Bicycle Coalition of the Ozarks

Hello
Can you come to the BCO Board meeting next Tuesday at 5:30 at the Fayetteville Public Library? We could use your input!
Thanks

Hi all,

I returned to FYV after a 25-year hiatus, including 10 years spent in Davis, CA, which is reputed to have more bicycles than residents. It's on flat land, which makes commuting much more attractive to the general public than a city like ours which has many challenging grades that may be unmanageable for average cyclists to navigate.

One thing Davis and many other bike-friendly cities have that does not exist here is a network of designated biking lanes and/or signed routes that alert drivers to the likelihood of encountering cyclists, and that afford cyclists a measure of safety. With Fayetteville's narrow streets I think it's especially important to have such a network, designed with maximum participation by cyclists and motorists alike. The safer bike riders feel on our streets, the more people will ride on them. This is a key element in any program to increase riding and reduce reliance on auto transportation.

It's frankly surprising to me that FYV gets so much good press for being a "sustainable" city when there's not a block of on-street bike lanes or signed routes to be found here. If I may be bold, I think we need to get cracking on this if we're going to live up to our great reputation!

In many other cities, the local govt assumes responsibility for this program and incorporates it into the local master transportation plan. Often it becomes a key part of the metropolitan trans. planning process and is thus able to qualify for limited federal funding for planning and implementation.

Since I've been away, I don't know whether these ideas have been discussed but apparently there is no city support at this time, other than promoting the hike and bike trail system. That is, BTW, a great program that I'm not in any way knocking. We need a comprehensive, on-street program that complements but does not subtract from the off-street routes.

I've put some thought into the question of how to approach a system for FYV's needs, and I have only a few basic ideas. I'm sure there are folks out there who are much better informed than I and who have put much more thought into these questions. I wonder if BCO would beinterested in hosting such a discussion and inviting city leaders to participate. It's my hope that, if BCO can generate interest in this, we may be able to move the city council to support a planning process such as I've suggested above.

Your thoughts and input would be most appreciated.

David Orr

The "On-Street Linkage" compenent of the Fayetteville Alternative Transportation and Trails Plan is a well-planned network of connectivity. Depending of street cross-section and traffic counts, the ammenities for cyclist range from simple shared road signage to painted shared lane bike chevrons to full lane stripage. We all need to pressure our City Council represenatives and our mayor to ensure that these relatively low-cost improvments are added to our current roadway network as soon as possible. Several miles of these improvments can be added without any alteration of the current roadway pavement.