Here’s a year in review that all Gilroyans should be proud
of. Our City of Gilroy Bicycle Pedestrian
Commission has taken part in many aspects for change and advocacy. For the first time we created a Strategic Plan.
It’s our guiding document and changes throughout the year. Contains Logo,
Invitation to the Public, Goals, Action Plan, Grants, and Bike/Ped Projects. It allows new Commissioners to come on board
and get caught up before their first meeting.
It’s a great tool for long-term sustainability for the Commission and
allows for transparency. We have
created all our written documents you see and don’t utilize City Staff time for
these. They can all be found here. You can see our annual presentation to Gilroy City Council here.
We have reached out to work with any Boards/Commission/Committee
here in the City, we collaborated with the Public Art Committee for bike racks
and the Parks/Rec Commission for an Outdoor BMX Track, Dirt and Asphalt Pump
Track. Having city email addresses has helped these relationships. We work closely with Santa Clara County
Public Health, Bay Area Ridge Trail Council, Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition,
VTA, California Strategic Growth Council, and National Complete Streets
Coalition. We found Gilroy citizen
Carolyn who now represents Gilroy on VTA’s Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee
and reports back to us each month at our regular meetings. We participated in Santa Clara County’s Lets
All Go to The Park Series, Library Bike Fest and their Fix-It Station grand
opening, and Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition’s annual Bike to Work Day and
Bike to School Day.
We participated in the budget process. We submitted our top 3 projects and aligned
them with City Council’s top 5 Strategic Plan Goals. The Artistic Bicycle Racks for Downtown were
selected and the City will install four of them early next year throughout
Historic Downtown Gilroy. Gary Walton
President of the Gilroy Downtown Business Association is donating a Bike Fix It
Station and Pinnacle Bank donated funds for an additional artistic bike racks in
front of their bank. We will be doing
some public outreach to collect funds for additional artistic bike racks. If you provide funding for a bike rack you can choose to color and have a 2"x10" plaque attached to the front. If you are interested please contact me
Zachary.Hilton@ci.gilroy.ca.us
We have a monthly award! It’s a great way to interact with public,
recognize those that strive to make Gilroy a better place in regards to
Bike/Ped activities. It’s a great tool for recruitment to Commissions. Link to award nomination.
We passed an amendment to our Commission Ordinance so that
we could be more effective and have a voice for bike/ped projects, and ensure
transportation projects include Complete Streets, which we believe, should be a
way of life and not chosen just for specific projects. This amendment was presented to the City
Council on December 4th and will be brought forward with a Staff
report in January 2018.
Our Bicycle Parking Guidelines created from the Bicycle
Parking Plan for Downtown, is online, and we provided it to City Planning along
with each Commission/Committee. It’s a
way for developers to see what we as a Commission look for in bike parking and
a way for our Commission to evaluate a project when it comes in front of us for
review. Link to guidelines.
Along with the Downtown Bike Racks project we created a
Bicycle Parking Plan for all the Districts in Downtown Gilroy. This plan included input from the Gilroy
Downtown Business Association, City Planning/Engineering, and our Commission. We have plans for the first on street bicycle
corral, which could be planned for bike racks or a bike share program like LimeBike
and Ford GoBike.
Thanks to Reid Lerner Architects in Downtown Gilroy we created this map to show the current bike parking opportunities. We have a planned bicycle map that was created as well. We currently have 60 bicycle parking spots in Historic Downtown and with all the current unused public spaces we could reach 380 bike parking spots. The map is one-page document that’s easy to read on a smart phone or print out. Link to bike map.
Safe Routes to School is close to our hearts. We participate
in planning meetings, bike trains, walking school busses, bike/ped surveys
around schools, bike rodeos, Walk & Roll Wednesdays. We have asked City
Staff to utilize us when providing staff reports on property developments with
regards to Safe Routes to School and not solely rely on “how they will drive a
car to school” Council direction given on Oct 2 that Gilroy missed out on the SRTS
check box from SCCHD annual survey of services.
Council stated that they would like to see more SRTS mentioning in staff
reports.
We have come up with strategies to keep the program
successful including short-term growth and long term sustainability once SCCPHD
grant funding runs out and we create ownership of the SRTS program. Gilroy will have Measure B funding for bike/ped
education and encouragement of approx. $39,000 annually. We have started the conversation within the
City Departments and School District to come together as one for the best ways
to allocate these funds.
We advocate continuing the sidewalk 80/20 program and perhaps doing some ongoing public outreach to let everyone know of the program. Sidewalks are dark and sometime really buckled for the neighborhoods that can access Downtown by walking. We worked with VTA’s BPAC to get 10th St at the train tracks into the Pedestrian Access to Transit Plan. We have remained focused on creating Gilroy as a walkable community. On sidewalk signs you’ll now see Bike Wrong Way for those bikes riding against traffic.
We are the only City left in Santa Clara County that does
not have a green bike lane policy and implement green bike lanes. We are currently drafting one up for the City. Buffered bike lanes can be done with striping
such as Welburn Ave and protected can happen when parked cars are moved out
into the street and the bike lane is between the cars and the curb on busy
streets like 1st St. Other physical barriers can be used as well but
its more cost effective to utilize parked cars.
We have a seat at the table at the City’s GPAC 2040 and are advocating
for Complete Street and Safe Routes to School to be added to the General
Plan. Currently both are City
Resolutions. We are advocating for an Outdoor
BMX Track, Dirt Pump Track, and Asphalt Pump Track Working with Parks and
Recreation Commission and City Staff to get the wording of these projects into
the Parks Master Plans. We are always looking for similar projects such
as the City of Watsonville old skate park that’s being converted into a asphalt
pump track to see what works and what doesn’t work.
Donna Taft is our recording secretary and is a liaison for
us within the City. She has been crucial
at organizing our agendas, meeting minutes, and ensuring each presentation gets
into the online agenda for future reference.
Michael Fisher was the Interim Traffic Engineer and has been crucial in
sharing his outside perspective on what works in other City’s and applying it
here in Gilroy. We welcome Gary Heap the
City/Traffic Engineer who now sits on our Commission as the Staff Liaison.
