BIKE: CAMPO 2030 Mobility Plan--send your comments this week

[Tommy Eden]

Comrades--

Please send a message to CAMPO by Friday.

I received the following message from Preston Tyree this week.  We have 
until May 20 (Friday)
to get messages to CAMPO included in their official report to the 
Transportation Policy Board.
We seem to be pretty close to getting much of the language we need in the 
policies for
the CAMPO 2030 Mobility Plan.  Tell them you support the language in the 
FHWA Design
Guidance or the policies recommended by the CAMPO staff in their original 
recommendations
(the CAMPO staff recommendations were based on the FHWA Design Guidance).
The key is that they need to define excessive cost as being more than 20% of 
the cost
of the larger transportation project.  Here is the link to the FHWA Design 
Guidance:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bikeped/design.htm

See my post from April 20 for more background information about the first
recommendation from the Technical Advisory Committee (and the Travis
County Commissioners Court), a recommendation which is likely to change
in our favor, according to the message from Preston Tyree attached below.

You can send a message to the CAMPO Board and the CAMPO
staff from Michael Bluejay's website, www.bicycleaustin.info

The Bicycle Advocacy Council has a link directly to
Michael Bluejay's web page at www.urbancycling.com/pol

A brief explanation about the "jurisdictions" in the CAMPO plan:  each
governmental agency in the CAMPO five-county area (Travis,  Williamson, 
Hays,
Bastrop, and Caldwell Counties) may potentially submit transportation 
projects for
federal funding.  Generally, projects are submitted by TxDOT, the Cities of 
Austin,
Round Rock, Cedar Park, Pflugerville, etc., Capital Metro, Travis County, 
and Hays
County, for example.  I am not sure if the LCRA has ever submitted a 
proposal
to CAMPO for funding.  Generally, private entities, such as neighborhood
associations, political organizations, and construction companies do not
submit projects, although there have been some rare exceptions to this rule.

--Tommy Eden

Here is the message from Preston Tyree:
>Joe Gieselman of Travis County met with the Bike/Ped subcommittee at
>the request of the County Commissioner's Court to try and work out some
>compromise on the Bike/Ped policy statements in the CAMPO 2030 Plan.
>
>He said that they wanted to get it right because they would
>adhere to the policy adopted by CAMPO for federal funding.
>
>
>I've attached the proposed changes that came
>out of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC).
>
>I objected to the change that lets each jurisdiction decide what
>constituted excessive cost. We asked that the TAC consider using
>the words in the FHWA Design Guidance document which gives
>a combined 20% as the "advisory" figure for excessive cost.
>
>We also agreed that the "urban" and "rural" roads should
>be considered separately and that the 1,000 vehicles per
>day figure that would require shoulders in the FHWA
>Design Guidance would also be considered "advisory."
>
>The clause about the requirements being met by an "off-road" system
>comes from Round Rock as they have passed a city ordinance that
>specifies that they will use off-road trails to provide connectivity.
>
>David Bartels, the Round Rock member of the committee
>has gotten approval to change that statement to
>
>"This policy also may be met by demonstrating that future demand
>will be addressed through local implementation of a comprehensive
>interconnected system of on-road and off-road bicycle facilities."
>
>All in all I think we've come a long way towards actually
>adopting the FHWA Design Guidance as amended.
>
>We need to continue to let the CAMPO board know that we are
>interested in what they are doing at that we are prepared to speak
>up for our rights.  Right now the system seems to be working and
>listening to our concerns so we probably don't need any vitriolic rants.
>
>Preston Tyree
>
>Legislative Liaison Committee
>Austin Cycling Association