City of Houston Bicycle Advisory Committee Infrastructure Subcommittee met Aug. 28

City of Houston Bicycle Advisory Committee Infrastructure Subcommittee met Aug. 28.

Here are the minutes provided by the subcommittee:

Call to Order. Chair Joe Cutrufo began the meeting at 2:06pm. 

Roll Call: (bold indicates present) 

Joe Cutrufo, Chair 

Tom Compson, BAC Chair 

Alejandro Perez, BAC Vice Chair 

Leah Chambers 

Lisa Graiff 

Trevor Reichman 

Yuhayna Mahmud 

Ben Drews 

Amar Mohite 

Mike VanDusen 

Robin Holzer 

Ex-Officio Members: 

Nicole Broussard, Planning & Development 

Ian Hlavacek, Houston Public Works 

Patricc Fortiori, Parks & Recreation 

Item 1: Director’s Report. Nicole Broussard. She introduced herself as the new ex officio member representing the Planning Department.  

Item 2: Chair’s Report. Chair Joe Cutrufo gave the Chair’s Report. Three topics were covered in the chair’s report: 

1) Bike Lane Maintenance is severely lacking. The City of Houston had previously  purchased a mechanical sweeper designed for bike lane use, and it was  permanently broken after about 6 months of use. Many cyclists are not willing to  ride in the bike lanes because of the large amounts of debris. Currently, Bike  Houston is doing some lane maintenance and clearing debris leftover from  Hurricane Beryl, but the city shouldn’t expect local residents to have to do this  themselves. 

2) METRO unanimously passed a board action for the execution of an ebike rental  system akin to Houston BCycle 11 months ago, but METRO has no entered into the  agreement or started the program. No information has been supplied by METRO on  the cause of the delay or the status of the program. 

3) Bike Houston has partnered with the Houston Parks Board to install some bike and  pedestrian counters around the city. 3 counters with associated display boards,  solar cells, and battery system will count riders as they pass the counter. Right now,  we don’t know how many people are actually riding the trails, and this will give the  bike community hard evidence.  

Item 3: Public Comment. 

No written comments were submitted prior to the meeting.  

BAC Vice Chair Alejandro Perez echoed the comments that Chair Cutrufo gave during  the chair’s report and also provided some information that he is working on a bike club  at University of Houston-Downtown.  

Item 4: High Comfort Bikeways for Bissonnet SSFA  

Dan Nagel walked the group through potential neighborhood bikeway crossings on the  large scale Bissonnet rehabilitation project that is scheduled to be designed and  constructed over the next several years. He is a resident of the area and identified five  potential crossing sites and suggested that the road designers integrate the crossings  now. Bryan Dotson talked about the potential costs and schedule for the project.  

Item 5: Open Forum 

Trevor Reichman explained the he would be the liaison for Houston for the bike riding  tracking app Love2Ride. The app allows automatic collection of bike usage data and  lets entities compete against each other to see who is riding their bikes more.  Biketober is a focus for some competition. 

Bryan Dotson talked about how his employer, BP, bought one of the orphaned BCycle  bikes for $25 and they are providing it to employees on a 1 week trial basis with a  helmet. It is the beginning of the program. 

Item 6: Announcements. 

Alejandro Perez had information on a bike building event with icycle on Sept 14 from 8- 12.  

Joe Cutrufo announced the Hermann Park “Park to Port ride” would be on October 26. 

Next Meetings 

- Education Subcommittee: September 25

- Bicycle Advisory Committee: October 23

- Infrastructure Subcommittee: November 20 

Meeting Adjourned at 2:56pm.

https://houstonbikeplan.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/BAC-Infrastructure-Meeting-Notes_August2024.pdf