Transportation Commission Proposes Bike Plan at Meeting Tonight

The City of Healdsburg's Transportation Advisory Committee meets tonight, at 5:15 pm, to discuss their proposals in public session. It’s the first item on the agenda, after Public Comments, so you’ll still have time afterward to ride home while it’s still light.

The link below will take you to the agenda item report.

Item 4. BICYCLE AND PEDESTRIAN MASTER PLAN – Review of the Plan, additional comments and consider by motion adoption of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan– (Assistant City Manager – David Mickaelian)

When the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition proposed the Vulnerable User Ordinance to the Healdsburg City Council in February,  it appeared that the measure was being proposed for passage as a standing document. The city council assigned it to Police Chief Kevin Burke for review, the first step in its eventual failure at Monday’s meeting, according to cycling proponents.

Burke finally brought his spare report before the Council in May, and while admitting it made no pretense at becoming a criminal statute – his area of concern – neither did he suggest it go elsewhere in city government for review. The four-member council split on the measure and its fate, eventually kicking it down the figurative road until the June 3 meeting thwhen all five members were present.

The result, after another lengthy debate, after four months, the Council finally decided not to continue considering the measure, by a 5-0 vote.

But there was a silver lining, according to Gary Helfrich of the SCBC. “At the end of the day they didn’t say No – they said we have a problem, but we need a different tool to solve it. That’s a success for now.”

That “success” was the Council asking the city’s Transportation Advisory Committee to incorporate vulnerable users of public thoroughfares, both bicyclists and pedestrians, into their ongoing considerations of a Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan.

The motion of the city council actually was a 5-0 vote, to not move forward with the Vulnerable User Ordinance but to instruct the TAC to incorporate educational component for vulnerable users in their studies.

“We lost in Windsor, where they barely even discussed it,” said the Bicycle Coalition’s executive director, referring to the 4-1 defeat of the measure there earlier this spring. “Here, it took two long hearings to come to the decision."

What do you think - did the city miss an opportunity to show solidarity with cyclists and pedestrians, or do we just not have a problem here?