 I don't know. Well, that's the one on the agenda. Yeah. It told me that the webinar was not ready to go. Then I found the other email. So. Okay. Well, also the general public link, it would just put you into the waiting room. Yeah. Yeah. No, I just. Yeah. I'm trying to do it on my phone work phone, but. And then on here. I found the other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, normally, normally Ambersons, but. Okay. That's fine. Okay. So while we're meeting virtually. And Kim, do you have a little. Yeah. Otherwise I can. Okay. Great. Cause if I just put it to the bathroom. My. Okay. Okay. Nope. That's the wrong doc. Hold on. Yes. There we go. Come on. Right. Okay. And on the regular basis. My first meeting was on the Baker's, march 12, 20, 20 orders to spending certain provisions of open meeting law. This meeting of attack is being conducted by a remote participation. I hear by a call the. Jun 16th meeting of the tack to order. And our first order of business is public comment. There are no public. With us today. So we will. I didn't receive any. Oh, and Eve Vogel, she told me she wants to come but she's running a little late. So he may pop into the audience. So our next order of business then is an update of the safe routes to school. Yeah, so actually just before we do that. So for do you know, there's any update on continuing to meet virtually, like currently it's allowed through July, is that correct through July 15, I believe. Okay. But that could be extended or I believe it's up to the legislature has to do it. I mean, I love to see everybody in person but it's so darn convenient to receive that message from Christine Brestrup. She's, she said she's having trouble connecting. Oh, just so is that my fault because I gave her the bad link. Oh, potentially. Okay, well let's try this again. But she also said in her email that she's just having trouble connecting tonight. Hold on. I'll just send her the link right now. She also did that on her phone so maybe her computer is having some problems or something. Did you send it Tracy? I'm sending it right now. Okay. Because I have, I can send it too. I just sent it. Okay. I thought I'd send her the right one but maybe I didn't or something. Yeah, there's a little, there's a little issue with I think. Okay. I wish just using the one that was on the posted meeting agenda, like on the website. So. Who's giving the update for the safe routes to school? I'm going to give the update. Christine is not available because her child is graduating from Wildwood and they had sixth grade events. Yay. Yay. Because this is the last week of school. So Christine and I have been busy with safe routes to school stuff. We have done data collection at all the schools just. To do base counts of the number of. Kids walking and biking. And also to look at the current conditions at the schools. I've taken tons of pictures. So maybe Christine is in the audience. She. That's Eve. Okay. And so that's all been going real. I mean, one thing that's a little sad is, I guess, traditionally, right, people, there were more kids who had biked and walked to schools and there are currently what we found at Wildwood and Fort Rivers. It's probably like less than 15 kids a day. We're doing it. Yeah. And at Kroger farm, we found the numbers were a little higher. There's that neighborhood right next to it. Which is about half of the kids. One of the things is that the district now that they do, you know, when I've talked to people who grew up in Amherst. Who are now parents or of, you know, K to 12 students or war parents and other kids are older. That really the school district, they used to have a rule about not picking up kids like who lived anywhere near the school, like even within. I mean, the state law says that school districts don't need to have a school district. And so, you know, I think that's a good interpretation. If a student K to six lives within two miles of the school. But I think in Amherst, traditionally, I think it was one and a half miles. And so people would walk even like for Kroger farm, they'd walk from Orchard Valley and things. Which are, you know, relatively some pretty long distances or even from near my neighborhood, well, Blue Hills road is outside of the 1.5 miles, but like Dana and Lincoln are inside. So, you know, I think that's a good way to walk. But now the districts, the schools buses tend to pick up a lot of kids. So what we found is that most of the kids who are walking or biking, like wild one for. They just choose to walk and walk and bike and. A lot of them have come from Boston or cities where there was a lot more biking, walking, biking, but the cultures really changed a lot. I mean, you know, Derek say that Kroger farm principal, you know, you know, you know, you know, he brought up a good point about like, well, we did a lot of things in the seventies and eighties that we don't do anymore. And that's true. But at the same time, like in those neighborhoods used to have, you know, just like groups of kids walking. And so there was like the whole culture of that. And now we don't do that. As much. Yeah. Eve, did you have a comment? Yeah, I just wanted to say that, and I said this to Tracy by phone the other night, I had my son walk home from school starting in second grade, and the school kind of flipped out about it. And they've actually told other parents they won't allow it. So I think there's a role to be played to actually try to read, re-change that culture. And it is different, you know, when we were in Cambridge for that year, five years ago, people were still walking and biking and as kids. So anyway, I think that that should be part of the vision. Yeah. What was the reason they gave you? I'm just curious. Sorry. They really act like it's unsafe. They were like, Oh my gosh, you're going to have him walk on UMass campus by himself. And I was like, yeah, you know what I mean? I think it was really weird. I mean, the by far the most dangerous part of the walk is the East Pleasant Crossing. And they do have a crossing guard there, but the crossing guards only there for like 10 minutes. So I would have to tell Ari to just look out of the school super fast. But that's really the only dangerous part. I actually had flagged that in what we've been looking when Christie and I have been looking at the, just the infrastructure that. I mean, there's a lot of discussion, you know, some of the discussions with the new schools were, some of it was just about the intersections near Fort River, including the main East Pellum Road intersection and the, the other one, the route nine intersection. But when you actually look at the infrastructure, like from an infrastructure standpoint. Well, one, I think we're lucky that so many of our schools have like pretty decent sidewalk access, but those intersections near Fort River, the one at Main Street and East Street. Actually, I mean, it seems to me, it seems pretty safe from a pedestrian, like for pedestrian crossings, like they have at each of them, at each of the legs, right? There's like pedestrian walk signals and two of the legs have countdowns and they have no right turns on red signs everywhere, which some of the people, some, you know, people can complain, wow, you can't, you know, that's really blocking up the traffic, no right turn on red, but that's actually so much safer for these kids being the pedestrians. It's like assuring that they're not getting cut off. And that's, you know, where the crossing guard is there and things like that. So, I mean, I agree with Eve. I do, you know, and I had flagged it. I had sent some comments to the, like the working group that was looking at the elementary school building project, but the main intersection that I worry about with all, with in terms of the school safety is just that East Pleasant crossing at strong street that it is just a crosswalk. There's no like flashing lights or anything. So, you know, I mean, you know, cars could be going really fast down the hill. On East Pleasant. And it, you know, my, I mean, not that, you know, we're advisory, but just in terms of like doing things to calm the traffic there and make sure it's safer with, you know, rectangular rapid flashing beacons or whatever it could be done. Cause I do think it, I do think it's problematic for sure. And so, yeah. I mean, you know, I think it's problematic for us. With Deb Westmoreland. Who's, you know, the director of communications for the district and the principals. Chris. Christine Lynch from an IR meeting with them next, no, two weeks on the 28th. And it's also going to have Lucy who had met with us. She's the safety school coordinator for the four Western Mass counties. And moving forward. I mean, I think it's going to be a good idea to, I mean, I think it's going to be a good idea to, for the different safe routes to school infrastructure programs, including the smaller one, which is signs and lines, which I do think that there could be some improvements. You know, with some of the signage. Some of the signage is like inconsistent with. You know, the current current standards and also repainting some of the lines. Like I noticed at Crocker firm, we were there on Tuesday and all the lanes, all the lines are painted really well, but it's not painted at all. It's all just worn off and things. So just, I could always apply for that smaller grant. Or there's also like a bigger grant. Which can pay for intersection and infrastructure improvements up to two miles from the school. If it will encourage walking and biking. But to me, it's both the infrastructure. I mean, I feel like after looking at it, I mean, people do, there's a lot of things that are, you know, it seems pretty safe compared to like, if there were no sidewalks and things like that. But I think it's just a culture too. And so Christine's talking, I mean, one of the things we're doing on the 28th is just talking about some events we can have around supporting, encouraging, walking and biking school. So. I mean, there's a lot of concern about how unsafe everything is, but it seems pretty safe compared to like if there were no sidewalks and things like that. But I think it's just a culture too. Yeah. The town is always had at least an informal policy of busing kids. If there weren't adequate sidewalks. Right. So if you were half a mile from the school and you, but you didn't have a sidewalk, you still get picked up. Yeah, but like, I think about like the person who told me, they used to walk from second grade on, they walked from Orchard Valley to Crocker. I mean, there was a sidewalk along that stretch, but there's also like some of those intersections that aren't so great like Pomeroy and things like that. We're less likely to see free range of kids these days. Yeah. I mean, in general, right. In Deerfield, we tried walking school buses that had less than great, less than stellar success. Brown, we had a Deerfield and I don't know if it's true here, but it's true that there's a lot of people that were. We had so many parents who would choose to drive their kids. Yeah. The school rather than put them on a bus even. We'd have traffic jams in front of the elementary school. We actually had to have an office police officer down. Time to direct traffic because. So many people were driving. Well, and people driving like that really increased during COVID, right? Because when Amherst schools opened again in person, they were encouraging. They basically said, we only want to have people on kids on the bus who need to take the bus. Like if parents can provide private transportation, that is ideal. And so some parents are still doing that more than they used to. So. But it's also about kind of changing the culture because. And I hate to say this, but even my children. I'm taking the freaking car to school and they have like. And I am who I am and they have very nice bicycles and they can easily walk and it's less than half a mile. And there is no bus. And it's just, you know, it's about like changing the mindset and like. You know, it really is. I mean, I was going to say, Tracy, I'd be happy to go to that meeting with you next week if, if that would be okay. Cause this I, I'm with Kim. This is something I've been thinking about and working on for a long time. And I, I see, you know, working with kids and, and school districts is a key part of changing the broader culture. Like we've got to be raising kids who know how to walk and bike and think that that's the thing to do. Again, in Cambridge, the PE lesson in fourth grade is learning how to bike. You know, so it could be part of the curriculum. That's awesome. You know, it's also interesting just in other schools. So we have friends, colleagues who were overseas in Germany. And their kids were going to the public school in Germany. And even from like early elementary there, it's expected that the kid that like gets to school, you know, by walking mainly maybe biking, but on their own, like they do not think that the parent should be accompanying the kids on even on the walk. So I mean, whereas like American parents would tend to hover and stuff. They're just like, you know, you shouldn't, you know, your kid can do this. Well, and this has been linked. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. One thought. I believe somebody mentioned previously that the schools had worked with Morse Hill. Because I mean, I know that like providing bikes, right? Not everybody's going to have it. And if you're going to include, make, try and make it wider acceptance. You need to have an ability to provide bikes so that people can have wider access to it. Because I mean, in the UK, we had a program in elementary school, like a bike safety course and you brought your bike in. It was like, I think it was after school. I can't, I mean, it's so long ago. But you ran it. But then bike ownership there was, you know, a little bit more wider than is here. So it was kind of more acceptable. But now, now you've got to think about how can we get more bikes to people to enable that? Yeah. Yeah. So the Morse Hill program that they were running, it was a Crocker farm after school and they would provide, it would be like a bike rodeo, you know, that would have some safety skills, you know, just having kids having funds with bikes. And they would provide bikes for that event, but they wouldn't provide bikes generally. So there are some programs in the valley that do provide free. Yeah, right. Right. I was just thinking for the event. And then also, you know, Christine Lindstrom has also been in touch with the police department because the police department, they used to do their own bike radio. So I think there's some like opportunities for some, and I remember as a like beginning planner, like transportation planner, participating on bike rodeos, like on a weekend or whatever. And we had like hundreds of kids come through and do our little work and stuff, and so we were just like, we were doing our bike ride and stuff. And so I was like, I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what to do with that. We had some horse and things like that. I mean, those are some fun events. Just so, so. I was, I was wondering since there is going to be a new school to replace Fort River eventually, if there would be a way to have our committee be part of planning the access to the building, the new building when that comes along. Yeah, I mean, we can ask about that. I mean, I think. Oh, sorry, Tracy. Go ahead. I was just thinking, I mean, I had a question for Guilford about this too. Given the state is widening route nine. Are they considering putting a roundabout in that. At nine and southeast, northeast street thing, wherever that is. No, not to my knowledge. I mean, can we push for that to him from, you know. They don't, they don't own route nine after you passed out. It's all us. Yes. Okay. So we go. We could do it. And actually. I don't know how I don't know how the school when they build a new school is going to pay for all the traffic upgrades. Because the traffic upgrades aren't included in the school. Right, right. Right. Well, the MSBA, right? The MSB is funny stuff on site. Yeah. It will be public meetings. This is Chris. There will be public meetings that will review the plans for the school. There's going to be a planning board site plan review. The design review board will have to review it. I'm sure the town council will have to weigh in at some point. But it will be a good opportunity to weigh in during that public meeting process. That would be good. I mean, Bruce, as I was saying, I mean, if you look closely at the access around the school, I mean, there are sidewalks pretty much like at all the intersection. I mean, there's some places that don't have them quite as much. Like if you go up North East street, it ends with them like half a mile. Or something. But you know, if you're going towards Maine, which is where we saw a lot of the biker bicyclists coming from the city. I mean, there's a lot of sidewalks. I mean, sidewalks all the way along from. You know, East street all the way like into the center of town. And route nine does too. There's some disjointed parts and some of it isn't that safe. For pedestrian. So I did notice that it's really upgraded. Like once you get past those plazas, if you're coming from. Like that Fort River intersection into town. There's, there's all those like little shopping plazas, like that too. Some of the sidewalks really torn up there. And I'm, I'm looking at the main road and I don't know if the park is on the right side of the road. It's really generous areas that aren't great for, you know, if anybody's walking. But then once you get past those, it's like the beautiful sidewalk. Well, but, yeah, but also another issue that we've talked about, is it Palom road? What is the road that goes it's Palom, Palom road has really awful sidewalks. Oh, it does. They're narrow and they have the mailboxes, said you can buy in the mailboxes and the trash barrels and that's terrible. But that's something I think that you know resurfacing or redoing I mean that that's something we should really think about at least because there are all those neighborhoods back behind off of Pelham Road you know that easily people could walk but you know you need to have some decent sidewalk. So people from Echo Hill that we talked to when we were on site they there is actually a path which I had never taken before from it's from like Pickering to and it goes that you know to the Fort River fields when we were there we didn't see any kids taking the path and also I've heard it's not maintained in the winter right which is a problem with a bunch of the walking paths. I was also wondering too just there is new affordable housing plans on along route nine like if there's any way I didn't look at it but if there's any ways to kind of make some path sort of directly from those areas like to the school instead of having to go down to intersection I mean I think there's going to there's always going to be a look there's always going to be a fair number of parents like even if we're working on improving like the culture who are going to say route nine is just too busy for my kid to walk even if it's like on the sidewalk but there is a proposal may I just yeah so we've applied for MassWorks grant money to improve sidewalks along Belcher Town Road from the intersection with southeast street all the way down to I think it's Colonial Village entryway so that whole stretch that goes in front of like the old motel and the form of no bus station and down to the town property that was just purchased and along the south is it south side yeah as well so if we get that grant we'll be able to improve the sidewalks as well as bike lanes along that stretch of Belcher Town okay really good that's great yeah and and also you know I mean all of these perhaps something we can do with you know to help improve overall sidewalk is if the money if the if there's money there for safe routes to school within two miles you know there is a lot of improvement that we could do just along many of those sidewalks you know and even if like you said you know it's not a main one that students use maybe by having a sidewalk that's flat and accessible maybe more people will use it more students will use it you know all times of the year so yeah I mean so I know people who walk from Echo Hill along like Belcher Town Road like if you come out you know rolling green and things like those intersections you can walk all the way along like all the way to East Street I mean some of the sidewalks not as good as other parts and stuff but yeah but even that might encourage you know less experienced riders a bike riders in the morning you know yeah school and stuff so yeah for sure um so one thing is that so you know after oh Christy and I were you know we're meeting and we are because we've been at each of the schools you know we are writing up sort of a summary report you know a walk audit type report but also with some data about who's walking and biking I think I mean it might be we we've been in touch with this I'm safe reach the school coordinator Lucy but then also and also with the walk Boston people the chair of their board lives in Springfield and they both provide us like samples of walk audits and things too I mean I might run it just by the tack before we submit it to the district just to get some feedback but um we're trying to keep it very like not comprehensive per se but more sort of strategic recommendations for improvements and I mean and really because some of the infrastructure is not that bad like it's really about if we're actually going to get kids to walk and bike it's going to be a lot of the it's going to be a lot about culture yeah so so is that going to be some of your recommendations like to do the kinds of um you know what did what did you call it Bernie that you did in Deerfield you know those things walking walking school bus walking school bus biking school bus I think I've always thought we should you know when they have the walk to school day they should have a bike to school where the police cooperate and you know closing off half of East Pleasant and having people walk one like we said like the fun events like they'll you know walk the bike rodeos and other stuff to just even get kids to get kids off-screened outside and maybe some educate parents also about how to do it themselves or support their kids to do it safely so um yeah okay so that's what we got for that cool thank you that this is really exciting so thank you well and I'm excited that the district is interested I mean Christine yeah been so really had some success with reaching out to them because we've never had success previously so but I think particularly maybe within new school like maybe there's some interest too so but but also like like I said I mean even you know around the high I mean high school in the middle school is like getting kids just oh yeah yeah it's it's great to do that you can do it on your own you don't need your parents like oh I mean so Kim I live probably half a mile from you and my son my younger son my 13 year old is often has basketball practices at the high school and he insists that I so he's got to walk a mile to the high school for bike and he insists that I drive him and pick him up and sometimes I'm like he could walk home from the high school it's like downhill half the way like I take walks all the time I walk by the high it's like yeah but I literally kids so it's something about making it more enticing yeah yeah friends are doing it then you'll do it I don't know but it's it's ridiculous like reducing all those trips would be great well and I think you know one thing we talked about in the initial meeting with the district was um was just about because safer to school is actually being expanded at the state level like up to K to 12 it's currently like K through 8 but I mean at the high school there are environmental clubs and things like that and so not just on those you know not just making it about like say like little kids safety but actually be like let's help the planet like how many whatever tons of carbon how the company like how much can we do you know like can we have some events around that and get people excited and yeah yeah I know you should not just be about solar panels like getting people out of their freaking cars would make more difference so okay um our next our next item is thank you for all of that discussion I think it's very useful updates from the council in TSO yeah so the main one I wanted to share is just because you know we had looked at Kendrick park a number of times in north pleasant street and so at the council meeting on June 6 you know they did pass both in term based on the recommendations from TSO and then also a counselor had asked for some modifications but they did support you know two different what's one big motion but it's basically two different ideas that on an interim basis until the larger project is done where you widen the road and you put in the back and angled parking that the town would still look at implementing one-way northbound traffic from McClellan to Triangle and to move the parking spaces over to the east side of the street and to limit the parking and that um I mean right and to have some meters spaces um and then you know longer term when the street is widened to create the handicapped spaces and back and angled parking um having some that's back in metered parking and then also some that is going to be dual use like permit and permit as well as metered which is a little complicated but I think they wanted to just make sure that there was enough permit parking and I don't know like in the summer I mean I'm over there a lot and I never see hardly anybody parking and there is no one I'd like it every morning right yeah there's lots of people when school is in section so um I don't know Gilford do you have any sense of like when like I mean I know the bigger project right there's no funding for it so it'd be a while before like is it possible it's turning into one way go ahead no I don't think so oh I don't I there's no there's no schedule so I don't know okay like before the students return and like make it all okay oh if we if we can calm some people down from applying for every grant there is in the world maybe we could have some time I mean what's interesting is now I mean I do see a lot of people at the park but I really think that a lot of people also like walk and bike to the park or they're already downtown and things like that so it doesn't seem like there's tons and tons of demand for parking with the park I think a lot of them also park at Garcia's well the parking can well you I mean Marcus that's why you said that's that's why you said you had been doing traditionally so yeah yeah but don't you think if you could park right along the park Marcus you would do that oh every day yeah so and yeah I even if you had to even just find the resident parking and all this stuff right no park elsewhere but it put it next to it this would be great yeah yeah because you know I I have been biking past there recently and I saw like kids jumping out of cars and going to the park on whatever that little strip of is it north pleasant that's north pleasant yeah and I also saw kids like chasing going you know across the street and I was like what are you without any parents to get to their car and the other side and I was like what what's happening I mean I sat and watched this kid because I didn't want any cars to hit them but yeah it has to happen you have to get the cars to the other side of the street true well and also and the council had also approved like the raised crosswalk right Guilford at um McClellan was that McClellan and yeah north pleasant street no funding but it's all it will it will be so okay well hopefully by you know next year we'll get some of it that'd be awesome the other thing is going on is inflation oh of course yeah we bit we're required required to protect contractors in the state so mass dot requires we have escalators for various things in our contracts so we're now facing the fact that even though we bid a project and it was bid in in budget we may end up over budget so we're actually having to hold back on a lot of work because we may need that money to pay for the work we're doing yeah I believe everything is kind of weird right now that's awful yeah I mean the prices are crazy I can't even imagine and bikes by even bikes are everything's expensive well and all the all the products are oil based right like tar and but we were I was trying to buy my kid a new bike and it's bikes are well that's because everyone bought bikes well and any these but even so it's there are no bikes to be like bikes are like a thousand dollars or something for a bike um yeah and then let's see so the extra coming was potential upcoming referrals um TSO I mean Andy's not here tonight he said he couldn't make it I don't know of any referrals to us yet there could be some later I know two things on the TSO's plate is a council member who lives on Lincoln had brought back the idea of having some restrictions on Lincoln for parking given the issues with a lot of overflow parking from UMass and you know people parking so close to the driveways and things similar to what we're seeing on North Pleasant Street right that it's a it's an issue for the sightlines but um it's not clear whether that will come back to attack or not um and then there's also there is also floating out there I think it was a GOL too it's just the idea that under the mass general law towns can pass something and the speed limit like throughout town some like universal blanket limit because we're sitting now well because we're sitting but um is that why we can do it but I also think that it doesn't I mean personally and I talked to the white bike advocate that I've been in touch with and sprinkled about it I mean unless unless you actually do things to calm the traffic and you have enforcement I don't know how much it helps I mean you can again and some of it's a culture thing like about saying you know slow down in our downtowns and things but you can't I mean if we just lower the speed limit without additional enforcement when I when I met with um you know I mean it's you know it sounds like I mean I've heard you know the town managers say that you could have like full full-time officer on like traffic related stuff just because there's like enough of it and parking and all these things but we just don't have those resources either yeah we have a lot going on so um so we don't have any of those referrals yet but we could and then let's see Kim so I'll just go to the other items um yeah so oh yeah the other quick thing from TSO and somehow I had typed this up but I guess it got left off the agenda was just the idea about TAC presenting to TSO so I talked with the town manager about it um and I the current idea is for TACs charged to be revised somewhat first no given that the charges out of date it dates back to 2006 and it was approved by this there's things in there that don't really fit anymore that instead of going to the TSO with at least a draft of that so he's working on the draft and he's going to probably ask you know Chris Bressup go for morning and and and the TAC and so on for like some feedback and things first and then go to TSO so that's going to be postponed a little bit probably you know later in the summer Tracy did you say 2006 because it was 2016 oh 2016 sorry you're correct it's not yeah it's not that old that's not that old all right so other continuing TAC items so at the last meeting in which you know we only met once in May I guess um we talked about the bike ped priorities network map and the GIS layers and so on um I know that there had been somebody who had expressed interest in being an intern and helping with that map and as I mentioned the last meeting the person who does a lot of GIS for the town like Warner had reached out to me just because I knew him from another project to just check in on that I don't know Guilford did you have any updates or anything on that or yeah at some my I'm going to try to reach out to her at some point is she actually in town or she I think she's out for the summer she's in town right great yeah so Guilford I was especially interested in that because I've been contacted by some people from the district one neighborhood association about doing some planning for North Amherst and one of the one of the things they want to start thinking about is transportation and so they've asked me to be on their committee to help lead their committee in thinking about transportation in North Amherst so I pulled out our old draft you know pet and bike network map with all the annotations that I have because we did North Amherst first so I have all those annotations um and I can work from that but it'd be really nice to actually have the you know the final map to work from instead if that could happen um our goal is to have sort of a North Amherst plan by January but I I think also just having a you know a completed network map like it doesn't go ahead Guilford well I'm sorry I think it's doable I mean she's available um yeah I mean we'd like to have the network map done this summer so that then we could use it for other things you know well and also the summer is not going to happen I mean that's when what that's when Ali has time though you know because she's she's going to be a full-time student starting in September yeah but we're in summer now um yeah I know yeah yeah but I don't think it would take her that long she's got enough skills just get her the layer she can do it oh we'll have a talk yeah um so what about the rumor that we hear that Donna's gonna form their own city I haven't heard that one don't know you mean well yeah I was gonna ask you about that because I've been looking now that I live in district one um I was actually wondering about joining the group but there doesn't seem to be any information anywhere yeah that's because um they wanted me to share the thing and I'm not doing anything um but yeah if you want to be part of no I mean not just not just the presentation stuff but everything I mean everything like it's all very out of date I don't know yeah okay but I if you're if you're up for it it'd be awesome to have someone else who's sort of been part of this history of thinking about this stuff um yeah I would love to actually yes thank you okay that'd be fantastic yeah and actually speaking of just sort of history and things so I mean I know Amber's not here I was gonna ask her maybe I can follow up after with her but when I was looking you know I went searching just to see what what maps we did have of bike ped priority networks Guilford and like the first thing that came up on my search was some I don't know maybe like some map from like 2005 or something um and actually on the tag page we still have on the tag page we have like links to well so there's a bicycling link I think that's probably where the network map is but we also have a public works committee link and a public transportation and bike committee link which I think those made up made sense when the tag page tag was first created but I don't know if we want to keep those links like permanently attached to tax page what do you think anyway then maybe we can start to move some of that stuff off you're muted yeah it's up to you you guys wanted to have it when we first started and we just never got back to it if you want to get out you can I think right so tack was created in 2016 I don't know I think it makes sense to not necessarily have our all that archival stuff but well and I think that's too where that old biking link is the one that's outdated so um yeah okay and do you so Guilford just like so when like working with Ollie and this was a question that had come up just when Mike Warner had reached out to me too it's like we do you do have like markups or whatever of all the all the stuff we decided that those five or six meetings last year about what we were changing yeah I think because my notes are pretty poor so we have some but probably use are probably better we could probably start there no I mean I might only have North Amherst so they're good for North Amherst but I think after that point you were the one that was annotating yes yeah but you were there's there's somewhere in my files yeah I mean so we could you know because of zoom we could go back and rewatch those meetings but if anybody has those notes it would be helpful so um yeah well I mean because I mean that's what Ollie's gonna need like when she's or whoever's gonna do the map updates are they're gonna need those notes are you thinking you're gonna be able to hire Ollie Guilford we need to find more about Ollie yeah I mean there's money okay I mean I think she said she sent her resume didn't she she did there's money to hire people there's nobody who wants to work so if you have someone who wants to work that's great I think she wants to work so I think you should hire her while she's got time to do it yeah I think you have a connection right there yeah that just Stefan I don't even we haven't met her I've seen you but anyway I'm a former tech member but I'm also in the geography program at UMass so this is a GIST graduate student so she comes with strong skills and then Stefan are you a graduate now too did you graduate I graduated in May last month nice graduate from uh UMass standard school public policy oh great awesome any any works for the UMass transit yes fantastic wow okay great so all right well hopefully by the time we have our next meeting we'll have some updates on that because I'd love to move the map along if we can um yeah Guilford do you want me to facilitate a meeting like do a when to meet to have you and Ollie meet um now let me just well if you want to send me the yeah if you want to try to get send some stuff going I have some things happening in the next two weeks so it's going to be a little hard to do it so let's see what happens so like the week of June 27th would be good for you uh as long as it's like the 29th or 30th okay I'll send an email about that okay thanks Eve okay so next tack item um tack members um just so I'd been contacted by Angela Mills of the town manager's office just about that we did have some expiring appointments I know the town manager's he's been advertising for members for a lot of committees um because there's so many um positions that expire in every June so I don't know if he's hard for anybody you know to join the tack yet um in my understanding who is getting kicked out now I don't think I remember getting well Marcus your term is upright so oh it is I didn't realize I think you can did you hear from them I thought I thought no I'm gonna contact okay I will I will not be my term is up and I will not I will not be returning oh I'm backing off on backing off on commitments both um town Biden sure um but you know I'm looking at the screen here uh it's it's Bruce me and Marcus who are right that's what I think and I mean if you um if you send a just send a note to the town manager's office saying you want to be reappointed I think that will be sufficient yeah Marcus if you want to send a note like that to Angela that's great yeah I'll have to yeah I will do the same all right and I think um I think Bruce I wasn't sure because you had been serving before if they were going to say you yeah they want you to step down but normally I think the rule is that as long as until there's a new person appointed to the position like somebody can continue to serve as a member unless they don't want to like after Aaron Hayden stepped down as chair right he said I'm done like I don't want I don't want to be part of the committee anymore so um but I would tell them that uh I'm willing to serve until someone right somebody wants to replace me then I would happily step aside well thank you and um and we've had the discussions previously about you know how who we'd like to see as tech members and if we can diversify and things like that well if you hear folks you know yeah my experience with this is you can put as many advertisements up as you you know you care to you're not going to get people people like to be asked oh for sure yeah if you know folks who want to be might be on the committee might be interested uh maybe somebody who just has an interesting occupational title talk with them uh I'm going to suggest that to my uh the two counselors here in district five uh they've got a district meeting coming up and I'm gonna I'm gonna ask them to let them know that they can see I'm the tech yeah one and try to encourage people and use the the discussion we had about the yeah down here or around about down here is uh is a point uh to you know gen up some interest well in district five doesn't it it actually includes like all the way out to like beltertown road yeah and things too so it includes amherst woods and I mean it's a big area right that's a great idea for the district meeting so our district five committee is not our district five citizens committee has not been very active uh but we when we were we did compile a list of all the vacancies and yeah all your so committees that the town manager is responsible and donna if if any donna people want to join Eve so well I mean that seems like the secretive place to be right now and then we find any information on donna I think it'd be good to get someone who doesn't own a car and no low income apartment complex and has absolutely in the um schools although you know is there any opportunity from amherst um in its effort to diversify to pay someone like that I mean honestly if you want to actually get low income people who are in that kind of situation that's probably what you need to do I was going to say those people the person you just described doesn't sound like they have a lot of extra time yeah no you but you absolutely would have to pay them um is there any money in time to do that the castle has talked about that you know with some of these committees where they definitely want diverse members I don't know what the final it's complicated yeah if you've got if you've got if you've got a a uh uh if you've got a job or jobs you know typical couple right two two parents working two kids there ain't a lot of time no and if you have one parent you got less time if you're a single parent family all you can't pay people enough to um now to get them to free the time well as these guys know as a single parent I was on the PTBC for years and I just brought my child along to the four p.m. meetings and that's where they were at four p.m. so it's not impossible but I had the you know I had a salary to make the flexibility work um oh I mean it's challenging in general yeah is he working grandfather I can tell you you know three three kids are my my my uh my partner um said the um she always gave the advice to that you never should have more kids than you have hands and of course my my my offspring has listened to that advice so um so we have extra huge all right well so okay I mean the other thing too I think that you've as you're late the group of you're talking about is who's being underrepresented like they're a desired group by a lot of committees right and the towns continue to create new committees that are especially aimed at like their interests too so it does become more challenging but yeah what do you know Tracy about their efforts to consider paying such people well it came up at the council meeting just as they were trying to create I think like the that committee that's like going to help with crests and things like the community safety working group so they there were discussions just about the new committee that was being created and how can you get people to participate you know what incentives right so town meeting they used to have the thing with the child care and things like that but just to provide some I mean personally I think that having the zoom helps because you could somewhat you know like parent depending on the kid you could somewhat parents from home like while there's a meeting going on and if you have to actually be in person it like becomes more challenging but absolutely I mean I don't I'm sorry I'm right now I'm on my phone yes I'm cleaning out a car ready to go camping this weekend because my wife is off with the kids doing something else so yeah parents are busy people I drove I mean as I I drove over 400 miles last weekend for my kids activities and it and I was out of the house for about 20 hours and then on Sunday night you're like hey where the weekend go so do you know if if there's any effort in town to try to pay low income people to to participate in committees I think there's a lot of talk about it and the communications people have been mulling over the idea you know of providing when we are in person you know food and babysitting and transportation and different things like that there isn't the budget for that right now so it is being talked about yeah I mean I can look into what I don't remember what the council you know what the final resolution and I mean I think it's still in progress I don't think it was something that was implemented with that committee but well the things that people mentioned to me other than our you know time constraints is meetings go on too long meetings are too frequent there's always a prospect of like negative comments and blowback via social media you know folks are concerned about that and you know frankly having come from a low income and I can and done this stuff for my son is reminding me for 40 years I don't think paying people is going to make a difference I think being respectful of people in how things are scheduled and how time is used giving people very precise kinds of targets and things to do I think that will be that will be key the other thing will be to do the kind of outreach that's necessary to convince folks that they might have some impact and they and they can have an interest and that takes that takes them one to one that takes some conversations it isn't a question of you know it isn't a question of well if they're poor and we pay them they'll come up it's time and it's respect and one of the things that's nice about zoom meetings is that you know as people have mentioned you you've got a greater degree of flexibility and you can have the kid running around and you know click off the sound and sort of I mean even now of course we've had we we I've seen people you know particularly single parents flame out even even via the zoom piece so it's not a question of it's a question of really telling people what you're going to do being respectful about how their time is used and insulating them some if they you know from the the rock the the commentariat here in Amherst it seems to just spring up more than in other communities that I've been either involved with or lived so you know that's it's it's a tall order it really is a tall order well I mean fortunately I think that tack we're not like a super political committee right and yeah we try not to be like to try to you know just focus on like safety and facts and things like that and so I don't you know I got it we saw the teacher I feel like I need to do some informational videos um because about navigating roundabouts but also because even like when UMass had the you know had all their graduations and things like all those police ITS signs they they said like go up to the rotary I mean people just use like rotaries roundabouts it's all like interchangeable and yeah so um no I mean but I think I definitely think it's important to feel like you can make it I feel like the tack that we have been like making a difference in things so we're not just meeting to meet and if we try to keep the agenda it's pretty tight in the meeting short I think that helps right and sometimes we're meeting one time once a month and so much remain twice and go for should you have you raise your hand and you're on mute just wanted to say I did a field trip to carmel indiana drove through wait is that the town with the hundreds of roundabouts right yes and it's great they don't have any single lane roundabouts though they're all and they all work great so how do they work I mean I don't know are the doubles to stay for like bikes and pets they don't to me they don't seem to be safe it's it's indiana so there's lots of space it's not like new england where there's no space so they have big sidewalks cool cool um thank you so in in with that context let's get back on track okay our next one is north right so the reason I brought this one up is because this is also still on TSOs like carryover agenda from the last council the reality right is that um there's no funding for it yet it's something that's been there for a long time the reason I put on our agenda is because we did do those great site visits there it's tracing sorry what was the topic I didn't hear no it was about north pleasant the easement of pine okay okay yeah north pleasant right so I mean basically it was just that it had been referred to us from TSO and it's still a carryover item the TSO has talked about having hearings on it and things but with some of the other projects that have come up it's not really it's much of a priority and it doesn't have the funding right now the reason I put it on our agenda since we did the site visits it's still be good to like submit I like to just because we did that work to just submit something still so um I had gotten like pulled into other things so I didn't write anything up but if somebody wanted to help me just you know write something up we could I just want to kind of have it on the record and then when the town comes back to it well perhaps that's something we can work on for our next meeting and be happy sure look at if you if you get something started I'm happy to look at it as well so yeah for the next meeting I'd like to write up this um Saverage to school oh great and then Christine and I Christine Lindstrom and I will just once attack just checks it over we'll send it into the district great okay so that's our that's our agenda item for next time but just to not have north pleasant street like disappear like to do it sometime this summer so maybe the next meeting the meeting maybe the next meeting sounds good and hey and there we are so number seven Kim update upcoming meeting dates okay so we typically meet on the first and the third um Thursday of the month and so the first week is the seventh uh and we don't you know we don't I think TSO they're not meeting until like the end of the month like I guess we're meeting on the 30th I don't know whether anything will be referred to they don't actually have I heard from Dorothy Pam this morning they don't even have anything for their agenda so I'm not even 100% sure they're going to meet on the 30th um so we don't I mean the main item I would have for the seventh would be just like to follow up on the safe reach to school stuff um you know and if there are any referrals like do we oh and hopefully we can see if there's any updates about the bike ped map and like getting Ollie set up to do that work does anybody else have anything pressing for that so you you think you guys might have the um update for the um for the but the safer to school well I mean the idea like the report that we want the report I want to submit to the district is going to be like it's not going to be some like giant like comprehensive like 50 page report and so we've taken the pictures you know and we're going to have the narrative a couple pages narrative for each school and yeah I think that that's fine yeah okay so so um I could be available I'm available on the seventh because it's okay we might not have a huge agenda from the TSO or we might get something but I am not available on the 21st of July okay so okay so the only thing I had for the 21st was um Mindy Dom had put me in touch with the western mass rail advocates and I followed up with the person I heard back from them yesterday that I just told them that we normally meet on the first and the third um Thursdays and so he said he is available on the 21st but I could see if we don't have anything push pressing on the 21st I'm fine with meeting less in the summer I mean in that we could always maybe because right after that right and then you go to like august 4th or something we could have a tech meeting august 4th yep and right so we're we're doing a good job we're limiting people's time and things so I could see if he's available then unless we feel like there's anything pressing that we need to do um and then I'm are you guys all are people available on those dates Stefan Bruce Marcus yes I am okay what they was the eighth you said no so the the august 4th oh august 4th uh yeah yeah okay all right yeah that should be good so that works perhaps that's those are some goals and at least we can then structure our you know our our meetings are yeah it dates for those those those meetings right so we will definitely have a meeting on august 4th and we can have one on the 21st even though Kim's not available if we have agenda items I'm not going to be available on the 18th um and then we have august yeah push into the year um and then I don't you know I don't know Kim like I'm hoping that will like you and I will be able to present to TSO like in august sometime or something so I agree okay so that's so so that might be an agenda item for our august 4th meeting right to check in on telling people what we're planning to talk about mm-hmm is the committee because I want to need to um get some notice to my my reps my counselor okay you're gonna continue to meet from five to we we decided that we like we talked about this because we had changed from five to five thirty like based on Kim's schedule then it seemed like five thirty worked better for people than five I'm okay with that for now like if if we do have yeah I mean evening meetings can be hard for people but then you know can be hard for people earlier too right when I was there's again there's no there's no perfect time I don't know for a lot of a lot of young families this is supper time yeah um you know supper diamond and kids go to bed right so uh you know but there's never I mean we could push it back we could push it back to start at five but there's no reason over the summer no over the summer this way I mean I think I think that's really valid and we can you know evaluate reevaluate the time starting in September right if we're interested in having like I totally agree this is family time now I mean my family's waiting in the other room for me right now okay yeah but that's fine they I can do that I because I don't have little kids anymore so right yeah but I understand what your point Bernie it's totally you know like like I said Marcus and I think I mean I think five can be more convenient than five thirty but but also like eight o'clock could be easier for parents yeah that's possible yeah you know yeah yeah yeah it's interesting yeah I mean five is gonna be fine for me because my daughter's no longer in preschool right and if we're able to like meet on zoom too right because of its 8 p.m you don't really want to be leaving our house at 8 p.m correct but so right so I mean I I think the afternoon evening like early evenings are better than I mean back when I was on public transportation and bike committee before we'd always meet at like 9 a.m like that's not convenient for almost anybody but we but it we had we did it because we had so many staff people attending like between planning and like meals would be there and Guilford of course and somebody from ums transit and five college ink and so it's kind of sort of shaped on them but it's not ideal for people who have other jobs to be happy at nine or 10 a.m so okay great um no are there any other announcements or comments I'd just like to thank everybody I thank you real uh the last couple of years has been real uh learning experience for me I don't know how much I've contributed but I've certainly learned a lot and I it's it's been a great group of people to work with but I really appreciate all the effort that goes into the the process and I appreciate I Bernie I appreciate all your knowledge from doing you know bike head transportation stuff in other communities too so well it was great to have the work I think also like your procedural like and your like other like you you bring in a a set of expertise that you know it and experience that some of us don't a lot of us don't have so I really appreciate that Bernie I also just appreciate thank you very much thank you have a good summer oh yeah yeah it's a pleasure getting to know you thank you and um do you have anything so I mean I'll just a couple quick like comments announcements so I've been attending the disability access advisory committee meetings they met earlier this week um and we talked about you know interests of like shared interests including going back even though it's a middle of summer now going back to thinking about snow shoveling and sidewalks um and um we also talked about the like amity like how amity street now has the upper part of it which are beautiful they're beautiful it's a really nice project on both sides of the street they're wide and smooth and crosswalks are great and everything but we also talked about the issue you know going down amity where the hill gets steeper um and one of the things is that because it's steeper like what does that mean with ADA and some people on the disability access advisory committee know way more about the ADA than I do but just in terms of that there's there are you know way ways you can get have like waivers from the ADA because I mean there are places where you always are going to have like steep steep sidewalks or steep roads and you should still be able to like improve them and things like it shouldn't so I don't know the way that the way ADA is going though you won't be able to really yeah because they want to actually have the ADA requirements for private properties that prop apply to the roadways um the waiver we have now is we can do it if it matches the road grade otherwise we have to file for a complete waiver which is a very long a little bit it's a bit of a process and we have to show why we can't meet those requirements which means why we can't take land from other people as well so it's a little but like on the case but then the case of like you know if you do there are places that have grades right like like on the case of amity and I know the grade gets up to like eight percent or seven you know it's pretty steep at some sections but if there's like tree roots and the sidewalks and disrepair there's technically some if you fix it and you don't make it you don't make it comply with one of those two either has to match the the grade of the road or you have to match the ADA requirements off the road which you can never really do right I mean you'd have to have like switch back switch back which you can't really yeah and it's the problem on amity because when you go down amity street the sidewalk is very much steeper than oh on both sides I mean right yes interesting you know I have a friend who has a child in a wheelchair at the bottom of amity and and it's just sad to me that that kid can't go anywhere you know by himself so it doesn't yeah yeah it doesn't make sense I mean just just to make it smoother and prove it then if you if you do a poll of how many people have wheelchairs out there now that aren't motorized I mean most of them are motorized now yes they are yeah well and I just think about all the places like you know that have steep hills like you still want to be able to fix you still want to go to fix stuff so anyway that was just a question that came up there and and we were also talking about the snow shoveling and I've been in touch and that and then yesterday I was in a walk Boston meeting with their network and they you know that's the issue that walk Boston's been working on a lot at with state DOT and things is just trying to address some of it because one of the things with the mass DOT is that they're really committed to doing a lot more complete streets and that so when they do these major roadway projects they're adding requiring sidewalks to be added but like if you look at the example of Hadley which is what I think a lot about because it's near my house but like you have this brand new beautiful sidewalk that goes from University Drive to the Hampshire Mall and then nobody's responsible for clearing the snow in the winter right if you ask the town they'll say the DOT is responsible if you ask the DOT to say the town's responsible like Hadley Town meeting didn't pass something to say the property owners are responsible so you have this beautiful sidewalk and then it's not really maintained and then people are back with their you know walking and wheelchairing and stuff in the road and then on top of that this DOT contractors for the plowing like even if some people have cleared the sidewalk like they'll shove all the snow back up and they'll also do it at like the curb cuts and stuff like they'll make you know 10-foot piles and I mean which contributes to the issue too so if you look at the DOT snow plowing contracts like it says that they are not allowed the plowers aren't allowed to shove snow off of bridges like onto if there's railroad tracks or roads underneath so I I mean and I'd like to see something similar like for like curb cuts and stuff you can't you can't put like 15-foot piles of snow at the curb cuts and so actually one of the walk was in people is like documenting stuff but they've been looking at contracts from other DOTs including New York State which has more restrictions but to start to change some of that so that's cool it's not easy I don't know they have a lot of DOT has a lot of trouble finding snow plow contractors for the sidewalks especially I mean for western mass in general but especially the sidewalks they don't all have the fancy town of Amherst type snow plow for the sidewalks right feel free to have do you still have two of those or one of those just one I just remember the conversations at town meeting when people sit when people would go and they say well why can't you just hook up their lawn tractor with anyway that's town meeting so okay um yeah that was it and then I will so I'll contact this western mass person I'll see if he's available on the 4th of august 4th so okay great so bruce one anything else kim no bruce bruce all right second all right everybody have a nice night okay thanks thank you bye bye bernie