City of Houston Bicycle Advisory Committee Education Subcommittee met Sept. 25

City of Houston Bicycle Advisory Committee Education Subcommittee met Sept. 25.

Here are the minutes provided by the subcommittee:

Call to Order. Chair Leah Chambers began the meeting at 2:04pm.

Roll Call: (bold indicates present)

Joe Cutrufo

Tom Compson, BAC Chair

Alejandro Perez, BAC Vice Chair

Leah Chambers, Chair

Lisa Graiff

Carl Salazar

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 Leah Chambers gave the Chair’s report.

1) Leah spoke about how she was currently in San Francisco as was impressed with how many bike lanes had been built there. There were so many people using the bike lanes that there were some conflicts arising between bicycles and scooters and cargo bikes.

Item 3: Public Comment.

No written comments were submitted prior to the meeting and no one in attendance made a public comment.

Item 4: Idaho Stop

The group discussed the history of the Idaho Stop – cyclists being allowed to treat stop signs as yield signs, and in some states, red lights as stop signs.

The laws need to be changed at the state level, and with the upcoming session we discussed the process by how this might be changed. Previous efforts were addressed as well.

This led to a discussion topic being requested for the full BAC meeting in October to discuss legislative priorities.

Item 5: Biketober/Love to Ride October challenge

Trevor Reichman explained 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.

Item 6: Open Form

• Alejandro asked how we can integrate micromobility into the BAC mission.

• Amar talked about how the Houston Bike Plan was formed alongside the concept of micromobility. Many people use bike lanes for tasks other than riding bikes, like jogging.

• Leah talked about people using scooters in San Francisco transit lanes.

• Trevor talked about classification challenges of bikes vs scooters.

• Amar talked about the different rules that the different classifications have to follow.

• Alejandro brought up a trail closure by UH-Downtown.

• Staff member Wilson Calvert was asked to coordinate with HPW to find out if there are any standards for bike parking.

Item 7: Announcements.

Staffer Wilson Calvert announced an H-GAC TIRZ mobility meeting to be held on Tuesday October 1.

Robin Holzer announced the Hermann Park “Park to Port ride” would be on October 26.

Next Meetings

- Bicycle Advisory Committee: October 23

- Infrastructure Subcommittee: November 20

https://houstonbikeplan.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/BAC-Education-Meeting-Notes_September2024.pdf