Thursday, February 17, 2011

Goss Grove Bike and Transit Charrette With City and GO Boulder


Remember when we rolled out the map of the neighborhood and noted ideas for a Bike Boulevard and other transit improvements? That was at our last quarterly neighborhood meeting. Now is the time to get serious about this!!
Rich Points has set up a design charrette with GGNA, GO Boulder, and Boulder city planners February 24 4 p.m. in the basement of the main Naropa Building.
If you missed them, scroll down and see the videos of successful bike boulevards in other cities, including Portland, Oregon. They're worth a look. Actually, they're really fun and inspiring.
This meeting is also timely in light of the recent serious accident at 21st and Canyon.
We need a good turn out for this so we have the maximum ideas going forward. This is a real opportunity for Goss Grove Neighborhood.
********************
AND speaking of neighborhoods, thanks to all who turned up at the city open house on the land use changes last night. There were a dozen people who came to ask questions who hadn't been at any of our meetings on the subject, including landlords. There were questions and real interest, but no strong opposition to either the land-use changes or to any modification to the map we submitted to the city. Good news all around. The city planners seemed to be impressed at seeing new faces that were also supportive.

Monday, February 14, 2011

THIS WEDNESDAY--OPEN HOUSE ON REZONING


You should have all received this postcard on potential land use change. There is already written comment on file for no change or change that does not include Arapahoe addresses.
So if you care, you'll be there--Municipal Building Lobby, Wednesday February 16 5-7 p.m. Everybody who shows up makes it known that we're watching this process and have an opinion. Hope to see you there.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Goss-Grove Neighborhood Meeting, January 20, 2011



Goss-Grove Neighborhood Meeting Minutes
January 20, 2011

Attendees:  Jerrie and Jon, Jenny and Stephen, Mary and Maria, Amy, Michele, Mindy and Kent,  Loren and Andrea, Jeffrey and Cynthia, Sarah (web designer) and Rich (Community Cycles)

Food:  Shrimp gumbo, two kinds of brownies!!, fresh baked bread, salad, wine, chips, three layer bean dip.  Yummy!

Sarah presented the new web page she has designed for the neighborhood. You can find it at www.gossgrove.com.  Sarah has a business called Balanced Community, you can find her web site at http://balancedcommunity.com/ and is involved in hyperlocal activities.  She donated her time to design this site and it is totally awesome. Check it out!  On it, you will find:
-Our blog (which is also at www.goss-grove.blogspot.com
-Pictures from our neighborhood which are posted on flickr.  If you want yours to stream past, just label them as Goss-Grove and upload them to flickr.  You need a yahoo account to do this.
- City and County news releases
- Events, links, various feeds…
-Community bulletin board (rooms for rent, for sale, etc.)
- There is some movement afoot to have a quarterly neighborhood member profile
You can register on the site, which will then allow you to post to the forum or put in content.  Anyone can view, only members can post. Sarah will moderate and upkeep for one year.  After that, we’ll see where we’re at.  Thank you, Sarah!

One cool thing you can do if you want to let officials know of a problem in the city is to go to www.seeclickfix.com.   I took a look at what activity there was and the last thing I saw posted was months ago, but it was commented on by the Boulder traffic engineer so the comments do get picked up.

Mindy Hurd (no relation to Jerrie and Jon)  took another look at whether we could somehow get eco-passes in the neighborhood.  She was not successful because an eco-pass program has to be for a contiguous area and it’s hard to get enough people for it not to be too expensive.  Appreciate the effort, Mindi!

Rich rolled out a large map of the Goss-Grove neighborhood (well, part of it, between 17th to Folsom, Canyon to Arapahoe).  Lots of discussion about how to make this neighborhood more friendly to bikes.  Suggested items included, pedestrian islands on Arapahoe at 21st and 22nd so we could get across more easily (kind of like at 17th and Grove on the south side of the intersection).  Add one of those to the north side of that intersection, too.  Make crossings at Grove and 21st and Grove and 23rd less treacherous for bikes (angle of crossing and ballards).  Contra flow between 16th and  17th for bikes.  Next step to have design charrette with city.  Mindi, Michele, Mary, Jerrie and Andrea are all interested in participating.  Rich mentioned a grant which he thinks would be good to apply for from the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program, in April.  The program would include some sort of program for students which would include help with local job placement (so bikes can be used to get there instead of cars), membership to carshare, access to bike shack (at Naropa, currently run by Community Cycles).  Students have to pledge to not have a car. CU is also on a mission to get students to reduce car usage (on campus, anyway). 

Mary gave us an update on zoning.  On the one hand, there does not seem to be much going on, but then there is a meeting scheduled for  February 16th from 5-7 on the Comprehensive Plan.  The next meeting after that is March-April time frame.  Jerrie and Mary said they would find out what is happening at the Feb. 9th meeting; someone probably needs to be there. The City did not like all our zig/zag lines we drew for our neighborhood.  

Monday, January 24, 2011

Rich's Videos on Bicycle Blvd's

Here are some videos Rich Points sent to give a better idea of Bicycle Blvd ideas. Used to live in Portland, Oregon area. I'm familiar with Lincoln Street and this really was an improvement for the NE part of that city.

www.StreetFilms.org-Berkeley Bike Boulevards

StreetFilms-Portland: Bicycle Boulevards

Friday, January 21, 2011

test 17

have confirmed that posts will go to my yahoo address.  Have added blogger to group membership in googlegroups.  Now we'll see if this actually gets forwarded...like it used to with no problem.