So the Sioux Falls Bicycle Committee has been skipping meetings over the past couple of months and if you do a search on the city website it has been almost scrubbed from the site. The Active Transportation committee has taken recommendations from the group, but if those meetings don’t exist how do you take recommendations?
If you want to kill the committee, just do it. Bring a resolution forward at the city council meeting and dissolve it.
Please stop playing games.
If the new board has taken over these duties, just say it and move on.
I sometimes feel like when I ride bike in this town I am all alone, and that is not a bad thing since I enjoy my own company 🙂 but it is dangerous, and I really don’t think I have the city’s back on this, I am on my own.
Let’s just say there is an obvious and direct correlation between Sam T. leaving Planning and the Bicycle Comittee having shorter and fewer meetings. Some of Sams meetings could get a little long, but at least you felt like you were a part of something when Sam ran them.
When they first laid out the plans to create the Active Transportation Board, it was obvious there were no guarantees that the BC would go forward. At that time, questions were raised about this but the BC members were assured it would with the help of appropriate Council legislation, if needed, but that has never happened.
Throughout 2024, there have only been eight BC meetings with about half of them just being Zoom meetings. It has also been suggested that the BC should meet during the day and not at 5pm, which if that happened, I think would make it even harder for members to attend.
Given the Wild West reality of the bike trail in particular since the greater legalization of e-bikes on the bike trail, this is not a time to end or reduce the number of BC meetings, that is if the BC, or better yet the City, is really concerned about safety, cycling, and public input.
In fact, at the August BC meeting, a member of that committee asked if at the next meeting of the BC (Hopefully the September one.) if maybe Parks could attend the BC meeting so questions could be asked about e-bike usage on the trail. Well, guess what happened? First, the September meeting was canceled, then when we had a meeting in October, the Planning official overseeing the BC meeting claimed he had no knowledge of a BC interest in having Parks attend a BC meeting, even though that official said in August that they would invite Parks to the next meeting.
Frankly, Parks needs to come to a BC meeting. They need to answer questions relative to e-bikes on the trail concerning signage, speed, and enforcement. It would also be nice to have the SFPD there, too, during this discussion.
But then again, as long as that house remains at 33rd and Duluth, then why are we surprised that the BC appears to be weathering away…. Although, the only question now is, which will last longer, that old house or the BC?
( and Woodstock adds: “Yah, but maybe they are all too busy working on the Riverline project, huh?…. 🙂 ……” …..)