, I don’t understand the emphasis placed on children being safe around cars by watching for the cars. That seems more than a little backwards to me. Don’t get me wrong, I own and drive a car. But to my mind, it is those who are using the deadly weapon who should be watching for the vulnerable, not the other way around. We certainly need to do more to make things safer for our kids to enable them to walk or bike to school. My daughter rides to school and I get very nervous when we take her. I don’t worry so much about my daughter. I worry about all of the deadly weapons people are driving their kids to school in. How about you? Should the onus be on the kids, or the drivers and the government to make things safe? If you want some more to chew on, visit the National Center for Safe Routes to School, the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, or the Safe Routes to School FHWA Safety Program.
Utah’s Own “4 Letter Word(s)”
1 September, 2010
Image Courtesy of michaelhyatt.com
Utah seems to have a couple of their own “4 letter words”. I’m not talking ones that you would typically think of. I’m talking about words like “transit” and “density”. This article today in the Salt Lake Tribune is a good example of this phenomenon. Why? What is so bad about other people? What is wrong with having a choice in how you move yourself around? Here in Utah Valley, things are much the same as in Centerville as described in the article. We love to talk about “preserving our neighborhoods”. What is it we are preserving them from? As near as I can tell, we seem to be preserving my neighborhood for more traffic and higher speeds. That doesn’t sound like neighborhood preservation to me. It sounds more like traffic preservation. JMD over at Transit In Utah did a post a few months ago on Density and how it relates to Transit, the other bad word. Personally, if I had the choice of a streetcar or light rail train running up and down my street, versus the thousands of cars a day that go past now, I would take the transit hands down. What do you think? Should we promote more dense and walkable development, or more sprawl? Let me know in the comments. I would love to start to foster some discussion on this major issue.
A Divine Wind
10 August, 2010
The Japanese word Kamakaze is literally translated as Divine Wind. It comes from Japanese history when in 1274 and in 1281, typhoons dispersed the invading Mongolian invasion fleets. (You can read all about it on Wikipedia by clicking here.) There seems to be a Divine Wind blowing in the vicinity of Orem and Provo these days. Last week, Provo passed into their city Master Plan a map that includes a significant update to their bicycle facilities plan. You can read about it at Bike Provo by clicking here. In Orem, we’re working on getting a bicycle pedestrian master plan passed. It is getting close to being finalized, and you can give your opinion on what has been suggested by those who participated in the first open house earlier this year. There is a lot of momentum going for bicycles in central Utah Valley right now. Here at Bike Utah Valley, I’ve been working very hard, behind the scenes, to help out, mostly in Orem. I know I don’t post much, but after long days working on bike advocacy, it makes it hard to find time to do so. In the coming months, things will slowly start to change here at Bike Utah Valley. You will see some new hands helping with the work, and this will become much more than just a blog. This will become a real organization. Over the past year, I have been working on transforming Bike Utah Valley from a blog into a real bicycle advocacy non-profit organization. It has taken a lot of work, and it isn’t finished yet, but it should be in the coming months. We will need your support as we move forward. You will become the Kamikaze, the Divine Wind, that will propel bicycling in Utah Valley into the future. Join us, and lets build the momentum that our movement has taken on.
An Update
7 August, 2010
There has been a lot happening on the cycling front in Utah Valley. Orem is in the midst of creating a Bike/Ped master plan, and Provo just adopted their city master plan which included a new update to their bicycle facilities map. The Provo Bike Committee and Bike Provo have been formed, and they have been doing great things to help the community become more aware of cyclists and cycling as a viable form of Transportation as well as recreation. I hope that you will help Bike Utah Valley keep this momentum going. Over the course of the coming year, we hope to gain Non-Profit status with the State of Utah and the Federal Government and start raising funds to forward advocacy in Utah Valley. That is all for now, but keep your eye open for updates, frequent or infrequent, and help spread the word! Visit our new page on Facebook and become a Fan.
At the CORE of it.
6 May, 2010
As anyone who lives in the northern half of Utah County knows, I-15 is going to be rebuilt, starting now and going through the next two and a half years, into a modern super-freeway of 12 lanes. There are in fact many good things to come out of this. Many bridges and overpasses are being replaced and upgraded, and a lot of those include improvements for cyclists. This probably comes as no surprise to you, but there is one road that I am aware of and probably several others that I am not aware of, that include no such improvements, and actually have the opposite effect. They will be less safe. Since I am an Orem resident, it makes sense that the one that I am aware of is in Orem, and it is University Parkway. Now, many would say that you have to be insane to want to ride a bike over that bridge even today, and you would have a valid point, so I can say that I am insane as I used to do it every day. I actually found it to be quite safe. There is plenty of shoulder, and if you time it right, which takes nothing but patience, you can avoid any real danger. The redesign of that area will dramatically change that, and make the access across I-15 deadly. I am surprised UVU hasn’t complained. Their students are the ones who live on both sides and they have campus buildings on both sides of I-15. So, I think that we need to do something about this. I have personally talked to the City of Orem about this issue, and I’ve written to the UDOT public involvement person for the Orem area of this project, Dave Asay(you can write him at daveasay at utah dot gov) to express my concern. So far, nothing has happened, and I don’t really expect it to, unless we as a cycling community really make a fuss. So, please do one or several of the following. First, if you live in Orem, call the Mayor & City Manager’s office and let them know that you are concerned about this issue. Second, contact any and all of the City Council members. Third, email Dave Asay at the email address that I posted above. Fourth, contact your State Senator & or Representative. If you don’t know who that is, you can look it up on utah.gov, or contact me and I’ll look it up for you. We need to do something about this issue, in every city in the state. UDOT says they are not just an agency for cars. Lets see them prove it.
Goings On
12 April, 2010
Well, things have been a bit slow in the writing department lately. Dead is perhaps a better word. Since I last wrote a lot has happened in the Utah Valley advocacy department. On January 19th we had a great open house in Orem to get public input on the Bike Ped Master Plan. We had over 100 people show up! In Orem! I still can’t believe it. Last month I traveled to Washington DC for the National Bike Summit. This was my second year going, and I love to go. It is really great to go their and get your advocacy batteries recharged. Also in March, I attended a meeting of the newly formed Provo Bike Committee. There is also a new blog of note, bikeprovo.org. If you live in Provo or ride there, check them out. This week is the second annual Utah Bike Summit held in Salt Lake City at the Main Library downtown. Register at utahbikesummit.org. Earlier today, there were 215 people registered to attend! The National Summit had only a bit over 700! This is great news! Other items of note, Provo & Orem will hold their Bike to Work day events in May, on the 18th and 19th respectively. It is in part sponsored by UTA, and there will be emails and fliers posted around town and in inboxes everywhere in about a week. Look for that and get it on your calendar. The Murdock Canal is going to be enclosed starting this coming fall, and the train project being built in conjunction with that enclosure should be completed sometime in 2013. The US Forest Service is putting together a trails working group right now. If you want to be involved, let me know and I’ll put you in contact with those responsible. Great things are happening for bikes in Utah Valley! Posting will no doubt continue to be sparse, unless for some reason I develop a strange blogging bug. I’ll continue to make announcements as I have time and memory to do so. If you want to know something, let me know. If you have a great topic, let me know that too. See you in Salt Lake this weekend.
Bike Planning Charrette – January 19th!
2 December, 2009
The first public meeting for the Orem Bicycle & Pedestrian Study will be January 19th at 7:00 pm. It will be at the Orem Senior Friendship Center, located at 400 East & Center Street in Orem. If you want to make a difference for cycling in Orem, put it on your calender and plan to be there. It should be a good experience, and it will make a big difference.
