February 18, 2013

Posted on by admin

Attendees:

Bill Struever, Jimmy Rouse, Alan Fish, Adam Gross, Scott Burkholder, Wally Pinkard, Thibault Manekin, Tighe Greenhaigh, Greg Smith, Robin Budish

Jimmy: Purpose of meeting

  • Create a vision
  • Define the topics
  • Create work groups

Adam: Final Deliverable

  • Focused series of transit recommendations & costs

Discussion:

  • The “Transit Choice Group” was chosen as the new committee name
  • Red Line – we want to be publicly supportive of the project. However, if it does get funding there will be no additional transportation money for the city. If possible, take a portion of state share and put money into local transit projects
  • The concept of “Bike Sharing” was discussed at the “Create Baltimore” event held on February 16, 2013 at JHU. Can we (Transit Choice Group) invest in public transit and raise money to get it started in Baltimore? The group should consider doing a plan for Bike Share/Bike Lanes. Include how to encourage African American men to ride their bikes to work?
  • Transit projects should get people through the city, and not to the city
  • The Work Group should pick the things we can do (low hanging fruit) such as Bike Share & reorganize the Bus System, MARC improvement
  • Typically any rail project takes 5-10 years to plan, and 5-10 years to build
  • We need to continue the momentum around a transportation vision and plan
  • Challenge: how do we move the needle in Annapolis? (any major project requires funding)
  • The “victory” should be so much bigger than debating over small transportation issues
  • April 5-7, 2013 Betamore is hosting a “Reinvent Transit” event
  • Explore private solutions for funding – determine what is the minimum amount of involvement we need from the city
  • People should prefer to take mass transit, rather than people who don’t have a choice must take mass transit
  • We should invite an engineer such as someone from Kittelson to be part of the discussion/solution

Action Items:

Invite the following individuals from the city to the next meeting asking them to speak for 10 minutes about the city’s plan and funding for each of their areas of expertise:

  • Bike Coordinator (Nate Evans) – Scott will contact
  • Bus Coordinator – Robin will contact
  • Circulator (Barry Robinson) – Greg will contact

Adam will reach out to and invite to the next meeting:

  • Colin Talbert
  • Leif Dormsjo
  • Jamie Kendrick
  • New Transportation Director