 ahead and get started. Again, my name is Daniel Amstutz. I'm the senior transportation planner for the town of Arlington and the Department of Planning and Community Development. And this is the second public meeting of the Manitman Bikeway Planning Project, which is a Community Preservation Act funded project for this fiscal year through the town's CPA committee. And we can get going to the next slide. So this is the agenda. We're going to cover the explanation on the town's calendar page for this meeting. Kind of talks about this aspect of it. So we'll do some introductions and instructions in a moment. And then I'm going to give it over to Kittleson and Associates, which is our consultant on the project and also GPI, which is the landscape architect working with Kittleson. They'll give a project update. We're going to talk a lot about access points, trailheads and way sides for the Manitman Bikeway in Arlington. There'll be some time for questions. And then a big chunk of the second half of the meeting is going to do some interactive polling. So you're going to be able to answer some questions about some important features of wayside and trailheads, which is an important aspect of this project. So on to the next slide. So I'm sure everyone is fairly familiar with Zoom meetings. Everyone enters muted by default. If you can please keep yourself muted until we call on you to ask a question. Once we get to that part of the meeting, feel free to turn on the camera if you would like to, especially when we get to the Q&A section and other sections down the line. The chat function can be used to send us questions for the Q&A later on. During that period, we'll mainly prioritize the people that would like to speak during the meeting in person, or I mean, you're live at the meeting, but you can send us some questions. And let's see, this meeting is being recorded. Our expectation is that this will be posted to the town's website in several days. So probably by the next week, it'll be ready and we'll send out a message, probably a town notice about that when that happens. And then there's some instruction at the bottom of the screen about how to mute raising hands if you're calling in by phone. So I'm on the next slide. So I think at this point, I'm going to turn it over to Liz Flanagan who is the project manager at Kittleson Associates to kick things off and start talking about the project. Yeah, thanks Dan. So thank you everyone for joining us this evening. This is our second public meeting on the Minuteman Bikeway Planning Project. So we're going to start off just with a quick update on where we're at in the project process. So in the fall, we were doing existing conditions analysis and also some public outreach via a survey and a public meeting. And then going into the winter, we were reviewing the results from that survey, as well as drafting the vision and goals for the project, as well as future project and work on the Minuteman. And now we're in the process. We'll be doing this, which is going to help us introduce the ideas of access points and waysides and trailheads to you and then collect some input from you all about what you would like to see with respect to those. We'll be taking all of that information and incorporating that into the work that we're doing to develop corridor-wide and site-specific recommendations. So that covers policy maintenance as well as kind of design aspects of the bikeway. And then once we get into late spring, we'll be putting all of that together into an action plan with implementation recommendations. So the existing conditions analysis chapter is available online. And so the link to that is provided here. So when the presentation is uploaded to the town's website, you'll be able to access it by clicking on that link. We've also provided a link to the town's website that you can just access it directly from at the end of the presentation as well. And if you were at our last public meeting, this list of items that are covered in the chapter will look fairly familiar from the presentation. It goes over document review, so relevant past studies and documentation, volumes, crash history, existing access points, and some of the challenges we're seeing with those existing signs and lighting, artwork, intersections, and some of the nuance around that, existing maintenance practices, bridges, drainage, and then path width and constraints for widening. So that's still fine in the existing conditions chapter. And if you're interested, I encourage you to go take a look at that. And then we also wanted to report back on what we found from the survey. So in the fall, we did do a survey that was both online as well as some intercept surveys along the bikeway itself. And we heard from a lot of people. So we got almost 1700 respondents, the majority of whom were between the ages of 35 and 54. We had 55% of respondents who identified as female, 42% identified as male, and 1% as non-binary or non-conforming, and 90% of respondents were white or Caucasian. And we wanted to go through some of the key takeaways from that survey. So in this chart, you can see we asked the question, how do you currently use the Minuteman Bikeway in Arlington? We had a range of responses. The top response was exercise or health. And the second top response was recreation or socialization. But what we learned is that the bikeway is used often for many reasons and by many different modes. So there might not be one kind of typical bikeway user. There are, however, lots of users. 61% visit the bikeway every day or a few times a week. And many of the people who use the bikeway are also traveling with children, pets, or pushing a spoiler. Bikeway users value safety, comfort, and having a space to travel away from vehicles and among natural beauty. We heard from 70% that separation from vehicles and safety and comfort for all users was very important. And then access to nature, responsible and safe use of electric bikes and scooters, and access to neighboring cities or towns was ranked as important or very important by more than half of respondents. And then we, so we had some open ended questions as part of the survey. So we did go through those responses that we thought it would be interesting. Again, there were 1700 responses. So we thought it would be cool to do a word cloud and see out of all of those responses, kind of what are the words that are, you know, trickling out as being mentioned again and again and again. So you can see in this, there are some words are kind of coming to the forefront. So lighting is one of those words, signage, children. We've got words like speed, safety and dangerous. And then we also have words like etiquette, scooters, maintenance, routes is one, as well as not weed. So it was really interesting to see some of the themes. Like I said, lots of different types of users using the bikeway for different purposes, but we're seeing some common concerns and views really coming out through those responses. And there is room for improvement. 68% of respondents ranked lighting as poor or very poor. And then signs, maps and wayfinding to the path and nearby destinations. Path users are etiquette. So that's things like passing and how you yield to other users. And space for all modes and users to operate comfortably were ranked as poor or very poor by nearly half of respondents. Building on those, what we learned from what could be improved, we did just want to touch on some of the things that will be covered when we're talking about recommendations. So we will be looking into opportunities for lighting along the bikeway, both where and what types of lighting that could be. For wayfinding, you'll see in the images on the left side of the slide, these are some of the existing signs. So one thing that we're seeing is some inconsistency between types of signs. They might be harder to read as you're biking by or walking by. So we'll be looking into opportunities for consistency in signage, as well as opportunities for how we can connect people, either to local destinations from the bikeway or vice versa from, you know, from Mass Ave, some of the town centers to the bikeway itself. And then we'll also be looking into opportunities to enhance etiquette. So that would be more through a policy approach, as well as that kind of signs and informational kiosks and things like that. And then comfortable space for users of all ages and abilities. We'll be looking into opportunities. Where is it possible to widen the bikeway and how could that be done? As well as alternate strategies looking into some traffic calming or pavement marking strategies that could help separate users and really designate space for different speeds and needs. And then so building off what we learned from the public engagement process in the first part of the project. We drafted a set of vision and goals. And the hope is that this vision will guide not only just this project, but also projects in the future on the bikeway. So coming out of that public engagement process, the vision is that the bikeway will be a safe, pleasant, and low stress corridor for active transportation and recreation that is accessible and comfortable for all ages and abilities. And then in support of that vision, there are four goals. So these give a little bit more direction in terms of decision making. So under the umbrella of safety, the bikeway will increase safety by reducing potential for and severity of conflicts between path users and vehicles at intersections and among path users along the bikeway and at access points. Under the kind of comfort umbrella, the bikeway will be a low stress facility that is comfortable for all ages and abilities, open to a suite of modes of active transportation and available at all times of day and year. With respect to connectivity, the goal is that the bikeway will be a safe, efficient, and direct off-road connection between neighborhoods, other recreational facilities, rapid transit, and neighboring cities and towns. And the bikeway will facilitate additional local and regional connections as part of a larger walking and biking network. And then lastly, with respect to community and nature, the goal is that the bikeway will provide an aesthetically pleasing user experience by providing access to nature, enhancing the open space in which it resides, and fostering a sense of place and community. So I'll just pause for a moment so everyone can kind of digest that for a second, and then we'll move on and we'll certainly have time for some questions and comments at the end of the presentation as well as at the end of the meeting. So at this point, I am going to pass it off to Bob White who is from GPI and he's going to introduce some of the definitions that we're talking about when we're thinking about access points, trailheads, and way sides. And with that, I'll let you dive in. Thank you very much, Liz, and good evening, everybody. So I'm Robert White and I'm a landscape architect with Greenland Peterson. And coincidence would have it that I actually grew up just over the hill from Arlington in Winchester, kind of near the Arlington-Lexington border. And many, many years ago, I remember getting a very excited call from my mother who had just gone and ridden a bike with my father on the newly opened minimum and bike path, explaining rather enthusiastically that I had to come down immediately and ride this bicycle path with them. So it was early in my career as a landscape architect. And so it was a very exciting thing to see happen in, you know, very close to the neighborhood that I grew up in. So here we are, and we have a path that's, you know, this created in a moment of basically creating bicycle infrastructure. And now we've lived with it for 25 plus years. And we have the opportunity with the study to really expand the picture and vision of what the path might be. And so we've learned a lot about what bicycle paths in linear parks and greenways and what all those different kinds of experiences of being outdoors in a long, linear public space could be. And so we're trying to take that sort of viewpoint here for the Minuteman this evening for a little while. So I've had a wonderful time over the past week or so collecting hundreds of images of wonderful bike paths all over the country and abroad. So my IT director looked at my desktop of my computer this afternoon, which is littered with images and just I'm lucky I still work for GPI. So we're going to go through some of this and talk about what is an access point trailhead wayside and then both compare to what we see out there today on the Minuteman and look at some ideas that might pride your creativity and imagination for what this path might become. So we all know that a great amount of the use of the Minuteman path is from the neighbors. This is your neighbor for many of you who live in Arlington, maybe even your backyard or or side yard, a butt's up to the pathway and it is a regular part of your life. Those places where you go to the path, whether it's a little sneaking path through the woods that's been beaten down because the neighbors just know that's the way to get there or whether there are more official constructed access routes that you're taking from parks or from your neighborhood. These are all different ways to get there. We've tallied in almost 50 different points where informal and formal uses are coming to the park. Almost all of them are not handicapped accessible and many are in need of improvements. So we have some work to do in this area. So that's why it's on this list. Okay. The trailhead, some of you who live a distance from the path may drive there, so that's been my experience, find a place to park, get the bike off the rack, and then you arrive at a point when you say, okay, I'm beginning my ride or I'm beginning my walk. And so this location, this transition of arriving, maybe leaving your car behind and actually entering the path corridor itself is a trailhead location. And a lot of things happen here. People that are new are looking for information about kind of where I'm going, what I'm going to do, what's going to happen. And also there's a sort of a setting of a tone and character in those locations. Okay. And then the wayside, for as many people who come to the path for exercise and you're rolling along in your bike or you're walking, you're speed walking with a stroller and the busyness of the exercise, is a people also need to take a break. And so we've been thinking that one of the things we're hearing is people's concern about the congestion and busyness of the path itself. And it feels like we should and we have looked and have found enormous opportunities for areas along the path where we can either do sort of an adaptive reuse of some existing activities to make them nicer or create new opportunities to basically leave the busyness of the path, find a nice quiet place where you can either have in solitude and quietness or you could have some rather exciting or stimulating social interaction with other people. You might even read Haiku, like our friend in the center of the image there is at a path gathering. So all of these are things that could happen alongside the path. And we've been actually quite surprised with the amount of space that is available to take advantage of for where we might do that. Okay, now I'm not going to read all of this. This breaks the cardinal rule of PowerPoint. But what we're seeing is that in regards to trail heads, way sides and access is that there are a series of experiences. And so we're going to sort of filter these through some images that you're going to see shortly. But basically, we're still sticking with these, we're sticking with these sort of themes. There's access and orientation arriving to the path, getting oriented and have that be handicapped, accessible and welcoming. There are a variety of piece of components to making sort of setting the stage for that with information kiosks that can help guide you to the things that you might want to do along the path, rest and regrouping, looking for places where you can basically take a pause of the busyness of travel, might be scenic views of the landscape of the town, or I'll call it the townscape, the built environment in nature, and some of the creature comforts that would go with that, like a nice place to sit or a place to leave bag, your bag lunch if you have consumed it on the park bench. Immersion, people come to the path to leave their busy life behind, and they see it as a natural area, but it's also an opportunity for the richness of the cultural history of this community to really take advantage of that. I know from my part one of my favorite musical composers grew up and lived in Arlington. There's amazing history here that goes all the way back to the Minutemen. And Paul Revere practically touched the end of the Minutemen path as he crossed from the Mystic River to head to Mass Ave, to head to Lexington on that fateful day. There is so much authentic history about your community that takes place along this path. And if you're not resting and regrouping, then you're recreating. People are going to this path and the play fields and trails, playgrounds, to work out, to get to give their kids a place to run. All of these things are taking place, and the path is what ties together many open spaces. Okay? So on access and orientation, as I mentioned, we've seen a number of informal and sort of improvised places to get into the path. What we'd like to do is really talk about sort of a sea change of attitude where we celebrate access and make it a true positive experience and make that a part of the design and look and feel and the sort of the public life of coming to the trail or leaving the trail, signage, site furniture, landscaping, all of those things can be added to make your arrival and access and orientation to the path a wonderful experience. Okay? And some of the things, as I mentioned, we have a lot of stairs that go to various places on the park. We'd like to think that they can become really more interesting and part of an experience there, adding kiosks, and then the accessible design for all of the major places where in all of the places where it's physically possible to achieve that, so that there is a minimal of physical topographical barriers for people in the community and visiting to get on to the path or to depart the path to return home. Okay? So for the busyness of the exercise, pulling over to the side for rest and recuperation and relaxation, either by yourself or in groups and making places for that is a wonderful opportunity for us to make little sort of private outdoor sitting areas or living rooms or, you know, a family room or a more public space where there's more public gathering and activities. All of these are possibilities, but what we've learned is that we really need to set those to the side of the through path and make them of a nice attractive design and materials and furnishings. It's kind of like it's kind of like exterior design to accomplish all of that. Okay? And some of those places where we would look at waysides are some of the most important places in town where there's a great story to tell. The, in some of those locations can be in their authentic places like the view of spy pond where back in the 1900s an entrepreneur from Arlington cut ice from spy pond, put it on boats and sent it to China so that people could have cold martinis. Literally that happened in Arlington. It's a great sort of story of the town's history. It's took advantage of the railroad, took advantage of natural resources, and it was a particularly creative business individual who was a pillar of the community. There are a lot of things along because of the railroad history of the corridor. The original train depot in Arlington Heights is right in the center there. That's that's the actual structure that no longer exists. And then looking at those places where we do a wayside and we engage people to look off of the path out into nature or out into the community is to elevate that experience with meaningful place making and historical environmental all different manners of interpretation. Okay, the wealth of creative individuals in this town over its entire history is significant and really worth recognizing. You have painters and sculptors and music composers. You have the creators of the spreadsheet before Microsoft were from Arlington. And the possibility of that enriching this whole experience of immersion into the path where you leave your your regular world behind you leave you know maybe even leave your phone behind so that you can go and partake of some fresh air and exercise seeing your neighbors either being by yourself in an individual act or in some kind of social setting. And so bringing the creative endeavors of the community as a tradition to be exercised and elevated along the path is a great opportunity. We even have things that we can do creatively as art installations if we have invasive Norway maples we could make them into arches and leading you know leading to some of the side trails in the in the area. And then the notion that we would bring into some of these special places attractive landscaping we can do a lot of that with native materials and make it truly an outstanding park like or garden like experience in some of the wayside areas as you move through it. Okay. It's wonderful to see even in October on a chilly day when we are out there touring the corridor getting getting ourselves oriented for the number of children. High school students across country team was getting ready to go out for a practice run. There were daycares of kids all buddied up with their safety rope walking from daycare down to a park area or playground and then children playing on the play fields. The opportunities for the the landscape and experience of the of the path can also be mirrored in the public spaces the play spaces that are alongside the path itself. Okay. And there are more trails than just the Minuteman path the trail it feeds off into other areas. In most cases these are casualties almost sort of bootleg or goat path like connections but with some intentional design we could look at a connecting sort of dendritic connection from the Minuteman out into other outlying areas of accessible trails that could be ready for everyone you know available and usable for all all ages if their disabilities wheelchairs any other disabilities that would cause you to you know not be able to go and just hike up a hiking trail but looking at an opportunity what we call the the practice of sustainable trails and the conservation land parks recreation areas and connections to the neighborhood can all be done with an approach like this. Okay so I'll bring to conclusion this thought is that the Minuteman 25 or so years later is no longer just a bike path it's really a broader picture and so this is an opportunity let's let's think about what this next era for the for the path might be and there's just a couple points I might leave you with as you consider this we're going to have the polling happening a little later that will bring back some of these points for you to help us with your feedback on but I just would offer a few things in in consideration is it's no longer just a bike path it's a linear park and there are all sorts of experiences that we can provide with with design modifications to the existing condition that we see out there and so the image on the left there of a greenway park with a bike path weaving through it and then public spaces gardens overlooks interpretation all of that sort of woven into a broader picture of what a linear green space is at the same time the purity of this railroad corridor slicing across town and the simplicity of that let's keep it simple and not clutter it up too much even though we might find we have a lot of things we want to accomplish out here thinking about that just the serenity of the image in the center and then on the right is the clear message that we've gotten from the surveys and talking to people just in person out there as we've gone out a number of times on bike or on foot to to look at things and meet people is is recognizing that the through movement is so popular is that we need to look at management interventions to that one of the ways to do that is to basically understand that the people that are traveling and cruising on a bicycle maybe not me mixing well at this point with people that are walking with a stroller and just out for a relaxing private time and so the way sides and sort of adjacent spaces that we might use can have a contribution to try to tease apart so we don't have too many people running into each other and feeling unsafe and uncomfortable so these are just some things I'll leave you with in consideration as we go ahead so I will turn it back to Liz and we have we're just going to allow for a period of time of some thoughts and questions from you and then keep going yes so we'll take some questions and then like Bob mentioned we'll be getting into the polling after that and we'll have some more time at the end for for conversation but if you do have a question if you could use the raise the hand function and then we can call on you and as Daniel mentioned at the beginning if you would rather type your question in that's fine we'll try and call on people with their hands raised first and then we'll get to the chat questions so I see a hand from Beth Hi thank you Beth Malofchuk I have two questions and thank you very much for the presentation it was beautiful and some of those things look really fantastic and I very much appreciated the history and your insights into the history and I really really love that gorgeous oak tree in the center of the Winchester Town Green so I hope there'll be some tree plantings particularly between Water Street and Mill Street I think we have some wonderful opportunities for an arboretum in Arlington along the bike trail but I can talk to you more about that later my two questions first did we win the lottery what's our budget for renovation and repair of bike trail that's my first question and my second question is at one point do we continue the discussion of the spur of the bike trail that was the basis for the first meeting the first planning meeting that piece from or along the Mystic River Mystic Valley Parkway and then up Summer Street and the decision about where it would be connecting from Summer Street to the Minuteman bike trail there's two questions thank you yeah thanks for those questions so I can start and then I'll pass it over to Daniel so the scope for this project it is a planning study and so what we're really trying to do is to understand the issues and the opportunities so that we can provide kind of higher level recommendations some of those will be getting down to specific recommendations at specific locations but ultimately this is hopefully an implementation plan to to move forward into specific projects and then for the other question about the spur I'll pass it over to Daniel yeah thank you Liz so that is a project that is essentially going along the same is in tandem with this essentially occurring in the same time frame that should wrap up at the end of June and but it's going along kind of a different track that with a different consultant and funding source but the idea is that how that would connect into the bikeway is going to be something that's still being studied but potentially at Mill Street or around Russell Place and in actually at the end of the month there's going to be a meeting of another public meeting to talk about alternatives for that and so that is when it'll get more into the meat of the potential alternatives to where that trail will or where it could connect into the Minuteman and I think the you know idea would be to see how we can sort of marry these these two plans in a way especially where that connection meets and understanding you know like that could be a trailhead or more or like you know a very significant connection point when that project you know whenever that project would come to implementation so yeah they're they're going along the same lines but they're both you know thinking about sort of two different trails I see another hand from Jennifer hi thank you thanks for the presentation I really like the vision of what you're showing here I did notice in the trailhead section you really just emphasized people driving to the trail what can and parking before accessing it what can we do to really encourage and make comfortable for people other ways to get to the Minuteman trail because frankly putting the having to put our bikes on the car to drive a mile to get to a trail is not I was just saying not my ideal scenario but that's what I've actually spent a lot of my life trying to avoid so how can we make it comfortable and safe and convenient for people to walk and bike or take transit and know how to get to the trail and have that connection easy to make yeah that's a great question and this is something that we're really interested in so vehicle parking is is something that is often included at trailheads and that's especially important for people who are coming from further away or might not have the you know physical ability to walk or bike to the bikeway but still want to benefit from from using it but we're also thinking about things like bike share stations bike parking bike repair stations and then something else that we've been talking about is a bit broader so not something that you might see in this section about you know specific visioning for trails and way sides but what we're learning is that the bikeway is being used by so many people for so many different purposes and it's really just it's trying to wear a lot of hats and so something that we're talking about is you know ways to and it's a bit out of the scope of this study but thinking about improving level of comfort for people who bike and people who walk off of the bikeway as well so that there are more opportunities both for parallel routes as well as connections to the bikeway and then lastly again another piece that doesn't quite fall under what we're talking about tonight specifically but but is related all these things are are related is the wayfinding section which would be identifying opportunities to inform people if you're in Arlington Heights how do you get to the bikeway if you're on the bikeway how do you get to locations that are nearby how do you get to food or a local public restroom or things like that so I don't know if that fully answers your question but I think it's a great it's a great point this is Dan I'll just oh I was just going to add that I you know a lot of some of that I were a part of that you know really tying into the connect Arlington sustainable transportation plan and trying to connect people to not just the bikeway but just all over town with different ways alternative modes to get around so I it speaks a bit more to that but but Liz is right with the sort of you know pulling these two things together as to access to the bikeway and then how the plan and other projects that we're working on can facilitate that thank you uh David yeah hey sorry just just a quick question I mean maybe this was already addressed but did you guys look into the feasibility of having a separate like separate uh paths for bikes and uh folks that are walking is is the bike path just not large enough to accommodate to two separate trails yep so um we are currently in the phase where we're starting to pull together those recommendations at a corridor wide level and so that is something that we're looking into what are the opportunities and feasibility of widening and then balancing that potentially with some other strategies for traffic calming and separating users by you know signs and pavement markings and things like that got it thanks I haven't seen any questions in the chat okay um well in that case why don't we move on to the pulling and we'll go through that and then if we have some extra time at the end we will certainly be able to take some more questions or comments all right so we are going to do a series of questions to get your input and we'll be doing that through zoom so you'll still be able to see the presentation we will activate the poll and you'll get a pop-up window in zoom and then you'll choose your response or responses and click submit and then once we've got kind of a critical mass of responses we will share the responses so that you can see everything kind of in real time for the most part we will be asking questions that ask you to select um you know anywhere between zero and four things that are important to you either important or relevant so you are welcome to choose none of them if none of them are relevant or important to you you are welcome to choose all of them but our hope is that you will be judicious in your selections and we will be able to identify some some trends and patterns from these responses so with that we can move on to the first question so I'll just read through this and then we'll activate the poll so the first question is which amenities that help you access and get oriented along the bikeway are important to you so um when Daniel activates this it will ask you to check all that apply so you can choose all four or any combination of the options that are here uh so vehicular parking with directional signs is the first choice informational kiosks and maps or regulatory signs with rules and policies as a way to orient you to the bikeway and the environment that you're in we're also asking about services such as bike rental or repair stations and then bike parking so if you could go ahead and activate that we'll give people a little bit of time to read through that again and choose select their choices here we go so we'll let that go for about a minute or so I can see how many people have participated so appreciate your adding your comments and feedback to this okay we got a little bit more than half participating again thanks for participating you're not required to but we do appreciate it let's see I've got a question about where is the poll somebody's saying they're not getting it that's odd I know I think if you are what I've heard is that if you do have like a phone and you're accessing it through a phone or like accessing a zoom meeting through a phone that the poll might not show up very well for you or if it's difficult to get to it it's possible also that if you don't have an updated version of zoom it might not be showing up for you I apologize for that right so it looks like we're we've reached a stasis okay we'll see how the we'll try the next one we'll see how that goes so I will end it so and so I can share the results I think everybody can hopefully if you if you can get the pop-up hopefully you can see this but basically we had 82 percent of people that responded about the informational and regulatory signs being important for vehicular parking is the clear loser here bicycle parking at half and then the 68 percent for services such as bike rental or repair stations and I'm also getting some people sending in some um their choices through the through the chat so thank you very much you can do that we'll save the chat and see if we can add those to these questions if we're still having trouble there so I'm going to stop sharing we'll move on to the next question okay so similar which amenities that help you rest and regroup on a ride or a walk are important to you so again you can check all that apply we're thinking about pull-offs to pause out of the way of path traffic views and vistas landscaping and plantings we're seeding so we'll activate that next poll all right launching now so again if you are able to see that um yeah feel free to again send a direct message to me or Liz with what your choices are it seems like more people can see at this time getting more responses we'll give another 10 or 15 seconds okay I'm gonna go ahead and end it okay so let's see about three quarters of people were able to respond or at least through the poll so um looks like views and vistas pull-offs for pausing are most popular here landscaping and plantings are third and then seeding is just about half people said that they were I thought that was important so we'll move on to the next one okay now we're talking about immersion which amenities that help you to immerse yourself on a visit to the bikeway are important to again please check all that apply um thinking about public art cultural historic or educational exhibits natural areas and space for social interaction okay launching that one now so somebody has just sent me a message that apparently you can't see the polls if you have a zoom in a browser um and they need to have the zoom app installed on your computer to do it so apologies about that I didn't uh I didn't know that was going to be an issue yeah definitely chat us your chat us your responses if you'd like and then we'll have an open-ended question at the end so we can also collect some some more feedback that way we will also give you Daniel's contact information so you can email him as well okay another five seconds or so looks like I guess everybody who's able to respond has responded uh through the poll oh just a couple more okay ending the poll okay so um thank you everyone everyone thinks natural areas are helpful in immersing yourself in the visits of the bikeway and then from there the cultural historical education exhibits public art and then kind of surprise social interaction is kind of at the the bottom here interesting thank you right now we're talking about recreation which amenities that help you recreate we're mostly thinking about physical activity on the bikeway are important to you things like multi-use fields or soccer fields or baseball fields and I would also include dog parks within that category exercise equipment playgrounds or side paths so side paths both along the Minuteman as well as as Bob was mentioning kind of those connections to other natural areas and facilities that are adjacent okay here's the next poll okay I got almost three quarters all right in just a few more seconds and again thank you for people sending me their chats and comments which again we will save I will end the poll and share the results which shows um so secondary paths are helping people to help people recreate they're very important that's uh that's very interesting playgrounds multi-use fields less so and then the sports and exercise equipment the least okay yeah all right so we had you think about some categories within each of these but now we want to know which of these categories is most important to you so when you are accessing the bikeway or traveling along it which are the things that you really want to see the most opportunities to rest and regroup immerse recreate or having those tools to let you access and orient successfully okay launching this and I just uh though we just have three more after this so we're almost through all right we've got over half about three quarters a bit more than that I think we can end and sharing back so um pretty uh mixed bag I would say but immerse was the one that I got the most poll votes uh followed by access and orient rest and regroup and then recreate so this next question we're pulling it away a little bit from those amenities and facilities um and more at a high level what kind of experience um do you want to have when you're visiting the bikeway is it natural landscapes that are interesting and relaxing more playful with signage and art installations and spaces for kids and adults is it having a clean efficient and safe thoroughfare or is it kind of digging into cultural or historic stories of Arlington and its people and again you can check all that apply uh so I did somebody asked about if we're getting demographics about taking these particular polls that's not something that we've included as part of this um but we asked I believe we asked some demographic questions in the survey from the fall the last question in a in a few minutes does have a short answer to add a bit more and then we'll have a q and a again in a few minutes we'll stop there again share back so um I guess some clear uh divisions here natural last natural landscapes interesting and relaxing the clean efficient safe thoroughfare which I think speaks to you know how the path is people often use the path and then the cultural sites and then the last it's a playful signage and art installations all right okay so this is our last um selection question we want to know a little bit more about what kinds of creature comforts would you like to see more of along the bike way and we've provided some suggestions here things like water fountains restrooms seating and gathering places directions to nearby shops and food shade and enjoyable landscapes and views launching this one just wait a few more seconds I think that's probably everyone who is able to access the poll okay so so there's a few extra choices interesting the landscape views restrooms are at the top there followed by the seating um water fountains and directions and shade we don't we don't like to have shade when it's the winter so I understand that okay so our last question is open-ended it is short answer so there's a 200 character limit um so we're looking for a couple words or short phrases anything any amenities or experiences that we haven't mentioned that you'd like to see along the bike way so it's your opportunity to tell us your heart's desire and then also if you do have kind of longer comments we can accept those by email as well great launching this so after everybody's we'll probably give maybe a little bit more time for this so to type in and um after that after we end that I can go and take a brief skim of the answers to sort of summarize a bit on what the general themes were don't be shy a little slow coming in maybe give two minutes or three minutes for this one but also if we've answered you know if we've provided all all the things you can think of that's fine too and actually we could um while people are filling this out we could just go through the last couple slides and then close the poll and get into questions if you want give people some time I think that would be fine okay so while you're all mulling that over um this is just a quick recap of the approach to the project and we kind of went already went through this already with the timeline so we've done the existing conditions and we've done that outreach to inform the vision and goals and so currently we're working to develop policy and maintenance recommendations as well as broadly applicable corridor wide recommendations and then as I mentioned once we get into later spring we'll be pulling that all together with some site specific recommendations into the implementation plan so again immediate next steps you'll be hearing more from us once we have kind of synthesized everything that we learned tonight and pulled those into together into some recommendations if you have questions you can email Daniel Amstitz who is here tonight he's the one who's meeting all the polling questions and these are just a couple ways to stay involved with the project if you're interested first again you can read through the existing conditions analysis which is published online you can access it via the town's website you can also visit the project website and then again if you have questions please send an email or or longer comments so it looks like we've got 23 responses now so yeah that's great so I think it's been over two minutes almost three minutes so oh there's still a couple people finishing up I'll wait 10 or 15 more seconds okay I'm going to go ahead and end it again if you would like to send me an email that's perfectly all right I can also forward it on to Liz to add it into what we received here tonight okay so I don't believe I can share the details so I'm going to go through them very quickly so let's see a couple of sorry a couple of points about improving separation having like a softer path for walking the crossings trying to do some traffic calming on like when you're crossing the street um let's see there's a question or a comment about cross country skiing having a path wider having some lighting again back to some traffic calming safe and legible connections let's see having an interesting trail experience more expressive being a different environment from the street it's interesting but several people also said oh we captured it all which is great and then another comment about separation views or so that that is you know definitely a concern that's come up a number of times and also lighting so great thank you for those responses really great um okay so at this point I think we have another few minutes um so we can definitely take any additional questions that folks have yeah so I saw a hand from Tom first hi yeah um the minute man is kind of a backbone it was the first path laid down and it's a backbone of many other paths in the area summerville maldon and then out west as well out so we should really think of the path as as a component of a larger system and I'm not sure what that means but maybe involves how do you get to there from here and and so on so uh just suggesting that as a as a viewpoint to take yeah thanks for that if you go to the app called all trails and you go to the minute man path it will then scroll you through 25 other trails a number of which connect or are quite adjacent to you know closely proximity to uh to the minute man so I I found myself on all trails like I don't know on Monday afternoon and suddenly this spool of opportunities so the exact point that you made Tom is this is a very true and accurate representation and so it just ties the whole region together all the way you know basically all the way into summerville and Cambridge and the urban areas and out into the countryside you know out in Bedford and Concord and further yeah I'm familiar with all trails and uh but I was thinking in more in terms of the you know less sophisticated person who just is wandering around and saying well what can I do from here here I am down in Bedford at the end where where do I go now so if you could point them to the uh narrow gauge trail or the reformatory trail uh that'd be helpful yeah I'll just um this is Dan again I'll just uh point back also to that that the Mr. River path sort of connection that we talked about earlier is definitely something we're working on in a regional context with uh the city of Medford and interest interest from the uh people in summerville as well to that one so it's sort of connect all the way around to the L.F. Brook Greenway and um you know definitely supportive and trying to work with our partners in the other communities like in Bedford which has extension of the Minuteman bikeway uh towards Concord that is I think coming up for construction actually really soon and then this year or the next year so I definitely see that see the trail as an important uh function and and facet of the regional network thank you uh so I see a hand from Sylvia hold up can you hear me yes um yeah um uh I am mostly a biker on the bike path and uh one thing that I think it's really necessary it's for the towns that are along the path to um you know somehow be coordinated in paving it because um um I mean you know there are areas in the in the in the part in the in the bike path that um it's really really in bad shape particularly all around Lexington center um and so in any case I just you know when when the when the bike path is paved it's just so nice when it's nicely paid you know before it starts to get a lot of um um holes and things so that you know pot holes whatever these things are I mean it gets it gets it gets pretty it gets so used I think and people don't realize it but it wears it wears out really quickly so I just think that um there there should be more concern um and it should be coordinated so Lexington does it one year maybe Arlington does it the next maybe Lexington does it another year then Bedford does it another year but there has to be I think more coordination when it comes to that and there has to be um you know Lex Arlington actually filled up some of these um these openings that were made by tree roots and those became super bumpy um I I just think um I mean I'm happy they tried to do that but they also became bumpy you know like suddenly you had a lot of bumps on on the road um anyways you know I I bike it so for me the main thing is to have a comfortable bike and and uh and a comfortable road to be able to to to do it so that's my request or comment yeah thanks for that perspective um we are talking about maintenance as part of this um but I think you raised a good point about the coordination between towns um Beth hi um curious if you have a mechanism uh do you reach out for instance the town meeting members or to neighbors who have particular insights or keen insights into the portion of the bike trail that they live along so for instance between Water Street and Mill Street there's a spur of the railroad that's been neglected that presents a wonderful opportunity I think to restore it and maybe create a native flower garden right there you need to remove a tree there's a volunteer probably Norway Maple there the other thing is right near Mill Street near where the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority um I don't know what you call it manhole cover thing is there's a hazardous stairway that needs to be repaired and there's a bench that was removed that the neighborhood would really like return speaking of um um what you call them way stations um and it's right there where a portion of the mill brook is daylight so that presents a great opportunity for your designer to create a nice little spot for us we'd like to have that back um as a safe transit point once the stairway is repaired and then the bench and um invasive removal that portion of the bike trail there adjacent to Mill Street has rampant poison ivy and black swallow ward thank you yeah thanks for that comment and we did um just to quickly answer your your very first question um so we did include in the survey the online survey and the um intercept surveys that we did uh we did ask people if they were in a butter or you know lived adjacent or were in a butter um property owner uh so we do have some of that information um Bob did you have something you wanted to add on yeah I just wanted to acknowledge you know I gave you a little story of uh of spy pond and history but you know Arlington's significant history other than Paul Revere kind of going to the doorstep of the path is you know all happens on Mill Street you know and and uh you know the Schwarm mill there being the longest continuously operating hydropower mill in America is you know it's just it's just around the corner and just the opportunities for storytelling and I actually had several nice exchanges with some people at the at the Schwarm mill museum who are doing you know who have done a wonderful job on interpretive and historical pieces so it's just an example you know like the story of Millbrook they actually have an exhibit program for all the different mills that were up and down the uh the Millbrook over it's I think it's 150 feet of elevation drop so that's a lot of mills back in uh you know in 18 in 1850 to 1900 until you know until the point when Arlington needed reservoir and they shut the water off so anyways there's there are great opportunities to capture that and the other part is you know I think it's possible that a lot of people actually ride this path and don't even ever uh it may not occur to them that it used to be a railroad I mean that's the true story of the Minuteman path the Minuteman are cool and that all happened over kind of near mystic mystic you know mystic street and you know and then and then it shifted over to Mass Ave but anyways the history of the town is just tied together with the the sort of the path as sort of a timeline of neighborhoods and industry and craftsmanship all of which is opportunities for you know this this enrichment of the message relative to the invasive species we've started to you know dip our toes into understanding the the degree of which there is an invasive species issue out there and it is a it's a huge issue and we're starting to understand you know how to how to sort of make some inroads on how to do that but really it involves you know it's going to be take considerable attention will and some money to start to go at the invasive species that are out there but we've we've started to have conversations with conservation people spy upon people everyone's like in particularly since the natural environment seems to be a very highly popular topic for the theme of the path making it a true natural environment as opposed to a norway maple invasive environment would be seemed to be a good thing I think that the next hand that I saw is mark hi yeah I live by the lake street interchanged that went in a couple months ago what not now last summer and I've noticed a lot of cars turning on to the path I'm curious is there way to get a count of cars through the the system that's in place there the reason I bring it up is because we wouldn't want to replicate this anywhere else on the trail I've literally counted 100 cars myself turning on to the trail yeah so this is an issue that we're aware of and so we're thinking about some strategies for making that less of a viable option for vehicles to get confused and to turn on to the trail are you capable of counting how many have turned on to it though I'm just curious I mean we don't have that that data now and I don't know Daniel if you want to speak to this at all I think that would have to be probably at this point like a manual effort but I mean we're aware that it that it is an issue and so that's something that we're going to be thinking about in terms of design recommendations just I would think the system it seems pretty technical it's got some lasers and whatnot it doesn't have the ability to count cars so I'll just I say that I believe that the signal that was installed has some type of video detection technology that with the public works may be able to access but we may need a contractor to access in which case perhaps through that video feed you could you could count that but so that would be sort of historical data but it would be probably pretty difficult to you know have it you're having to look through all of that through video feed to to figure out when those things happened just so more recently we we know that this has been a problem in public works and the police have been trying the number of different strategies to address it one of the most recent ones was that they did reach out to there was a question about whether Waze was directing people you know the traffic app was directing people on to the path instead of to Brooke I Brooke's road yeah you got it yeah I'm sorry it was like completely blanking on it but so they actually contacted Google or Waze to try to get it classified get the bikeway classified as like a park so that people wouldn't be directed to turn on to that so that's something that that happened maybe a month or two ago so there's ongoing a variety of things ongoing sort of incremental improvements in making the try to address that and and other issues that have been happening with the intersection so but but yes as Liz said one of the requests as part of the project was to see if there are any other suggestions and recommendations that they can make to further further try to prevent any more drivers from pulling onto the path when they shouldn't be okay good to know glad you guys are aware of this because it means a real issue you know I get young kids and bicyclists running into a 2000 pound car it's not a good scenario yeah thank you I I agree okay thanks mark so next hand I see Sarah and Drew hi um so I joined a little late I apologize that you went over this at the beginning of the meeting but could you talk through the process of um like the logistics of how you go from like visioning when I imagine this mean to be all the way down to like project programming and I think one of the earlier questions about budgeting and doing specific projects on the on the trail yeah I can start um from a planning perspective and then maybe you can take the next pass um right so this project is a it is a planning study um so you're correct that this is probably visioning but we will be providing recommendations both at a corridor level and site specific so when I say recommendations that means that they're like planning level concepts or um kind of broadly applicable strategies that can be applied at different locations along the path so we're thinking through you know what are some traffic calming strategies that are appropriate for this situation that can be applied broadly how can we you know improve access points so that there's better site distance and better communication of who has the right of way and who has to yield and all that stuff um so that's what we'll be thinking through um we walked through I don't know if you were here at the when we talked through the survey results and the vision and goals so that was also part of this project was to really learn um you know we've done existing conditions analysis we know a number of the issues that are present along the bikeway that part of this project was also reaching out to the community and understanding some of the nuance and additional issues and challenges um that we might not have been aware of initially so at the end of the day um this will be an implementation plan so it will provide um again those kind of high level planning recommendations as well as some thoughts about funding sources and avenues for moving forward and then um Daniel I don't know if you want to talk any more about kind of next steps after that sure I can and talk in sort of general terms is that um you know there's part of the purpose of going through this this exercise and going through this effort is to um you know take stock of what we have with the bikeway because we we haven't really done this kind of effort in the almost 30 year life of the bikeway um or at least while it's been functioning so we started starting from this level to say okay here's what we have and here's what we know and what we need to do to you know get to this these vision and goals that that we're producing through here and from that like the recommendations that Liz mentioned we can build those into different projects and see what we need whether it's some signage whether it's um design of a particular say wayside or trailhead area if we want to add benches or or lighting or other types of improvements um so there's going to be you know be a design aspect that's sort of sort of get towards what it'll actually look like beyond a concept um the CPA or the Community Preservation Act committee is very interested in they're certainly very interested in the wayside and trailhead's concept and potentially bringing back some projects to them that could be funded with CPA funding um there's possibly other funding that could be gotten through either complete streets or other state sort of state grants that have to do a bit more with transportation um but so there's a variety of different sources we could we could pull from but yeah the idea is that we you know try to prioritize what we would do next and what kinds of um whether it's again infrastructure whether it's more of these softer uh say um educational campaign type of elements and what we need to get there so that's sort of again just a general way of of moving from implementation or moving from the plan and then into implementation as after it gets finished um so I think our next question is from Kathleen. Hi actually Kathy's husband uh Andrew um Tom's uh thank you uh Tom had a great point that the Minuteman is really a backbone and a component and a much larger system now and it occurred to me that we were talking about wayfinding signage and you know with the with the completion of the green line extension and the alewife greenway and all these other paths that connect into the Minuteman you might actually be sitting there wondering in Arlington Center how do I get to Boston on a bike path and this goes beyond the the scope of Arlington now it doesn't it right when you want to have sort of consistent signage all the way from Bedford down right through Cambridge um and so I guess the not so much a question but a comment is that I hope we don't put in sign signage that looks different from Bedford that looks different from Lexington that looks like different from Somerville that there might be a nice uh concerted effort coordinated with all the other communities to to have you know really good wayfinding for the whole region really. Yeah thanks for that comment and I think that's a great point too about not just the coordination between municipalities but kind of the breadth of how far you can go by bike and how that system is growing um so I think yeah that's a that's an interesting thought any other thoughts from from Daniel or Bob? There was a study that was done for the multi-town sort of an overview of multi-town for the Minuteman path um and uh you know having gone through there that and looked at it it's it's clear that the challenge of bringing multiple communities together in a common vision as might be reflected in signage or wayfinding or something like that is a huge job so so um I don't remember what your name was so so would you please give us your email so that we can include you if we wanted to pursue actually doing something like that because we need people to be able to say that uh you know that that the sum is more than the parts but bringing together Somerville, Cambridge, Arlington, Lexington, you know Concord, Bedford, all of those communities into a common vision of a corridor is is it's a pretty big lift people will really need to find a way to want to agree to agree to find a common representation of something because what we have in each of those paths the community path in Somerville the the alewife path uh in um in Cambridge um you know and each of those is a very personal experience in the communities that they are and so searching for that common representation of what the path experiences is as it would be reflected in sort of graphic arts and things like that as would be done in wayfinding is that that's that's a big lift um but it's great to have someone say that it needs to be done so I want I want to thank you for that just articulating that it's something that we feel dear very deeply it's something you would not want to have the power of the message of the connectivity of all of this be lost to the inertia of trying to bring together you know six different communities in a common vision that everybody says yeah that's us um so this is Dan I was responding to somewhat oh sorry did you or you finished Bob I am done yeah okay um I'm sorry I was responding to someone in a chat but um I think from what I what I heard or what I recall the bicycle advisory committees of Arlington Bedford and Lexington typically try to meet once or they're trying to meet I think three times a year now um they sort of took a break during the during the pandemic um but they do they try to coordinate at least at sort of the committee level to talk about these issues um there is certainly I guess disagreement between these different things that um so sometimes like like Bob was saying it's sort of hard to come to a consensus I think through this planning project we're trying to I mean push that a bit on the Arlington side um to answer some questions and try to get clarity on things that we've talked sort of in circles about for a bit um for a number of years so you know and and certainly I think the design you know and also I'll just say the state um I think has come out with some some more design guidelines of the Department of Conservation and Recreation since they fund a lot of trails and they through the mass trails program is another way in which they're trying to fund expansion of trails and trying to hold some basic standards with that and then lastly I'll say the Metropolitan Area Planning Council does have a landlines plan that speaks to greenways and trails in the Boston region but a bit I think more at a high level not not sort of more at this you know community by community level so there's certainly work to be done but we're trying in a number of ways yeah can I jump in there real quick this is Ron Hedrick from GPI and I want to I think there might be a broader kind of view of what people are talking about here I'll share a couple years ago at the the state's moving together conference there was a there was a session on bike you know some of the growing bike trails across the state and um traffic engineer actually from our office asked a question as the traffic engineer would about all these this network of building systems but all these trails are named by their little you know they're known by their local names you know walk to the sea minivan bikeway ashwil de kuk ashwil de kuk trail so on and he asked is there going to ever be some kind of a way like a routing system or something that you could put a map together to be able to navigate them so I think that question is starting to be asked at a number of levels beyond sort of the minivan bikeway and sort of it's it's you know it's regional connection more to the the state level but I think we'll have to keep track of where that goes but it's I think people are starting to think on that level of as we build a network of bike paths like we build roads how do you name them and make them that people can navigate them in a logical way so I'd share that so so we just have a couple minutes left it looks like we have one hand raised so Elaine did you want to ask your question yes this is probably a bit out of context now because people moved on they were talking about the late street intersection um I was kind of shocked by that when that was in store because it seemed so elaborate and really kind of I mean inconsistent with the rest of the path and how the intersections are where usually there's a button you can push if that or you just wait I mean Hartwell Avenue is pretty busy road and that doesn't have anything on this scale so I don't really know what the problem was there that was being solved but I just wouldn't like to see that at any of the other crossings um it just seems too too much interrupts the flow thanks for that comment we had that very conversation the other day Elaine actually and what came out of that was you know is there are a number of on-grade crossings of this path across basically you know neighborhood uh cross streets where the street and cars and people on bicycles and on foot on the path have to meet each other and respectfully cross each other and and what we're hoping is that we will come up with some sort of basic feet you know not basic but but actually quite specific for the for the minute man what would what would the optimal conditions be for on-grade street crossings of the path and uh you know we probably have I don't know maybe we have eight or ten of those of you know major on-grade intersections and so we will be looking you know and and probably you know certainly learning some lessons from what happened at Lake Street to uh with with with a you know sort of a critical eye for what what are the things that really need to be accomplished at these on-grade um situations and then the other ones are the where the grade is different and either the path is underneath the road or the road is on top of it and we've got to bring people in in in an accessible grade so they can get from a lower or higher street onto the path so these those those are the most important places of you know when someone a previous commenter just spoke to how do I get from my home that might be you know a distance away to feel like I can comfortably and happily get onto the path so so that's that's that's a challenge for us to come up with a couple you know with some overriding principles that are really kind of specific design-wise for the minute man and then really you know have them be models that can be appropriately deployed to each of the cases where we need to put them to work so you're you're right on you're right on the mark with with with the need for that thank you right I'm not seeing any additional hands up speaking of right on the mark we're right at nine o'clock which is where we should be all right well with that we can wrap up thank you everyone for your comments this is really helpful thanks for participating in the polls um that really helps us kind of understand the the higher level thinking of what direction the minute man should go in so appreciate that yep and I save the chat everyone so I will make sure I can get to it but in any case yeah thank you we'll save that and I'll let's I'll send that to you so thank you everyone for participating and coming and staying and we will let you know the next steps as we're wrapping up I think in the next few months all right good night everyone