Write to your Representative here: http://capwiz.com/lab/issues/alert/?alertid=60927571

From The League of American Bicyclists:

House Bill Reverses Decades of Progress on Bike/Ped
It’s so much worse than we thought.

Please join us there – it will be essential for cyclists’ concerns to be heard.

METRO invites you to attend a public meeting to review and comment on the Urban Design Guidelines (UDG) for the 2.6-mile Tempe Streetcar project that will serve the downtown and Central Tempe community.

The UDG is a document that will provide the future project designers with guidelines for how the streetcar stops should look, including concepts for seating, lighting, platform paving treatments, canopies, etc.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012
6 – 8 p.m.; presentation at 6:15 p.m.
Tempe Transportation Center, Don Cassano Room
200 E. 5th St., Tempe, 85281

For more information, see: http://www.valleymetro.org/metro_projects_planning/tempe_streetcar/

and http://www.tempe.gov/tim/TempeStreetcar.htm

The City of Phoenix installed Sharrows and Bikes May Use Full Lane signs along 48th St South of Guadalupe over the past few weeks. Read all about it on the CAzB blog: http://blog.cazbike.org/2012/01/phoenix-places-slms-and-bumfl-signs.html and with some technical analysis on AZBikeLaw: http://azbikelaw.org/blog/48th-street-piedmont-to-guadalupe/

Good work City of Phoenix!

Hello bike advocates – this month has a lot of important events.

• We need your help with the bike count – a new organizing committee is forming and there is a lot to do. Email Scott to get on our planning committee list.
• We are also working with an ASU College of Design class to develop an ad campaign for bike safety – join us as we meet with the students to give them feedback in mid-February – see more info here.
• Also – note the upcoming streetcar meeting on Wednesday, Feb 8th – see more infohere.

Please email Aaron if you are interested in helping out with any of this, or have other ideas for advocacy projects.

The city of Tempe is soliciting feedback from residents, businesses and organizations about a project to improve pedestrian and bicycle facilities, enhance the streetscape and calm traffic on University Drive

between the Union Pacific Railroad just east of Farmer Avenue and Priest Drive. This project is funded with $1.1 million in federal grant money. If you would like to add your comments and/or see the current project status please visit: http://www.tempe.gov/tim/Traffic/UniversityDr.htm

Some TBAG board members attended the initial meeting on January 12th, and we are very excited about this project and its positive impact on the downtown Tempe area. Let us and the City of Tempe know your ideas. The next public meeting is in March where City officials will present design concepts based on the feedback they have received.

Attached here is the final report from the 2011 Tempe Bike Count. Get in touch if you are interested in helping with the 2012 bike count.

PDF File: Tempe Bike Count 2011 Final Report

The Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) has issued a draft report reviewing bike and pedestrian crash data in Maricopa county in order to develop appropriate countermeasures. Please email me at aar...@biketempe.org if you’d like a copy to review. Comments are due on November 15th.

TBAG will have a bike themed booth at this year’s ASU Family Fun Day on Saturday July 10th.

You can read about it here and the summary is below.

Saturday Jul 10, 2010
Location: ASU Art Museum
Cost: Free

What moves you? How do you get from one place to another? Walking, driving a car, riding a bike and traveling by train are all ways to move from here to there. This exhibition highlights these and other modes of transportation in paintings, sculpture and prints. Hands-on activities throughout the exhibition will get your imagination moving, too!

From Eric Iwersen:

The bicycling community came together recently to honor two cyclists killed in separate, unrelated accidents in Tempe during May. Chris Volpe was killed May 10 when he was struck by a vehicle while riding his bike at University Drive and Ash Avenue. A week later, bicyclist Jay Fretz was struck and killed at the intersection of McClintock and Alameda drives.

Memorials for each of the cyclists included installation of a “ghost bike” – a bicycle that has been painted solid white – near each of the accident locations. A well-known practice by cycling communities internationally, the ghost bike serves as both a memorial and a reminder of the potential dangers bike riders face.

City of Tempe staff have been working together with the bicycling community for decades to make Tempe a bicycle-friendly community. Following these two accidents, members of the Tempe Bicycle Action Group and other bicycling advocates have contacted city staff and elected officials to express concern and advocate for continued efforts to increase bicycle safety.

Tempe encourages community members to participate in planning bicycle facilities and outreach efforts, and has a number of ways people can be involved, including the Transportation Commission, which is comprised of Tempe residents (several of whom are bicyclists), and the Commission’s Multi-modal Planning Committee to facilitate community dialogue and input on bicycle/pedestrian projects and issues.

Over the last 14 years – since passage of Tempe’s transit tax – the city has emphasized multi-modalism and creating a balanced transportation system with connectivity between transit, bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Improvements include on-street bicycle lanes, multi-use paths, streetscape and traffic calming projects. Tempe now has more than 170 miles of bikeways throughout the city.

We have received word of a second bicyclist fatality, and would like to request any and all help in spreading the word and gathering relevant information about the accident. This accident has not yet received any media coverage. On Monday, May 17, at roughly 6:30 pm, Jay Fretz was at the intersection of Alameda and McClintock where he was struck by an SUV driver who did not see him. He was pronounced DOA at the hospital. He is survived by his wife and five-year-old daughter.

Update: We sent out a press release and got some media coverage for both incidents including an article on azcentral and ABC 15. The family along with TBAG and Bike Saviours are installing a ghost bike in memory of Jay this weekend. Meet at Bike Saviours at 10am on Saturday May 29th. We’ll ride to to the site of the accident at Alameda and McClintock. Here are a few shots of the ghost bike preparations:

Click here for more photos of the ghost bike by Ryan Guzy

We will update this post again after the memorial.