Advocacy - Tucson Topics

BAC September 2009 Notes 

The general meeting of the Tucson Pima County BAC was held on Wednesday, September 9th.

 Roads & Routes

• Note that the 3-feet safe passing distance law only pertains to cars passing in the same direction. All cyclists should always look out for oncoming traffic overtaking slower oncoming traffic.
• Tucson Clean and Beautiful is seeking clubs and ride groups to adopt portions of a parkway, bike route, trail or linear park. The volunteering organization would be responsible for clean up and general maintenance. After a 3 month probation period, a sign would be posted with the group’s name and area that was adopted.  What a great way to generate goodwill among cyclists toward motorists, and a wonderful resource to help make the streets safer!  Interested groups can visit www.Tucsoncleandbeautiful.org for more information.
• The Mountain Bike Subcommittee is working on recommending signage at trailheads, and establishing new local trails as well as meeting with land use managers. They are also making an effort to curtail illegal construction of mountain bike trails.
• The Downtown Subcommittee is working closely with the street car design as it affects cycling.
• ADOT has fixed the striping under I-10 at Speedway and Grant. The City of Tucson will re-stripe approaches to the underpasses to provide a connecting “striped shoulder.”
• Olive under Speedway is open to cyclists.
• Three recent open houses for the 4^th Avenue Fontana Bike Boulevard were successful and provided plenty of feedback from neighborhoods. Construction is expected to begin early next spring. 
• The committee was provided with a map of Resurfacing Projects funded by Stimulus Money. This will allow the T-PCBAC to make recommendations for re-striping with consideration of bicycles.
• Marana Planning and Development has worked very hard to include cyclists’ needs in the planning and design of Marana streets. 

 Safety & Enforcement

• Tucson Police Department is planning on educating and increasing awareness of cyclists. Possibly the intersection of 3^rd and Treat Avenue will be targeted, with citations being given for running stop signs.
• University Police Department is planning the same kind of education and heightened awareness on the campus of the U of A.
• Bicycle Crash Data from the Tucson Police Department has been compiled by Collin Forbes and set up so that specific information can be pulled from the past two years’ data. For example, the database could determine what time of day most crashes have occurred as well as pinpointing streets with high percentages of crashes. 

 Special Projects & Activities

• The Urban Loop project and and Linear Parkway are progressing and information disseminated to the public for feedback
• The City of Tucson has installed a bike corral in front of the Rialto Theater. A second location is to be at the Time Market. 
• Pima County now provides six Road One classes per month. 
• Pima Association of Governments will be sponsoring another Regional Bike Count this October and is looking for volunteers.
• The Regional Transportation Plan has increased funds for bicycle projects to 3%.
• The U of A Bike Station is open for registering bikes, minor repairs, maps, etc.
• The U of A is to begin a Bike Share Program. They also have a Bike Safety Program where students are eligible for discounts at area bike shops on repairs and parts as they apply to safety.
•  Linear Parkway are progressing and information disseminated to the public for feedback.

The next BAC meeting will be held on October 14th at the Himmel Park Library from 6 to 8 PM.  All cyclists are encouraged to attend.  If you have any concerns regarding local cycling, please attend and express your concern during to call to the public.

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Dodge Bridge at Rillito Bridge Improvement for Cyclists!

A couple of photos from the Dodge Boulevard Transportation Enhancement project. Though not quite complete--a few sign adjustments, bike lane arrows, bike detection at Ft. Lowell/Dodge, and other minor changes are still needed. The green over the bridge is to highlight the bicycle area, and it should stay pretty clean and bright because it's not in a merge area. The total width of the bridge is only 28 feet so the travel lanes are 10.5 feet wide and the bike area is 3.5 feet wide (a half foot wider than the previous striped shoulder over the bridge). With completion of this link, cyclists now can connect through Tucson on local streets up to the Rillito pathway and to River road--a distance of about 6 miles from the Aviation pathway. One of the next steps is to (hopefully) put back in the previous high-visibility crosswalk on the north side of the bridge to connect the Rillito pathway across Dodge away from the Alvernon/Dodge signalized intersection. If possible, an elevated crosswalk, which is essentially a crosswalk on top of a speed table will be put in. 

New Bike Racks at the TCC

Thanks to the good folks at Kryptonite Lock Company and El Grupo, TDOT was able to upgrade the bike parking situation at the Convention Center.  Keep this in mind when you go to an event down there.  For the fiscal year, TDOT has added 90 new racks or 180 spaces around the city. 

Check out these before and after pictures.

                                  Before                                                                                      After

Memorial Bike Park Saddle Up Area/ Trailhead at the Base of Mt Lemmon is Planned

PAG's Annual Bike Count

Click Here for a summary of the latest bike count survey.