One Response to “City Council Could Create Permanent Cycle Safety Committee”
Comments
City Council Could Create Permanent Cycle Safety Committee
posted: August 9th, 2010 08:16 am |
1Comment
At a Tuesday night meeting, the Newport Beach City Council members will consider creating a Citizens Bicycle Safety Committee that would work to create maps, work with schools, monitor safety issues and investigate whether a sharrow could be implemented on Bayside Drive.
The seven-member committee would be formed for one year, at which point the Council would consider whether it was worth continuing, according to a staff report. The staff report states that the committee’s projects would cost about $78,000 — money that is not currently set aside in the city’s budget.
City Councilwoman Nancy Gardner asked for the committee to be formed in May in order to carry out recommendations made by a Task Force on Cycling Safety that formed last fall. The group was created following a fatal bicycle accident in July 2009, but two other cyclists have been killed since then, including a death in July on Spyglass Hill Road. (Read our stories here, here, here and here.)
The Task Force on Cycling Safety met for several months before creating a report that the City Council received in mid-May. That report suggested that police meet with cycling advocates, that the city add bicycle racks at key points throughout the community and that traffic engineers find an appropriate spot to test sharrows, or marked lanes where cyclists and motorist share the road. Read our story here.
If the City Council members agree to create the committee, staff will seek applicants who will be appointed to one-year terms with a limit of four years for re-appointments.
