City of Ames, IA This Week in Ames, 2 May 2013

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From YouTube: This Week in Ames - Campustown Bike Survey

Description

Corey Mellies from Public works tells us about a survey for Bike users in Ames.

A

Hi welcome to this week in Ames I'm Susan gwiazda on today's show, we'll check in with the public works department about bikes to clean in campustown.

A

My guest today is Corey Mills operation supervisor, with the city of Ames Corey. Welcome to the show thank.

B

A

We're here today, it's a beautiful spring day, talking about bike riding specifically bike riding in campustown. Yes,.

B

That's right: City Council asked us to look at the interaction between bicycles and pedestrians in campustown and come back with maybe some potential options so.

A

Campus town is a very popular place for bike riding. In fact, the whole Iowa State campus area in general is really popular with a lot of different ages of bike riding. What are some of the comments we get about that area. I think.

B

It's just the interaction with having so many pedestrians and bikes and vehicles. You know in a very confined space, so we get a lot of the usually what we hear about is kind of when there's bad interactions between all the modes of traffic in campustown. Well,.

A

You get a lot of those near misses, maybe a biker that darts out in front of a car or card that doesn't quite look the right way. Are there ways that you can mitigate some of those problems? That's.

B

What we wanted to look at, but we thought first, we should probably get a better idea of. What's actually what people want or what's occurring out there. So we decided to do a survey, would do two surveys, ones for the general public I'm to really get an idea, who's using bicycles in campustown, whether they're just going to class, or are we getting people that commute to work on their bikes through campus town and then also talking to the businesses and what they think about bikes and how it affects their businesses? So.

A

If I were a biker- and I wanted to take the survey, is it open to anybody? Yes,.

B

The public surveys open to anybody, it's posted on the city of Ames website, so you click through that and then you walk through and have several questions about your experience with bike riding and how you feel about campus town maybe help us kind of fine tune. What we come back with, what.

A

If I'm, just an occasional bike, rider- maybe I just wander in for a cup of coffee now and then do you still want to hear from me? Oh absolutely,.

B

We actually have in there what you're writing level is. So we want to hear from kind of all modes, because everybody kind of has maybe different experiences that they want to see if you're just going in. For you know coffee, you might be more worried about bike racks and where you can park your bike and things like that and people that maybe just commuting I was safe. So.

A

Really you're, looking at the pole, biking experience not just where people are biking but what they like about biking in campus and what they don't like. Yes,.

B

And maybe some what you know and even what they wouldn't maybe prefer: where do they want to ride their bikes? Where do they feel comfortable? Maybe what are the things that they feel are unsafe in campustown, so.

A

Now, right now, people should not be biking on Lincoln. Why is that correct?.

B

You're actually I think it's you're allowed to by comlink and wait you're not allowed on the sidewalks of the two blocks of Lincoln, Way and well Javid doing right now. So.

A

That probably isn't clear people correct.

B

That's in our ordinance there only streets that don't allow I think bicycling are you know Grand Avenue, since it's a highway and some areas of Duff but mainstream campustown are the only ones that have restrictions on the sidewalk use. Well,.

A

Again, we talked about that area being popular with bicyclists again, there's people writing on the street right on the sidewalk and then there's lots of different different places where bike riders could actually end up going. That's designated as a bike riding area. Yes,.

B

And that's what we want to get it you know. Are there some bike paths or there's some better connections through campus town or you know? Is there a better way to get people where they're going so? Hopefully the survey will give us a lot of that information to come back with some good options. Well,.

A

I know your department has done a lot to encourage bike riding through other means. When you read it. Sixth Street, for example, there was some new. Is your bike lanes put in there? Yes,.

B

And that's something we're looking at in our CIP kind of identify some multimodal sixth street, we put into bike lanes further west on sixth Street. We also have sharrows, which kind of let people be aware that then probably see bikers on the road and so.

A

Explain the sheriff's, because that's not something that everybody knows about. Yes,.

B

It's actually a painted symbol, it's a bike with two chevrons and that's where bikers should be. Writing and people know that you're on that road, that, because of the amount of traffic or bicycle traffic, or you know, sidewalk issues that you should expect to see bikers on the road now.

A

This extreme, with the separate lane for bikers, explain to vehicles where they should be driving. If.

B

There's a bike lane: you should be in your designated lane and stay away from the bike lane and give those people plenty of room to use the bike lane. So.

A

That solid white line is not drive in this lane. No.

B

No, it's definitely keep out of this lane. It's for bicycles, only where the sharrows you're, obviously sharing the road. That's a point and you'd still want to follow all the rules about passing when it's appropriate. So.

A

Imagine bike riders at different levels and different ages sort of have different preferences when it comes to biking yeah.

B

I think that's what we've seen that's, why you've seen a lot of the shared use paths, which tend to be preferred by more of your kind of general bike riders that you're, maybe commuters or avid bike riders? Who would prefer the street or bike lanes so I think that's! What we try to do is look at kind of making sure there's all options for people so.

A

What do you do with the data once you get it we're.

B

Going to take the data will work with our traffic engineer to kind of look at you know what is the data telling us and then kind of come back with some options to maybe improve safety or some recommendations to counsel whether it's policy or infrastructure changes that can be made to make campustown better? So.

A

Is it possible that something you do in campustown could be maybe tried and other parts of town yeah.

B

I think so I mean obviously Main Street would also see some opportunities. I know: we've worked with Main Street on new bike, racks artistic bike racks, and so it seems, like biking, is getting more popular, so I think you know some of those ideas that we do in campustown don't seem to fit with kind of the main street downtown area as well. Well,.

A

A little bit off the topic of the bike racks of biking, but there are some other improvements to lincoln way as well. What's the status of the median upgrades, we.

B

Finished our median project, which looked at a master plan for replanting, the medians through campus town, which kind of each to Sheldon. So we have the plan almost of the final stages right now. We're trying to talk to Iowa State to see what they think about the project and if there's any possibilities for partnerships or things like that, and then we'll go to counsel with kind of the plan and maybe recommendations and funding opportunities. So.

A

You have quite a few things going on in the campus town area and we should look for those in the months to come. Yes,.

B

Hopefully, this summer will take both those back to Council and get some feedback. What.

A

Cory is always great talking to you right.

B

Thank You Susan, so.

A

If you'd like to participate in the bicycling survey, remember to go to our website at studio, Ames, org and click on the survey link. Remember that survey will close on friday may 10. So you want to get your input in before that time. Also, remember may is the month that the furman aquatic center opens. It will open memorial day weekend. Saturday May twenty-fifth is the first day for swimming, make sure to buy those discounted swim passes before May fifteenth. Well, that's our show for today, thanks for watching and tune in next week.

A

For this week, innings.