Bicycle and Pedestrians Advisory Committee
Thu, Feb 12, 2026 · Bicycle and Pedestrians Advisory Committee
https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/1054

== Executive Summary ==
The Bicycle and Pedestrians Advisory Committee (BPAC) held a meeting where they approved the agenda and previous meeting minutes. Key discussions included presentations from Bike Santa Fe and Chainbreaker Collective, highlighting their efforts in promoting cycling, providing bikes, and advocating for policy changes. The Santa Fe Conservation Trust and the Metropolitan Planning Organization also provided updates on trail maintenance, bike lane retrofits, and new street design guidelines aimed at improving safety and connectivity for pedestrians and cyclists.

BPAC members discussed the Safe Routes to School program, a vacancy on the Transit Advisory Board, and the need to fully implement a bus pass rebate program for bicyclists. The committee also reviewed its strategic plan, recent achievements, and upcoming projects, including the goal of achieving Gold Level Bicycle Friendly Community designation. A significant portion of the meeting focused on improving the Galisteo/Zia intersection for cyclists and pedestrians, and BPAC's desire for earlier involvement in the city's development review process to ensure bicycle and pedestrian considerations are integrated from the outset. The committee also discussed the need for a dedicated budget for infrastructure maintenance and the importance of interdepartmental communication.

== Key Decisions ==
- Approved the meeting agenda with an addition for a report on 'Santa Fe Seniors on Bikes' under 'Communications from Other Agencies'.
- Approved the minutes from the January 8th, 2026 BPAC meeting with a minor amendment to include Mark McConnell as present.
- Tony Garlich was appointed to the Vulnerable Road User Task Force.
- BPAC voted to recommend the installation of signage at the intersection of Zia and Galisteo to communicate caution and opportunities to both motorists and cyclists.
- A motion was passed to direct Eric (Mr. Anie) to contact city staff, specifically Heather Lamboy in the Land Use Department, to discuss how BPAC can be better informed and potentially involved in the Development Review Team (DRT) process, and to report back at the next meeting. The motion clarified that BPAC is not seeking to be added *to* the DRT team but rather to improve notification and input channels.

== Motions & Votes ==
- Motion to approve the agenda — Passed by voice vote.
- Motion to approve the January 8th, 2026 minutes — Passed by voice vote.
- Motion to recommend the installation of signage at the intersection of Zia and Galisteo to communicate caution and opportunities to both motorists and cyclists — Passed.
- Motion to direct Eric (Mr. Anie) to contact city staff, specifically Heather Lamboy in the Land Use Department, to discuss how BPAC can be better informed and potentially involved in the DRT process, and to report back at the next meeting — Passed (roll call vote: Yes).

== Public Comment ==
City Councilor Alma Castro requested BPAC's support for a "block party" event at Frenchy's Field to promote alternative transportation. A speaker highlighted the difficulty in securing funding for environmental and racial justice-focused bicycle initiatives. A speaker noted the difficulty of growing environmental and racial justice-focused bicycle initiatives due to funding challenges. A committee member expressed concern about the past liaison position between the city and schools regarding development proposals potentially being defunct and the need for better inter-jurisdictional communication on development impacts on schools and transportation. The Transit Division highlighted that local bicycle organizations and vendors have expressed interest in moving forward with the bus rebate program outlined in Resolution 2013-60. A committee member noted the lack of protected bike lanes in Santa Fe, highlighting a common observation from visiting cyclists. Another member shared personal experiences of nearly being hit by cars while walking, emphasizing the need for improved pedestrian safety. A member expressed gratitude for the Guadalupe Street bike lane improvements, stating it significantly improved their commute and safety. A member highlighted the need for better bike lane maintenance, specifically mentioning cinders on OPO's trail and Cordova. A community member (Genevieve) who frequently rides the area indicated no issue with the lack of a bike lane on Galisteo but highlighted the need for signage. A member highlighted the benefit of right-angle curbs for bikes and strollers, not just cars. A member suggested exploring a direct pathway between Galisteo and the Rail Trail in the arroyo area. Concerns were raised about the lack of a permanent Traffic Engineer and other key Public Works staff, and the potential impact on continuity and progressive street design. A member emphasized the need for BPAC to be proactively involved in project reviews rather than just receiving presentations after plans are developed. Angela (a committee member who works for the city) clarified that BPAC, as an advisory committee, would not be granted authority to be a direct part of the DRT team. Tony (a committee member) invited everyone to the Bike Santa Fe Winter Social and a cycling education event. A member highlighted Senate Bill 73 (SB73) regarding education for vulnerable road users, questioning if the city's lobbyists were involved.

== Topics ==
- Bicycle & Pedestrian Safety
- Bicycle Infrastructure Projects
- Bike Santa Fe Activities
- Chainbreaker Collective Programs
- Budget & Funding for Infrastructure
- Inter-departmental Coordination
- Community Engagement & Events
- BPAC Role & Influence
- Vulnerable User Task Force
- Transit Advisory Board

== Full Transcript ==
Michael, are we good online?

We are live.

Excellent. So, I will call to order the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advocacy Committee meeting for today, February 12th, 2026. Can we get a roll call? Sorry. Member Angela Ber Gray, she's coming. Member Betrice Farrell, excused. Member Judith Gabriel.

Here.

Member Tony Garlics. Member Mark McConnell, excused. Member Steve Pilchure.

Here.

Member Ben Pengilly.

Here.

Member Garish Miller.

Here.

Member Helen Wang, she's excused. She will be on leave for several months. She just gave birth last February 7th. Chair Pat FG Ali, here. You have a quorum.

Thank you. Do I read the agenda or do you all read the agenda?

Approval of the agenda. It's okay. Like, make one addition to the agenda. I could also report on Santa Fe Seniors on Bikes.

What would that be, the communications from other agencies?

Yeah, that's acceptable.

Do you want to add that to your Public Safety Committee? Okay. We were not allowed to do that in the past because the agenda was...

Maybe you couldn't mention it in matters from the committee.

Okay.

Are there any other changes from the committee or from staff?

None, Madam Chair. Can we get a motion?

Move to approve the agenda.

Second.

Can we do a voice vote?

You can, Madam Chair, because everyone is here.

Great. Everyone in favor? Anyone opposed? The approval of the minutes from January 8th, 2026 BPAC meeting. Madam Chair, staff has amendments or changes. The staff wants to include member Mark McConnell under present members. Great.

That's all, Madam Chair.

Anyone else have any changes? We get a motion.

Second.

All in favor? Anyone opposed? Okay. Communications from the public. If anyone is here and wants to talk, who is not on the agenda from communications from other agencies, please come up. You have two minutes.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, committee. My name is Alma Castro. I am a City Councilor in District 1, and I'm here to ask for your support for an event at Frenchy's Field. I would like to promote other forms of transportation besides cars, and we would like to do an event at Frenchy's Field, sort of as a block party, let's envision, where we want to bring folks in the neighborhood, and we've had great reception from the Casala neighborhood. I think it's time that we start investing some resources there.

Thank you, Councilor. It will be sometime this spring, I believe. It has not quite been scheduled yet. Anyone else who is not here from an agency?

I may be recognized, Chair. Sorry. In response to that, thank you. What neighborhoods are we wanting to highlight? I didn't quite catch it, so I'd like to know. So, we have in the past done work with the Casal Homeowners Association, but actually as a city, we would like to start reinvigorating some of the neighborhood associations, and so we'd like to invite as many as possible.

Anyone else? No. Okay, we can go to item six, communications from other agencies. 6A is Bike Santa Fe. If you could keep it to five minutes, that would be great. Can you make sure that mic is on? Is it on now? I apologize. My name is Genevieve Morgan. I am the newest board member. I'm also the chair of the committee. Probably a lot of you are already really familiar with Bike Santa Fe. We'd like to think of ourselves as kind of the forefront of the biking community in Santa Fe. It's a 501c3 nonprofit organization founded in 2010. We have around 100 members currently and are always seeking to be in that for us. We are an all-volunteer-run board members, and we also have a newly formed advisory committee, of which we have two very active members as well seeking that. So the main things that Bike Santa Fe has done in the past few in four main areas. So the first historically has been education. In the past, the organization has done a lot of bike classes partnering with the League of American Bicycles and other organizations to teach people how to safely ride around town. We'd like to return to that. That's been on pause to get back to that. And educating our members on again, how to safely ride and resources that are available such as trails and routes around town. Education in the schools is a big part of what we do as well in terms of partnering with Safe Routes to Schools and doing any biking in schools activities. Another component of the organization are that we hold. A really big part of what Bike Santa Fe has done in the past are bike valet events around town. So for any especially major events in town, the big one of course is Zozobra, which is a huge benefit for the city because we encourage people to ride, reduces traffic congestion, frees up parking obviously, and it's just a really good way for people to feel in the community by biking to those events and having a safe place to park. So we'll continue to do that. Other events that we have are social events, which is the one that we had to reschedule unfortunately, but it's for, it's coming up Saturday the 28th. Sorry, not this Saturday, but Saturday the 28th, 2:00 to 5:00. It's a member social event. It's our winter social event. So these are ways for members to socialize and educate each other and we can collaborate on what sorts of priorities the organization should be focused on the coming year. Another major event that we have planned for 2026 is the Summer of Bikes. It is several different events that happen throughout the summer. And we are always promoting different events. We post them on our community calendar on our website, which is ongoing. So, it's a really great resource and like to partner with other organizations possible and we'd really like to collaborate more with BPAC this year and finding ways to do that. So, we're happy to expose him to, I'm the newest board member and the least aware of the board's history, so I hope I can answer questions if you have any. Yes, Tony.

Thanks, Genevieve. I really don't have a question, just an added comment that one of the things that Bike Santa Fe was very, very helpful in working with BPAC last year, one of the resolutions that passed on bicycle maintenance, infrastructure maintenance, and the official title, it didn't come with a budgetary monetary amount, but it was very hard hitting and good document to advocate continuing maintenance. Bike Santa Fe was extremely helpful with their membership example working together.

Thank you. And in general, we'll always promote it and support the city because we just want to see more people on bikes everywhere in the city safely and equitably. So, anything that we can do that.

Great. Thank you. 6B Chainbreaker Collective. I can't see half the audience. So, okay, great. Please come up. You got five minutes.

Right. Thank you, Chair Fagali and members of the committee. My name is Tomas Rietta. I am the executive director at Chainbreaker Collective. For those of you who don't know, Chainbreaker is a membership-led economic and environmental justice organization. We have over 800 dues-paying members, the bulk of whom are low-income people of color. Our members come from communities that are on the forefront of the housing crisis, transit dependent bus riders, and bicyclists. Our flagship program has been the Bicycle Resource Center. We started this in 2004 in a little storage shed that we made ourselves. It was about the size of this little table area over here. It grew from that to where we're at right now. We recently bought our building on Fifth Street. The Bicycle Resource Center has helped distribute over 10,000 bicycles in that time period, mostly to people who use them as their main source of transportation. The program is also a training program for mechanics skills. So mechanics learn how to fix up their own bikes. It's very much a teach to fish, teach. It's not about fishing, but it's metaphorically about fishing. I'm sure you know what that metaphor is, and I forgot. So, thank you for, now I forgot what I was talking about. So the program is about showing people and sharing the skills necessary for fixing and maintaining their bikes, all recycled and repurposed bicycles. So that program has been going for the last 22 years, again, distributed over 10,000 bicycles and helped countless of people learn the mechanic skills to make their own. Once again, our focus comes from a racial justice and economic and an environmental justice perspective. Over the years, we've engaged in significant amounts of policy work with BPAC, which was BTAC at one moment in time. Chainbreaker members, including myself, and staff have been part of the committee. We moved policies through there. Some large, some small. Some of our shining, some of the things we're most proud of is helping pass a bond measure that got the Swan Park money for the first phase. I think it was 2 million, but please somebody is a historian and knows the actual number, but millions of dollars for trail connectivity to connect what was then trails mostly downtown with areas in our neighborhood around Hope Man and up and down the Airport Road corridor and what is referred to as the South side. In addition to money for capital improvements for buses, this was several years ago as this one park phase one was still being constructed. We've also created a bike program that where people who get a bicycle from us or some local retailers are able to use that as a rebate to get a free annual bus pass. That has been a huge success, helped many people get to and from work, stay housed, and stayed employed. So, I could go on for a while about that. I'd love to talk about the wonky policy if you'd like. But I know we only have a few minutes. I want to just kind of give our Bicycle Resource Center organizer Andreas a minute to talk about this last year. With just a little bit of a note that the pandemic really hit this program really hard for us. First of all, we literally lost some of our members and leaders to it. And the nature of the bicycle mechanic instruction that we give is very hands-on, very close, not very COVID friendly. So that, we're still in the phase of recovering from that and also our transit work. The Bicycle Resource Center is still is up and running. It's in full swing. Last year we gave out several bikes and I'll turn it over to Andreas at this moment to talk about those specific. Hello everyone. My name is Andreas Archeletta. Yeah, we gave out around 300 bikes last year since the revitalization of the program at the start of last summer. Included in that, we gave out 80 kids bikes in one, well, 75 kids bikes in one night for our annual Pilada. A super fun event. Yeah, we have volunteer mechanics that plug in. We believe that every person has something to teach and something to learn, and when it comes to bikes, there's a lot to learn.

I think the last point is that yes, the Bicycle Resource Center is up and functioning, fully functioning again. Our hours of operation are on Sundays from 10:00 to 2:00, which regularly see anywhere from 10 to 25 people show up throughout the year. Of course, it's still winter, so we'll see how that turns out. But I think with that, I'll stand for questions, if there are any.

Thank you. Yeah, Tony.

Thanks so much for the presentation and thanks for the good work that you do. I was a member of the committee that housed a group of Afghan refugees to Santa Fe. We worked with a family of five kids, brought them all over to Chainbreakers.

guys were just fabulous at outfitting them with bicycles and these Afghan kids. Oh my God, what a country.

I have two questions. Do you collaborate at all with Free Bikes for Kids, and how are you funded?

We certainly collaborate with whoever we can. Whenever we do, we regularly give free bikes to kids. So I know that there's a different program, but the overlap is certainly there, and I think we're interested in figuring out how to do that in a more formal way if there's any interest. How are we funded is a tough question. This work is hard, especially under the current political and philanthropic landscape that we face. Coming at this work from an environmental justice and a racial justice perspective has made it hard for us to grow to the scale that we need the last several years. But to answer your question directly, largely through private foundations and individual donations. Very little funding have we gotten through any governmental, but some.

Yes, Steve.

Are you able to coordinate and make sure a helmet goes with every bicycle?

I wouldn't. No, we are not able to make a helmet go with every bicycle. Helmets are hard and dangerous to recycle in many cases. So we do, there are some programs that help give us helmets. So when we do have them, we give them as much as we can. But it is certainly a need for us to be able to keep giving them out.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Great. I appreciate you. Thank you.

You, thanks for having us, Chair, and for committee members. Thank you.

Thanks. Next is Public Safety Committee. Our very own Vice Chair. Do you want to stay there? Do you want to go to the podium?

I can stay here. Okay.

So, they serve at, I guess at some point in time there was an arrangement made between BPAC and the Public Safety Committee that BPAC would have a seat in the Public Safety Committee. So when former member Kyle Spencer term-limited off our committee, I probably foolishly told the former chair that I could take over the responsibility of the Public Safety Committee if he so desired, and did. So I've been going there for about the last year or so. The committee now is working to try to basically re-envision itself in terms of what its roles and duties are and how it relates to other actions occurring in the city limits. We've had three special committee meetings to try to on that process now, and I think right now the chair, Councilor Chavez, Amanda Chavez, is working with legal to draft the revised resolution which will more clearly state what this committee does. The data has been mostly getting reports from police and fire and emergency services about acts that are concurring within the city limits. We haven't really got too involved in programs and things like BPAC recommendations. That's what Public Safety has been all about so far.

Does anyone have any questions for our current speaker? Nope. Okay, seeing none, 6D is Santa Fe Conservation Trust, Tim Rogers.

Okay, Madam Chair, members of the committee, members of staff, thank you. I'm happy to present to you in five minutes a bit on Santa Fe Conservation Trust and myself. Certainly a lot of topics we could go deeper into, and I'm happy to do that at any time. Santa Fe Conservation Trust is a land trust. It's existed since 1993, and the focus is on conserving land, but there's always been a heavy emphasis on public access to land, trails in particular. I've been working for Santa Fe Conservation Trust for about a dozen years. I've been doing bike and pedestrian planning for 20 years in Santa Fe and around the state. I have expertise in guidelines and standards for bicycles and pedestrians, and it's a field that I'm happy to share my expertise with the city and BPAC anytime. I wrote the Santa Fe Bicycle Master Plan in 2012 as a consultant with the Metropolitan Planning Organization. I've been going to BPAC meetings since day one, basically 2003 I started. I served on the BPAC On-Road Subcommittee, which helped get bike lane retrofits on Siringo, Galisteo, and Sonteo, and I'm now on the BPAC Technical Review Subcommittee. Another activity I've been doing for 20 years is leading community cruise bicycle rides. And so I think all of you are on my email list to hear about those, as well as trail work days. As I mentioned, I've been with Santa Fe Conservation Trust since 2014. My job as Trails Program Manager was actually created through a contract with Public Works that was established with the assistance of BPAC, focusing on dirt trail maintenance and development. Thought I'd see my going back. So you can, I guess, all right.

You got about three minutes left, Tim.

Okay. So that contract included not only maintaining dirt trails, but activities like promotion, assistance with design. The contract moved to Parks, which made sense because a lot of that work is in open space that's managed by Parks. But we, I myself and Santa Fe Conservation Trust, have continued to have a connection with Parks. Parks Advisory Committee is not very actively relevant, specific, very specific tasks. That contract discontinued around COVID time, and since then we've had purchase orders with City Parks to take care of Dale Ball and La Tierra trails. More recently, we also have a purchase order to maintain county dirt trails, which is great. We have had the benefit of other city support for special projects. I've worked on bike wayfinding. We completed Phase One, and Phase Two is designed and awaiting implementation. We had a big multi-year contract with City Parks to establish the Safe Routes to School program in Santa Fe and create an action plan, which we did before handing it off to Santa Fe Public Schools in 2024. Oh, Brian is here. He was on the agenda.

He's online.

Oh, he's online. Great. Okay. So you'll hear how that program's going. Another kind of special project we did was building a small piece of an acequia trail for City Parks near Monos Rodriguez Park, which was really a collaboration with Homewise so that we can finally connect the acequia trail to Rufina Street, which we have done. It's hard to find, but we've done it. We receive private and grant support for a lot of other work beyond the trails work, the maintenance of trails. And so the whole time I've been working, we've done Passport to Trails. We take about 30 field trips with kids in Dale Ball trails. Last year we had our 5,000 trails. So that's been a great activity. Another activity of Camino Santa Fe Walks, a series of six tracks over five months of walks, mostly on our accessible trails in the city, as well as occasional hikes in the open space. Another big initiative, it started as GUTS, it's called Gusto Grand Trails Organization. It's all about community-based planning and collaboration to connect dirt trails together. And we have city and county resolutions of support for that. And I'll just let you know that we're planning a summit, just calling it a Dirt Trails Summit. It's about Gusto and beyond Gusto. Also looking at new kinds of dirt trails, accessible and adaptive trails, and trails on historic alignments. Definitely, I'll give you more information on that as it's available. And I just want to mention, as my perspective as a bike pedestrian planner, what I really think is, you know, some of the lowest hanging fruit is we really should be looking at bike lanes, bike lane retrofits. We have paving, repaving projects coming up. They're all excellent opportunities to consider bike lanes. I made a scheme and I presented to Jennifer Marrow on West Alameda and how that could look. She's no longer with the city, so I'm not sure if that's moving forward. The MPO has been talking about Cordova. We should be looking at Rodeo Road, too. So really, another big area. I know city staff is working hard on our multi-use trail system. It's something we need to really continue building out. It's really the gold standard comfortable bike facilities. And you know, in addition to project by project under Public Works, we really need to stay on top of private work creating trails. In your packet today, thank you for including it, Romela. We have Santa Fe Conservation Trust has offered to build another piece of an acequia trail east of Henry Lynch Road. It's very short. It's very strategic to be something to complement Henry Lynch Road reconstruction. It's going to tie directly into the river trail. Seeing the bridge and connection this way, we would connect the river trail to the acequia trail, create an easy way to get to Wolf Tap, places like that via Parkway Drive instead of busier streets. So that's just a plug for other things we're working on. That's, there's a lot of info on that proposal in the packet, but we're not, it's not on the agenda or anything. I'm happy to talk about that in a future meeting. So, thank you very much.

Thank you, Tim. Questions for Tim? Yeah, go ahead.

Tim, that map that you made that you sent to the city, what is the status? Is it in cyberspace?

That's on in the packet?

No, the map that you said that you had.

Oh.

Planning the new bike.

Yeah, I shared that with Jennifer Marrow. I mean, it's a, it's a showing the actual layout of bike lanes that could be on West Alameda. I'm happy to share that. It's a PDF. Shared it with, happy to send it off.

Sure. It's really just West Alameda. It's a short segment, but anything is good. It's West Alameda to Candela Claims.

Anyone else?

Thank you, Tim.

All right, thank you.

Next we have Santa Fe Metropolitan Planning Organization, Eric Honey.

Good evening. Eric Honey with the Santa Fe MPO. I've been with the MPO for approximately 11 years now, and I still don't know what the MPO stands for or what we do. With that said, I want to say happy birthday to Abraham Lincoln, born in 1809. In 1862, Abraham Lincoln addressed Congress. And I'm going to be only 20 or 30 minutes with this, so bear with me. One of the quotes out of that presentation to Congress was, "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present." So why would I say that as an MPO representative that works for an independent organization, is embedded with, that is often confused, who are we? Is that for the past 11 years, I have not seen where we are in the stormy present in a good way with the leadership at all levels, the city, new city councilors, potential, the new Public Works Director and staff, but also these nice people here, you guys. And when Tim talks about being present here for years, it's been often hit or miss leadership. Today, I can, with the even the two presentations, attest that this is awesome. Have some synergy, some collective conscious. Been through what Abraham Lincoln spoke of was one month before he, um, the, thank you. Um, and so I don't mean to be overtly dramatic, but I will end on this is that for the past several years, we have been, when I talk about the dogma, the dogma of the past, that we need to stop designing our streets like highways, and that's what we've been doing for years and generations, and we continue to do it. And now we are at a precipice where the City of Santa Fe has street design guidelines in their lap to be adopted after years of work that will help reverse that trend of stopping highway mentality. Would I to thank you.

Thanks, Eric. Anyone have any questions for Eric? I have a question. How do we do that, Eric?

We're getting, it's been in process with Land Use for eight months. Goal is before I leave the MPO that we get this done, hopefully in '26. I'm a little.

Are you planning on leaving?

I get it. I will be happy to do a really prescient and sort of cogent presentation about what new street design guidelines are, what they deliver.

I can only express to you that it took a long journey to get here. It wasn't just the MPO. This is the city's street design, led by Gene Wolfenberger and to some extent Jennifer Morrow and to some extent Mike and all of the folks who are no longer here, who are more technocrats than us, have their fingers in this as well as everyone in this room over the years. So, I'm super excited about

Well, yeah, maybe we can schedule a presentation for that for BPAC if that would be helpful. Great. Yeah, Romel, if you could just put that on the list. Steve,

I make a quick comment. I saw a letter to the editor this last week of someone opposed to this new hotel being proposed for Cerrillos near St. Francis. And that person's advocating, don't build that hotel, add another lane of traffic instead. To me, that's the dog of the past. Keep building more lanes out there and they'll fill right up with cars. Have the same problems.

Great. Thank you. Next is Safe Routes to School. Ryan Harris, I believe he is online. If we can get him on the screen.

Can you all hear me okay?

Yes.

Okay, great, great. Chair Fagali, members of the committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here virtually. It's difficult for me to be in Santa Fe Thursday nights. I am Ryan Harris. I coordinate the Safe Routes to School program for Santa Fe Public Schools. For those who aren't familiar, the Safe Routes to School program is a federally funded program, funded through the Highway Department, which is a kind of a scary time to say that. Luckily, we are not a discretionary fund. We're a drawdown through the state, so we're somewhat insulated, and I guess they've decided that we are not hostile to cars enough to pull back our funding.

I did want to give you all an update. First of all, that our next two years of grant money was just signed by Cabinet Secretary Serna before he resigned. So we are in good shape to continue to be funded for another two years. Our program focuses on encouraging students and families to choose to use active transportation, walking and cycling and other forms of rolling to transport their students to school as opposed to taking personal vehicles, with the intention of cutting down on those terrible drop-off lines in the morning and pickup lines in the afternoon.

We do that through a whole variety of programs. We have 12 schools that do a walk-and-roll to school program weekly or sometimes bi-weekly, where the parents have the opportunity to either walk or drop their kids off at a nearby public space like a park or a library, and we pay stipends to teachers or other school staff to escort the students to school and ensure that they have a safe walk. And we provide all kinds of different incentives and things to encourage students to use those. We have a bike rodeo program that is for kindergarten and first grade, so it's all about learning to balance. We have 30 balance bikes in a trailer that we've been piloting for the last semester, and we're kind of doing version 2.0 right now to make that functional with the goal of every elementary school student having at least some time in their gym classes to learn how to balance on a bike.

We do a variety of other things. I did want to let you all know that we have our Family Bike Fiesta tentatively scheduled for Saturday, May 9th. We're going to try to do it on a Saturday this time to make it a little more accessible for families. Last year's was really fun, but it was in the evening and it got rained out, which was not super pleasant. So we want to make it a little easier for people to find us.

What else to say? There's been a lot of shakeup over in our department. My director left and my new director started today. So we'll be seeing how that changes the direction of the program. I don't anticipate much change, at least not soon. Oh, and we started last night with the first preliminary planning meeting. Our Safe Routes to School Master Plan expires in 2027, or at least it was planned through 2027 and beyond. 2027 is the official four-year mark. So we've started the initial process to start building a coalition and start working on the next four-year plan. We did that all internally with our walk-and-roll champions to get their opinions on the direction of the program. And we'll start over the next couple of months inviting other community partners, yourselves included, into some planning meetings to start influencing the direction of the program in that way. So, yeah, that's Safe Routes to School.

Great. Thank you. Any questions from the committee, Angela?

Thank you, Chair. Nice to meet you. I haven't made your acquaintance. I'm glad to know of the work you're doing. Does that make you an employee of the Highway Department? No, DOT, or are you embedded within the Santa Fe Public Schools or what?

I am a public school district employee. My salary is paid through the grant, but I'm still, I still report to Santa Fe Public Schools as a district.

Great. This question relates to the work we do up here at the Santa Fe Public Schools. There's another position, I believe it's a liaison between the city and the school regarding development proposals. Do you know what I'm referring to?

I'm not familiar with that position, but I'd certainly be willing to do some research about that. I mean, that would most likely be housed out of the same building I'm in because I'm in facilities and maintenance. I share office space with all of our construction managers. So, but I've not heard about that position. No.

Okay. And I can ask the school district, but the reason I'm asking is because what you do, and what this person, this position was created back in, I don't know, 2008 or something, and it was to have someone on the Santa Fe Public School staff who was officially notified by the city for development proposals that would be part of school, public school lands. And I'm just putting you on the spot, but why not? I mean, do you have a colleague that also works in this regard in terms of bridging pedestrian and bicycle and transportation options across the city for children in our schools?

I mean, that is part of my position is being the one who communicates with other city entities, primarily that's manifested in basically just pointing out when there are issues that aren't our right-of-way that cause trouble for our students to get to school. So, you know, advising on potential connection points and that kind of idea. But I have found that there is a lot of siloing there, and a good amount of discouragement on our end about proactively reaching out about things like that. So, I've worked with the MPO about that. We had a virtual, we had a map that we were using to communicate that to the MPO, but that's about as far as that's gotten. But that is something, especially as the program continues to develop, that I'd like to see more of because the siloing does cause a lot of problems.

Thank you for that. That answers my question, and somehow that position must have gone away, or I don't know, and that's something I'll bring up within this committee about how to

forge that relationship with the public schools again and be, that public schools is included on notices about potential development proposals that involve the city schools in any shape or form. Have you come to any of these meetings? Did you come to Planning Commission meetings or any of that in your role to do that?

I've only attended the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Council meetings until recently when some things changed in my life that made it very difficult. Now that I can do this virtually, I'll be joining you guys every month. But, but yeah, I'd be happy to attend other meetings as they're available.

Okay. Thank you. And I didn't mean to add to your load. I'm just trying to trace a bureaucratic

trail, and I'm a little dismayed. I was on the Planning Commission back then, and there's a reason that was formed, and it's about interjurisdictional communication and cooperation, and I'll bring this up later in matters from us about not city notification of development proposals more widely distributed so that groups like ours will be in on the ground floor, so to speak, on developments with respect to connectivity, access, pedestrian, et cetera, because developments themselves, well, I know they're, I'll talk about this later anyway. Thanks, Ryan. I'm sure we'll be crossing paths and seeing you at the next meetings. Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Anyone else with questions for Safe Routes to School? No. Okay. Moving on to the Transit Advisory Board. I see Director Baca here. All right, good evening. My name is Andrew Baca. I'm Transit Director of Operations for the City of Santa Fe Transit Division, and I'm joined with Gabrielle Travis, Director of Administration and Finance for the City of Santa Fe Transit Division. We serve as the Transit Advisory Board Division Liaison. We come before BPAC tonight with two important topics. First is an opportunity for the public to serve on the Transit Advisory Board, and second, an update and request for support regarding the implementation of Resolution 2013-60. The Transit Advisory Board plays a critical role in advising on transit policy, service priorities, and long-term mobility planning, and its work directly informs and supports BPAC's broader efforts to advance multimodal transportation in Santa Fe. Strong participation on the efforts to advance, or strong participations on the Transit Advisory Board strengthens coordination between transit and bicycle and pedestrian initiatives, ensuring that our transportation system develops in an integrated and community-responsive way. City of Santa Fe is currently accepting applications to fill an at-large vacancy on the Transit Advisory Board. This is a volunteer position that represents the broader community and provides advisory input that directly shapes the city's public transportation programs and priorities. We encourage anyone with an interest or experience in public transportation, mobility, accessibility, sustainability, or related policy matters to consider applying. No specific district or organizational affiliation is required. The application deadline is 5:00 p.m. on Friday, March 13, 2026. Applications should be submitted to myself, Andrew Baca, at ajbaka@sanfm.gov. The board meets monthly on the third Thursday from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., and an appointment is for the full term. This is an opportunity for the community members to have a direct voice in shaping the future of transit in Santa Fe. So that leads us to what Chain Breakers kind of touched on in regards to the policy building. They were instrumental and huge on developing this resolution that we have in front of you, 2013-60. This program is a bus rebate program, and it connects bicyclist purchases and volunteer bicycle initiatives in a bus pass program to utilize public transportation. To support this effort, the resolution reallocates $50,000 from its capital improvement fund, originally designed for the bike share program, to the Transit Division.

Those funds are specifically set aside to finance the bus pass rebate program. Although Resolution 2013-60 clearly directs that these funds are allocated to support the bus pass rebate program, this has not been fully implemented in the past years. We're requesting BPAC support to help ensure that those funds are allocated to transit as required by the resolution. Fully providing these funds is mutually beneficial to transit, the TAB, or the Transit Advisory Board, and the BPAC collectively, as it advances shared goals around integrating multimodal transportation and strengthens coordination between our committees.

We previously brought this matter to BPAC's attention April 10th, 2025, and were told that we needed to go through a specific process. Since at least the onset of the COVID period, the program has not been fully implemented as envisioned. While operational priorities shifted during that time, the resolution itself has remained in effect, where Santa Fe Trails Transit has continued to recognize and administratively maintain the intent of this resolution solely. The actions reinforce the department's commitment to implementing the program as directed and underscored the importance of requiring the city to produce these funds so the program can finally be carried out as it originally is intended.

Local bicycle organizations and vendors in Santa Fe, including groups such as Chain Breakers Collective, Broken Spoke Co-op, Bike Co-op, and Rob and Charlie's, along with transit partners and community stakeholders, have expressed interest in moving this forward. These partners have been patient and engaging, and they're ready to participate in a fully reinstated program. Properly funding and operationalizing these resolutions is essential to achieving its intended public benefit. It represents an existing city commitment to integrated bicycle and transit solutions, not a new unfunded initiative.

We're asking BPAC to affirm the importance of executing Resolution 2013-60 as written and to support the full reinstatement of the bus pass rebate program. Doing so advances adopted city policies, leverages funds already allocated for this purpose, and delivers measurable benefits in ridership growth, environmental stewardship, and community health. With BPAC support, we can move from maintaining this resolution in principle to implementing it in practice for the benefit of Santa Fe residents.

Thank you so much. Any comments?

Go ahead. I think it's a great idea. I'm not sure what this process is for advocating for or putting our stamp on something like this, and I'm not sure if this time on the agenda is the time to do that, but I would like to find out how we would go about supporting it. I don't think we have a tremendous amount of influence on budgeting decisions, but it seems really important.

Thank you. Do you have a response to that?

No. As spoken by the previous chair and now current mayor, he indicated how we would do it in our budgeting process. So, we are taking the steps to fulfill that this year. Last year it was kind of unattainable because we were so far in the fiscal year, but we're taking the appropriate steps. We just want the support for the rebate program. Are you familiar with how it works? The rebate program, what it is, is if you provide volunteerism or purchase a certain amount of, I think it's about $200 to $250, or volunteer the equivalent of that wages at any of those institutes that I labeled, then you qualify for a free annual bus pass. And so this helps supplement that portion of it as well as it helps kick off with things like advertising. It could help with the initiative with the helmet need that some may have. It helps kind of fill those gaps that these organizations have by promoting what they do as the bicycle organization and then brings them in and helps us with our ridership. So again, it creates that first mile, last mile, multimodal.

Thank you.

Question: The $50,000 that is discussed in this resolution, is that a one-time allocation or has there been $50,000 every year that's been accumulating?

What I know is that around the COVID era, it all went away. I would say it's reoccurring because the program itself is reoccurring. I also know that the funds that were allocated at that time when this was initiated weren't completely drawn down on. So either way, there are funds to be had that should have been allocated.

Angela: Thank you, Chair. Thanks for being here. I remember last year's presentation and you described how it works. I'm always curious about data and like how much it's been used and sort of what your numbers are as far as people who've used it or are signed up currently or...

No, that's a great question. Thank you for asking. So currently we have eight regulars. We see a couple of outliers here and there, but because we don't draw down any funds, this is completely in-house. We don't have a way to kind of broadcast it, and a portion of these funds would allow us to advertise or at least get with these other entities like Chain Breakers, who is very adamant about this as well, and allow us to distribute those to who would normally utilize this. I mean, you have individuals, especially that we noticed at Chain Breakers, on their volunteerism that would immediately qualify for this. So, we would get a lot more enrollment in ridership if we had the ability to kind of advertise for it. And this portion of the funds would allow us to do so.

Thank you. Tony.

Thank you, Chair, and Andrew. I'm going to plead ignorance as to what your vision actually does. But I just want to say that numerous times when my cycling friends come to visit Santa Fe, one of the first things they say, "What? No protected bike lanes here? How do you guys do that?" Is your division at all involved?

No, we're the transit division. We oversee the buses and small vans transportation area. We just partner for the multimodal purposes.

Thank you. We'll see if we can do some sort of motion from BPAC to support this in the budgeting session or something like that. I'm not sure exactly what it'll look like, but I think we are in favor.

Committee, thank you so much for having us.

Thank you. All right, that's all the presentations. Moving on to discussion and possible action items. Number seven, A is orientation, which I think is mostly for my benefit, but also maybe for the public. So, Romela, oh, introduction of members. So, yeah, if you can all just say your names. I don't know any of your last names. I'm sorry. I keep calling you by your first names. And yeah, if you want to give a very brief bio, relevant information, or whatever you want.

So let's start with me. Angela, my last name is Bordegaray, but we know you know me as Angela. I'm a planner with a planning master's and I've worked in Santa Fe as a planner for 25 years in different kinds of planning. On the personal side, I've also always ridden a bike since I learned as a little girl and I've used it. I didn't have a car until after college. So this is my passion and I'm from here so I know the place well and I know where there aren't connections. Kudos to those on this committee and previous members and Tim Rogers for improving. I think that there's been a lot of improvements and so I'm on this committee just to learn more and add my two cents to all of these discussions. I'll turn it over to member Gabriel. Thank you. Welcome, Madam Chair, and Judith Gabriel. I joined BPAC in 2020, and I'm on my last term. I will be going until August or September or sometime around there. I am the chair of the Promotion, Education, and Communications Subcommittee, and we basically work on educating the public about, for instance, the Idaho Stop Law and issues affecting pedestrians and cyclists. And we overhauled our webpage this past year, updated the webpage. So, anything that has to do with promotion, education, and communicating with the public and partnerships are extremely important for BPAC, and they're really, really important, I think, for promotion and education, so that we can really get our message across to lots of different sectors of the community. I was a public health professional for years. So I think I bring not only a senior citizen perspective to the BPAC, which I know many of us do, and I also like to bring a public health perspective because I think the issue is not only important for individual and community health but for the environment as well. Thank you.

Chair Tony Gerich. I'm a retired educator in Santa Fe, having founded two public schools here in Santa Fe, and my career has been in education. Lifelong cyclist as well, and also was a school administrator in international schools in South America and in Europe, and rode my bike in those capital cities of South America and took my life in my hands almost daily, but did it anyway. And when I was head of an international school in Europe, in Warsaw, Poland, what a dream, ride bikes in Europe, and gave me a firsthand look at the effect that transit focused on pedestrians and cyclists and not on cars raises the quality of life significantly high. So happy to be on this committee. I sometimes get very frustrated that not doing anything, but so be it. I did. Thank you.

I'm Gary Schiffmiller. I've been on BPAC since the fall of '24. I am currently the chair of the Technical Review Subcommittee. I was a founding board member of Bike Santa Fe. I am a League Certified Instructor through the League of American Bicyclists. And I ride my bike a lot.

Steve Piltchure. And let me finish up for Judith, which she forgot to mention. She does an outstanding job every year organizing our presence at the bike swap that occurs every spring. Thank you. Anyways, I'm retired after a 40-year career working as a planner up in Washington State, reformed planner. Now, I dropped the AICP from my name. No offense, code, but and I've also been a long-term bicycle commuter into work. And while I worked for the city of Spokane, some place where Miller resided at some point, I was able to get a bicycle advisory board established. It was kind of a subcommittee of the planning commission. There was a way to get it done without too much of a heavy lift. But currently I'm also serve as a board member as Seniors on Bikes, and I do a lot of recreational bike riding, which is very different from the daily drudgery of just riding the same way back and forth to work. I had a long commute. I couldn't change my route very much. And I'm in, he says, District 3.

Hey, I'm Ben Pinilly. District 3. I am a software engineer, which has nothing to do with bicycles and pedestrians. But I am a biker and a runner. I am on the Technical Review Subcommittee, and I've been a part of BPAC since 2021.

Great. Thank you. We don't have any members online, but I'm Pat Fagali, Councilor for District 1, also a cyclist, also pedestrian. I've almost been hit by two cars turning right while walking in the downtown area in the past month. So, that's been fun. And yeah, a lawyer and planner by education, mostly a lawyer by employment. And yeah, Romela, do we have other things in the orientation or is that it?

Madam Chair, there's a member of sub, oh, Motions, Education, and Communication Subcommittee member Chandler Moore.

Chandler, do you want to come up and, sure. Yeah, I think you can give a little bio without too much prep.

Right. Thank you. Which subcommittee is there?

Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. I prepared a PowerPoint.

So, BPAC was established on September 24, 2003, as the Bicycle and Trails Advisory Committee via Resolution Number 2003-87. It was renamed as the Bicycling and Pedestrian Advisory Committee via Resolution 2021-8 on January 27, 2021. The amendments include name change and term limit of six consecutive years. The duties and responsibilities are tighter or more specific. For example, regarding design plan reviews, shall take place at 30% design and before plans are presented to the public for comments or submitted for review to NMDOT. But de facto, BPAC reviews the plans from conceptual design to final.

There is also more specific activity or duties and responsibilities to pursue the League of American Bicyclists Diamond Level Bicycle Friendly Community designation for the City of Santa Fe. One of the amendments also is the additional emphasis on walking and not only bicycling. The purpose of BPAC is to provide input and advice that supports the ongoing development and maintenance of a transportation infrastructure that makes bicycling and walking in the City of Santa Fe safe, equitable, viable, and comfortable modes of transportation, commuting, and recreation. This is also one of the amendments. This includes the responsibility to deliberate on city projects, plans, and policies that impact both on-road and off-road bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and to advise the governing body on such matters. The words on-road and off-road are also included in the amendments, so they are very specific.

The BPAC or BTAC was created as the advisory committee of the now-defunct Engineering Division under the Public Works Department. The Engineering Division had three sections: the Roadways and Trails, Stormwater Drainage, and Traffic Operations. Sometime in 2003, under Public Works Department reorganization, the Engineering Division and the Streets and Drainage Maintenance Division were combined to form the Complete Streets Division. The three sections under this division are the Capital Projects Roadways and Trails, the Streets and Drainage Maintenance, and the Traffic Operations.

This is a huge opportunity for BPAC to implement your duties and responsibilities and to enforce the resolution because the duties and responsibilities of BPAC are so focused on the Capital Projects Roadways and Trail. You review the plans, the design, the engineering design. We monitor the construction of a project. But one thing that is in your duties and responsibilities is the maintenance portion of bicycle and pedestrian facilities. With combining these two divisions, then you have the opportunity to get some update, for example, from Street and Drainage Maintenance Supervisor Felipe Trujillo. We can ask them to, for example, to repair a pothole or to sweep the bike lanes during summer or fall. So those are the things that combining these two divisions give you an opportunity, and also Traffic Operations for striping, signage, etc.

BPAC has four subcommittees, three standing committees. The Policy, Planning, and Law, the chair is member Steve Pilchure. The Promotion, Education, and Communications, the chair is Judith Gab Judith Gabriel. The Technical Review, which is chaired by Gary Schiff Miller. And you have an ad hoc subcommittee called Vulnerable Road Users Task Force, chaired by member Helen Wang.

So because BPAC membership consists of staggered two-year terms, former Policy, Planning, and Law Subcommittee Chair Yolanda Einstein championed the development of this strategic plan to ensure that even as members come and go, actions remain aligned with achieving BPAC's purpose. This is so we developed the BPAC Strategic Plan, which was the first strategic plan developed by the committee. It was adopted on October 22, 2022, and we update it regularly.

So what is the mission? The mission is within 10 years, by the end of the planning period FY 2033, the City of Santa Fe successfully obtained the League of American Bicyclists Gold Level Bicycle Friendly Community designation. What is the strategy? The plan has a strategy, which is to shift city policies, programs, and practices, including those of land use and public works, toward bicycle and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure to help people feel safe and more comfortable about traveling by bicycle or walking with other traffic.

The strategic plan has an action plan. It answers why do you need to do this? Who is going to implement or do the action? How are you going to do this? What are the actions and when the actions need to be implemented? I will not go into details of the strategic plan, but I want to feature the key results of the strategic plan. One of the key results are the adoption of Ordinance 2023-4, which is the Electric Bicycle Ordinance, Resolution 2024-122, which is the Bicycle and Pedestrian Facilities Maintenance Resolution, and last year, the Resolution 2025-41, the Vision Zero Resolution. All these ordinances and resolutions were drafted by BPAC, led by the Policy, Planning, and Law Subcommittee.

Also, we completed construction of two trails last year. The El Camino Real Academy Trail from Cottonwood to Alexander Estates. This is federally funded and is a Safe Route to School trail. The other trail that we completed last year was the Cañada Rincón Trail from Calle Majia to Calle Francesca. Another federally funded project for $2.75 million, and I am so happy to say that we entered this trail for an award and we won the award. They will give the award sometime in April.

We finished last year the reconstruction of Guadalupe Street. This is the city's flagship for Complete Streets. This is another federally funded project for $11 million. Other key results of this strategic plan is that BPAC is now a member of the city's Roadways and Trails Design Review Team. I think we should change our section name from Roadways to Streets. The development of the BPAC website and the expanded partnerships. When we were BTAC and then became BPAC, we had a very good relationship with Santa Fe MPO and Santa Fe Conservation Trust. But because of this strategic plan, we developed or we expanded our partnerships with Bike Santa Fe and Safe Routes to School.

What's next? The Bike Summit in May, hopefully May 2026. Another is the completion of the construction of Agua Fría South Meadows intersection improvements, the Tierra Contenta Trail from Buffalo Grass to South Meadows, and we will start the construction of Agua Fría Cottonwood roundabout in early summer or late spring or early summer. I mentioned these three projects because these three projects were reviewed by BPAC. Also, there will be more engineering design projects such as the St. Michael's Drive reconstruction. There will be more partnerships established through bike summits such as the Chainbreaker Collective and Seniors on Bike, and the installation of bike racks. So that concludes my presentation. I welcome some questions or comments from the members.

Thank you. Does anyone have any comments? I took the Guadalupe Street bike lane to get here today, so I'm very happy that that has made my commute to City Hall. It has taken out the part where I constantly thought I might die, so it's much better now. I don't have to take Sandoval, which was my previous route. I appreciate all the work you do, and it has certainly already improved my life. Okay. Yeah, Tony.

I want to shout out to Romela for all the good work that she has done, as we've seen in the presentation. Thank you, Romela. And unlike yourself, Chair, I had to go down OPO's trail and avoid all of the cinders in the bike lane there. And then I turned left on Cordova, where there are even more cinders in that bike. So that's why I referenced that pedestrian and facilities maintenance thing. We did it. Where is the? That's the.

Thank you. Anyone else? Great. Is that conclude our orientation part? Okay, great. Moving on to 7B, appointment of Tony Garlich to the Vulnerable Road User Task Force. Is that something we need to vote on, or do I just say he's appointed? Okay, Tony, you are appointed. Great.

7C, discussion of a field visit to identify potential improvements to the trail behind Vizcaya Apartments at the Arroyo in Medo crossing. Judith, member Gabriel, would you like to?

Thank you, Madam Chair. So this request to have a field trip came out of a request from a resident from the Vizcaya Apartments to do something to improve the access from Vizcaya Apartments to the Albertsons, that general shopping center across an arroyo that many people use on a regular basis, even though it's dirt, and there have been many discussions about it. I had a long discussion with Eric about it. Tim is aware of it. Tony and I went out there and met with the residents. So we had a field trip out there, a site visit, and we understand that the Vizcaya Apartments are private. But what could really be beneficial is to connect Rodeo Road South around the Vizcaya area to the numerous trails that are around there, like the Rail Trail, St. Francis Trail, Gail Reba Trail, the Chamisa Trail, that would help with a lot of connections. And it's my understanding that we would have to ask for some funding, some District 2 capital outlay funding, to have a feasibility study, planning all the steps that need to be done. So I would like to propose, I would like to prioritize this. It doesn't seem like a major project, and I would like to propose that we request of our two new District 2 counselors to get some funding, but I don't even know how we figure out how much we would ask for. So I'm kind of looking for advice and looking for input from other BPAC members about this.

Thank you. Anyone want to comment on that, or Romela, do you have any thoughts on how we could proceed?

Yes, Madam Chair. So, sometime in, I believe, April, we will start the Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan for 2028, fiscal year 2028 through 2033. What we need, what we need to do as the staff, is to include that project in the ICIP. And also, BPAC may want to include it and prioritize it in the list of your projects in their BPAC Strategic Plan. And then in the ICIP process, each district counselor, each counselor, can prioritize their projects in their district. So we can request the District 2 counselors to prioritize this project in the ICIP. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Any other comments on this item?

Yes, I have a question. What does ICIP stand for?

Infrastructure Capital Improvements Plan. So the DFA requests these plans every year from the municipalities like the City of Santa Fe. So every year, Public Works submits this, like last year it was 80 projects, and then the governing body will vote or decide which ones are the five top projects from the 80 projects, and then each counselor will choose, not each counselor, but the counselors for that district, two counselors, will choose or prioritize their project for their district. So that's the process, and then there will be a resolution, and then those projects will be submitted for legislative funding.

So is it, thank you for that. Is it, is it appropriate for us to look at our list of priorities in the strategic plan and submit a request for all of our priorities then, so that we are trying to fund as many priorities as possible in the event that one of them gets chosen?

I'm just not sure. Oh, Madame Chair, member Gabriel, all your projects that are prioritized in your strategic plan are also included in the ICIP already. So if we want to add new priorities, including this one, we should do that when we update our strategic plan in the next few months.

Yes. And then would it be a good strategy to include all of them in this request?

Yes, they are already included.

No, I mean any new ones?

Yes, because what we do, so when we plan for the ICIP priority projects, we look at the past priority projects. And if we are able to fund 100% of the project, then it's out of the ICIP. So in the last two or three years, you don't see Guadalupe Street anymore because it was funded 100% by the federal government. So there are a number of projects like that that we don't, when it's already funded or we found some funding 100%, then it's out of the ICIP. So my question is to you and the rest of the BPAC, when we update our strategic plan, should we be looking at other priorities that other members may be aware of and bring that to the updating process?

And then if you notice your duties and responsibilities, number one, I believe you, the BPAC, assist the MPO for prioritizing projects in their MPO, the Metropolitan Planning Organization Transportation Plan, MTP. Yeah. So, for example, there's a good example, there was one project, the Bishop's Lodge, remember in 2020 or 2021, BPAC prioritized it. It was one of the projects that BPAC wants to pursue. It was not in the MTP. So because BPAC prioritized it as a project, then MPO added it in the MTP, in the Metropolitan Transportation Plan. What is the reason why we do this is because when we apply for state funding and federal funding, there is a question there that if this project is prioritized in planning documents. So they look for ICIP, MTP, or Metropolitan Transportation Plan, the IFCIP, which is the Infrastructure Impact Fees Plan, and then I add the BPAC Strategic Plan and the SFMPO Bicycle Plan and the SFMPO Pedestrian Plan. So the more plans that you put in or you add there, the more, the greater your score, the higher your score when they evaluate your application.

Okay. So sorry if I don't completely understand this. So it sounds like it would behoove us to be working with MPO and looking at these other plans as we are updating our plan because they may have identified things that we are not aware of or that we don't have in our plan.

Yeah. But we work with SFMPO. So the projects that you want to prioritize but it's not in the MTP, those are the projects that you need to put in your strategic plan.

I understand that part, but what I'm saying is, would it have even more weight if it appeared in two to three of the plans? Yeah. So then we will work together on this on the strategic plan. Okay. Thank you for that explanation.

Great. Angela, thank you. Unfortunately, I know way more about ICIP now that I've been working with local government and getting doing technical assistance for rural communities. And that was a great explanation, but I'm going to ground it because it's one of these, you know, the state's Department of Finance and Administration has the ICIP, the Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plans. All entities submit then from City of Santa Fe down to Acequias and I Madrid Water, for instance. And it's supposed to be, it's planning, right? Supposed to the state then gets all these priorities that have come from each of the entities and, you know, looks at it and then you'd think that was planning. It's really not because the state doesn't, we don't have state level planning anymore, but it's the closest we get to that, but it really is more money, money game. But I'm going to be constructive here and say it's good that you've brought this up. And I think we should definitely know what our projects are. Like for me, that would mean like what is the status of BPAC's, you know, our projects list and such and then know where we are on that so that we can look at those again, which is in the course of updating the strategic plan. And then for all these other plans, little research item, where like who talks to whom and how do they interact? And I'm glad to know Eric at MPO. I mean, if we're going to do this, which I think we should do, try to learn about the other plans and what projects are in them, what relates, what doesn't relate. Get ours, like lobby to get ours in there, too. So that this is a rational to help make it, I don't want to say rational. I guess that that would be planning. That would actually be planning and that involves all the, you know, different groups, department, whatever. So I don't know, is it possible, feasible, reasonable to ask, I don't know, Chair Fagali, to for us to get more familiar with the city's CIP, ICIP, excuse me. And that would really be good. I think that would really good like a session actually here because that's where it all goes. We talk about projects, we talk about plans, and there's all these different funding sources. And so we don't all have to understand that. But if we want to see results and we want to really pursue plan, you know, like really put weight and make the case for certain projects, I think that's how we would get results.

Yeah. Like for example, a Czecho sidewalk and bicycle project. It was prioritized by BPAC in 2021 and we found the money and now we're starting the design. The reason why I am proposing or for the Council District Two or Councilor for District Two to prioritize this project because that's the easiest way to get funding. We don't get a lot of funding from legislative fund. Legislative or legislative funding is like $50,000. One time we got $300,000 for Governor Miles. That's big. So, but every year when Councilor Casset prioritized Governor Miles for three years, we received $850,000 total for design of Governor Miles. So if the Councilor for District Two, Councilor Bamante and Councilor Barrett prioritize this for their District Two project, we're almost, usually we get some funding or prioritize projects. Not much, but it's a start. You can do some study, you can do alignment study, you can do some survey. Where would the trail connect? All those things.

Thank you. Anyone else on this? I am wondering if this is something that the Policy Planning Subcommittee might be interested in taking on a draft list of priorities. Sounds like planning to me.

It's my, excuse me, my understanding, Romela, sometime here, we're going to have a kind of a strategic plan review with all the various subcommittees. That'd be the place to discuss whatever we do that.

Great. Okay. Moving on, we'll go to the discussion of the field visit on Galisteo Road bicycle and pedestrian improvements. Also, member Gabriel. Thank you, Madam Chair. So this, we, this was done on the same day as we did the Arroyo and Medio crossing. And we had a good number of people show up to this site visit. And we're talking about the intersection of Zia and Galisteo that has been newly created that changed the location of the road and moved it farther west on Zia. And we understand that there is nothing to be done about the whole, the whole intersection that was decided, litigated, that is done. What the concern was is that the street is extremely narrow. There is a median in the middle and there's no bike lane, which was not planned for. And the reason the road was designed to be narrow was to slow the traffic down. So we understand that. So we looked at it and just had some conversations about it. Heather Lamboy from Planning was there. Councilor Fagali was there. And it seems that there is no recourse for any kind of redesign, but some, some of the conversation that happened involved softening the sides of the median to be more like the kind, almost like a speed bump. One of the observations we made is there are tire marks everywhere on the median on both sides of the road. So it's clear that people are having a hard time making those turns or else maybe they're going too fast. But possibly softening the median, possibly signage, sharrows, to let people know that it's a tight turn, that there may be a cyclist in the road. So those are just some ideas and I'm actually not sure how we would go about moving forward with any of that. So again, I'm bringing it to the committee to discuss and see what our options might be.

Thank you.

Thanks. Do you want to comment on what, what the options might be? I think we could make a recommendation.

Yeah. Yeah. Department Director Heather Lamboy, when I talked to her at the field visit, she said that BPAC can recommend to the land use to make the, the raised median edge, the curb, to a mountable curb. So it, the, so when if a vehicle hits that the barrier curb, it's not, it, it doesn't hurt the tires. Also, mountable curb is more useful for medians that are, that are low-speed roads. That's what they use usually. And at the last meeting, I mentioned something that at the Guadalupe project, the barrier curb in front of the church and the Japanese restaurant, there we found that there were so many tire marks and I thought we removed them. So I went to back to the project yesterday and I found that we did the, it's called the mower curb. It's so instead of vertical edge of the curb, it, we ramped it like that. So it's used for mainly for landscaping, but and they said the engineer said that it's, it's better to use the, the mower curb rather than the mountable curb or that section of the Guadalupe. So for this section, Deputy Department Director Lamboy mentioned or recommended or suggested that the BPAC can recommend to land use to make this mountable, mountable curb. And I think it's not really true that BPAC cannot make or recommend changes is because my staff, my street inspectors, they inspect the project and they make decision if the city will accept the project in the right of way, public right of way. So they, they can say to the contractor that we, we, we really think that you need to do this to make it mountable curb because of the of the tire marks. They can do that. But for Heather Lamboy, she thinks it's, it would be better if it's the recommendation is coming from BPAC.

Yes, Tony.

Thanks for that, Romela. One of the things I noticed out there when I was there with everyone is that Galisteo Street parallels a bike path along the rail trail there. And but if you're biking up Cerrillos and then trying to make a right turn on that Gal, I'm sorry, on Zia and then making a right turn on Galisteo, there's no signage or sharrows or anything that might assist motorists to say this is bicycle usage and that seemed to me to be a deficit. We also had a letter from a community member, Genevieve, who rides that area very often. Has no problem riding the bike lane. It doesn't have to be down Galisteo. That's fine. But but no signage indications, motorists, please.

So, Madame Chair, member Gabriel, so you can add it in your recommendation. I just, I have a comment, which is, we, we can make, you can make a motion to recommend whatever we want, but I, I am not sure how changing the median helps the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advocacy Committee. I'm not sure that that our purpose is to make cars be able to turn faster. I'm, I, I feel good about us potentially recommending some signage.

Particularly pointing out to anyone riding up Galisteo that there is a very nice trail not too far ahead and telling drivers that there might be cyclists there. But I am not sure why we would recommend something that would make cars go faster.

I want to agree with you. When I see tire marks on curbs, it says to me the cars are going too fast and they're going to learn to slow down. That's why we narrow the roads.

Yes.

Thank you for that. I think that's an excellent point. And you're right that we should not be making things, well, not that we shouldn't be making easier things easier for drivers, especially when it may help the safety of a cyclist or a pedestrian. But I do think that's an excellent point and I do think there's perhaps room for signage, sharrows, other indicators that would have drivers looking out for cyclists as they turn onto that road and also perhaps we could direct people to the rail trail as well.

Yes.

Thank you. I just have a question process-wise. So this private development proposal came in for review. Who from an engineering perspective is reviewing the plans and proposals? I mean, it seems odd that we're now at a point where there's been some discussion about how to do something about this median and it sounds like the land use director is open to doing something. So how did this happen? Something got built which obviously people aren't happy with how it's functioning, at least some people are.

Madame Chair, Member Piltchure. So Complete Streets hired a former supervisor engineer of the engineering division. His name is Leroy Pacco. He's a consultant and he reviews on behalf of Complete Streets or development plans. SFMPO also reviews or is a member of the DRT or the Development Review Team or Development Review Committee. So they review and this, the development plans, particularly the public right-of-way. So roadway streets, bicycle lanes, sidewalks, those things. Does that answer your question?

Okay. Angela.

Thanks. I just want to add to that that it was a very long and winding road, this development, over the last 25 years and lots of public involvement, lots of conflicting views. And then it went, I lost track of it because COVID hit and all the public meetings went online and a lot went on and there were lawsuits. So I lost, I don't think I could even follow the thread if I tried. I'm just trying to pick up with where y'all are right now. I like the point, Councilor Fagali, that you made about not, you know, easing things up for the four-wheel motorized traffic. But I do also want to add that, I mean, growing up here, those rolled curbs were everywhere. It was really nice. You know, a rolled curb on a neighborhood street means you can just roll up and park halfway. And it might be blasphemy, but it worked. And then sometimes, you know, when getting across a median and crossing, those were rolled as well, but it did allow for more speed and whatnot. But I've noticed around town for the last, over, I guess 15 years, 20 years, that they are, a lot of the curbs are at a right angle. And those, not to ease it for cars, but also for bikes, like for us to jump around and be able, I mean, you have to remember too that it benefits bikes and strollers as well. So I just wanted to point that out. But again, I don't know what the, you know, signage for sure. I'm always in favor of that. The question I have is, is there a place where you can be on Galisteo if you're already on it and then there's a nice connection to the rail trail? Because I know that area. It's in an arroyo. I mean, like just thoughts here, generating some creative, you know, so that because I think if we want to direct them to the trail, which sounds reasonable, besides going back all the way up to Zia to St. Francis and then getting on there, is there a way to create some kind of a pathway between Galisteo and the rail trail, official, like designated or, you know, what?

Yeah, go ahead. I use that trail quite frequently and the easiest thing to do is to turn into the train station where, you know, the kiss and ride parking lot is. But if you are coming from Zia, it's more challenging because you have to make that turn and go onto the new narrow part of Galisteo that we're talking about and then go into the train station. It's way easier if you're on Galisteo going north and turn right into the train station. Yeah. Anyone else? Does anyone want to make a motion or should we leave this for another time?

Well, I'm sure how to do this. How to make a motion? Yeah, we want signage. Move it, get more signs.

I think that's basically it. Maybe a bit more specific about what kind of signage. But it would just be a recommendation.

Yeah, I mean, I think we could recommend like, yeah, bikes may use full lane, sharrows, pointing towards the bike path, some combination of that. And then my understanding, and Rima, correct me if I'm wrong, is that we would make this recommendation. If it is approved, then it would be given to Director Lamboy. Then I'll make a motion that BPAC recommends the installation of signage in that intersection of Zia and Galisteo such that bicyclists traveling north on Zia are directed to enter the Galisteo bike path via the train station, that bicyclists traveling on Galisteo north also enter the trail through the train station, even to the profession. I have a question for Tony. So I was thinking that some of the signage would be for the cars to let them know that there may be a cyclist in the lane on Galisteo, for instance. Can we be less specific and just say recommend signage for road users or something and work with whoever might end up designing it?

I think it might be helpful if you say cyclists and cars, motorists. Yeah. Gary, did you have a quick comment?

Perhaps we can make sure that they submit whatever plans they have to the technical review subcommittee.

Okay. Tony, would you like to make a new motion incorporating those?

Refer to Judith. I will amend my amendment motion to say that BPAC endorses the idea of increased signage that would communicate to motorists and cyclists caution and opportunities in that intersection of Zia and Galisteo. I second.

Any further discussion? No.

Can we get a vote, please?

Madame Chair, do you want a voice vote or a roll call?

Can we do a roll call?

Member Bordiger. Member Gabriel.

Yes.

Member Gerix.

Yes.

Member Piltchure.

Yes.

Member Pengilly.

Yes.

Member Schiff Miller.

Yes.

Madame Chair Fagali.

Yes.

Motion passes.

Thank you. Our last discussion and possible action item is discussion on BPAC's role in major development projects. Member Piltchure.

This last discussion was a great illustration of, you know, how can BPAC get involved earlier in the process of reviewing any type of major development project or it could even be a smaller development project, but that's impacting the adjacent right-of-way and take a look at what the impacts might be, bicyclists and pedestrians. So that's one thing I'd like to have us discuss. I think it'd be good if we could have more involvement of BPAC, that obviously probably be the technical review committee. How can it get involved and take a look at some of those plans as they're being developed? Second thing, which I think Mr. Rogers brought up earlier today too, and I've been thinking about for a while, is also this is really a major redevelopment project of a private development site, but how do we get involved in reviewing street resurfacing projects? And again, I see Airport Road beginning, the, you know, cones are going up, they're starting to do some work. Are there potentials for restriping that street, make it a more friendly environment for bicyclists? It'd be good at least for us to have some way to get involved in that process. Take a look at it. There may not be enough right-of-way width. I don't know what the curb to curb width is there. It's, when we did a road audit last year, it was a little bit too scary to try to go out there, run a tape all the way across Airport Road, even on a Sunday morning. But I think it would be good for us to have some input on what the restriping of that roadway might be. So two things. How do we get involved in major redevelopment projects and how do we get involved with these arterial street improvements? Airport's just the first one that's rolling out. There's going to be more coming in the upcoming years.

Did you have?

Yes, Madame Chair. Member Chair. So the pavement rehabilitation projects were under my section before capital projects, but it was transferred to streets and maintenance, streets and drainage maintenance section. And we can request our interim division director, Marcos Esibel, to present to BPAC the plans. What I remember from our former traffic engineer who presented to you a number of times before she left, her plan was to restripe any roads that undergo repavement. So what I understand is our interim division director has hired a consultant to do the restriping of Airport Road. And so next, at the next meeting, if you wish, if the, if Madame Chair or the committee wishes for him to give a presentation to BPAC, we can do that.

Do we know what type of parameters they've been given? Like, obviously, one of the options, which I'm not too excited about, is that, well, one of our priorities is maintaining traffic speed. So if we're going to have 45 mph speed limits, indeed we mean wider lanes. Or do we, or could it be like, well, don't we want to make it more bicycle friendly? That means we squeeze down and maybe reduce the speed limit. Is that a possibility?

Madam Chair, if I may. The MO has been under the previous leadership, traffic engineer, somewhat deeply involved in this in the past year. The city hired Cliff WSP, quite a brilliant young engineer, to reconsider striping options. So for example, Airport Road, reducing the lane width from what, 11 now to 10, adding a two to three foot buffer on the bike lane. So Andrew with WSP submitted a conceptual plan, these ideas. Our meetings with Jennifer Murl were very productive in that intent. I have the cross-section Friday afternoon with a bit of anxiety knowing this is moving forward as per the city of Santa Fe press release last week. We're excited. I said, please confirm these plans will be followed through. So unfortunately, I have not heard back. My anxiety is a little, maybe it would be nice to have somebody come here, say, yes, we're going to fulfill the vision. But there's also an interesting point, this entire discussion, who's in charge and when, and I think you can attest to this, becomes a dramatically different spectrum of opportunities on all of these things. For example, on Zia, that was largely an internal engineering, previous leadership decision making. The MO, albeit we were on the design review team, was not invited to the table in such things. And that was it because a certain leadership didn't there. So it would be great to say that continuity. That's why when I speak about the opportunity having a new public works group, what I do know is that there was a slate of candidates about a week and a half ago. I'm only on a need-to-know basis, so I had to find this out, that none of them were going to be good enough and they're starting open. So at least I know that they're trying. And then what's going to, who's going to be the next traffic?

Those two positions could take us this way or that, if that makes sense. My hope and my vision and dream is that we have some cool people come and do this together, or it could be the opposite. I hope that just provides some context. It's hit or miss sometimes. All of these, at least from our perspective, bring a lot of guardrails and process to try to keep our leadership, but then look at where we rest from the city. So, yes.

I have a question. I think it's a great idea to have somebody come and present to us, but is there a way for us to be more proactively involved in the review of repaving, restriping projects so that we're not just kind of finding out and then we can have a presentation? It would be really great to have a process in place. And the same thing for the other issue, which is the review that we're involved early on with everything that relates to pedestrian and cycling safety and transportation, and we're not always having to go back or find out, "Oh, we need to talk to this person because they're restriping next week." So, and maybe, given what you've just said, we need to see who the new leadership is and see if we can be more integrated into the process. Thank you.

Looking at our resolution that establishes BPAC, one of the duties is to advise on policies, projects, ordinances, and funding as they relate to bicycling and walking as safe, equitable, viable, comfortable modes of transportation. I feel like that would be a project. I mean, it says "new public works projects" in a different section, which you could argue that a restriping project might not be, but there's also a part that just says "projects." And I do feel like we could make an argument that repaving or restriping is a project. And the city also has a Complete Streets resolution in which any change to streets needs to include a Complete Streets component. Romela knows perhaps how we insert ourselves, or Eric. But I do think it is within the duties of this committee to do that.

Madam Chair, as Mr. Onie mentioned, there is an opportunity because we have an interim division director. We have an interim department director. We don't have a traffic engineer. We don't have a traffic operations engineer. What our wish is, is that these new people will know the value in working with BPAC, what BPAC brings, what SNPO brings, what a member of the public brings or can contribute to the design of a roadway or a street. A more progressive thinking of how you design a street. That's our hope.

Yeah. But we can request the division director of Complete Streets to share the plans for pavement rehabilitation plans, that is, striping. And what are the— I know they're prioritizing Airport Road, but after Airport Road, what's next?

I think if we could get him to come and present to us, then we can ask him, "How are you incorporating this Complete Streets resolution? How are you incorporating the BPAC resolution?" because I know that resolutions get lost sometimes, and we don't want those ones to get lost, certainly. So I think that might be a good way to remind him if he has forgotten that those are requirements under these resolutions.

Oh yeah, Steve. So in terms of the other issue of major development review, about moving that we recommend the Land Use Department Director include BPAC, maybe through the patrol review committee, as part of that development review.

As part of the DRT for everything? For what?

I don't know what everything is for DR development review committee. I assume there's some level where projects are small, they're not reviewed by that committee. I don't know what the threshold is. Eric, do you know, or Romela? I'm not— I don't believe they all include roads, but maybe they do. I don't know.

Yeah, that's a— Madam Chair, members of the committee. You know, we've been involved somewhat indirectly and directly with DRT, and it runs the gamut of projects. I would say 60% don't really trigger what we speak of. And then the rest, what Leah is the lead on this, Leah Smith, is then she'll look through plans. We did this, our new transportation planner, Carrie Tremble, and I did this yesterday for the new proposed storage units on Fourth Street and Serios. So, we point out there, we look for connectivity for sidewalk. We look for improvements to the road in that vicinity. That's the reason. But to your point, I don't know if the Land Use Department would allow anyone outside of the city, or Eugene Boston is with the schools. He's on VR. I'll get you his contact. So, the direct sort of staff. What we might want to talk about is how even the MO or LMLA can help sort it. It's like, "Here's a trigger. You guys work with us to develop our couples together." We're sort of on our own.

Yeah. And one of the challenges that you can probably imagine is, as a result of us being sophisticated in the design of roads, is that sometimes we're at odds with our DRT staff as to what you all speak of as appropriate. So there's that just that dynamic there. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It is a bit, you know, we could talk with Heaven Lamboy about what her ideas would be and then come back at the next. So, I do believe there's some value that you speak of. We miss stuff sometimes. It's out for a little bit anyway, but they have another set of eyes for things. But what I do know is that the Land Use Department is a bit dynamic. They just changed how they do DRT just a few months ago, and that's a different feature than it was months ago. So there's some of that.

So are you offering to talk to them?

Yeah.

Okay. Do you like to make a motion? They're supposed to agree to listen to Eric when he talks to them. I move that we ask Eric to make contact with corporate city staff and bring us back feedback at our next meeting, which could include bringing the staff with him.

And just to clarify, that's to potentially be involved in the DRT process?

Yes.

Discussion, Angela. Just because I work there and know it and the people there, especially Heather Lamboy, too. I don't— we wouldn't be granted— we don't have authority. We're advisory. So, we would not be added to the DRT team. I just want to clarify that. Like, we wouldn't be, period. Let's just put that to rest now. So, we're not asking for that. Bigger issues: How do we get this information? And I think what would be really helpful is to know, definitely talk to Heather Lamboy at the Land Use— and what do we call it at the city? Land Use and Use Department. Thank you. They call it Growth Management at the county, as if. So I think we should find out what the current channels are, and then we can figure out, like, "Hey, can we be added to the mailing list?" It's like, "How do you guys notify on these things, you know?" because there's their own ENM process, and they do signs. What does Public Works do, you know, just to try to—

Because prior, the EN, the environment—

Early Neighborhood Notification.

Early Neighborhood Notification. That was included, and for some reason, I never get any notification.

Okay, well, we need to revive that. I mean, at a minimum, like, find out.

Yeah. Just to make our requests a little bit clearer, like, the bottom line is BPAC being notified of relevant land development proposals through different channels from, you know, city notification. I mean, if that was that way before, so it's not a new idea. Tony, did you have something?

Eric, Madam Chair, what I would like to submit to you is you're accurate, and BRT is going to— we get the triggers as part of that. What are the triggers? Oh, there is a case that's going to be heard here, and here's the meeting. So, what I would submit to other landlords is, "Look, we're part of the DR. We'd like to do, with your permission"— this is a trust issue, but obvious is that if we share a particular project development process with one of the designates here, it would land with— that's the only, like, that's the direction maybe bureaucratically palatable. And I, you know, I think—

Yeah, in this room, they'll that are potentially be the technical review subcommittee, hopefully. Okay. Are we comfortable with that? Can we do a roll call vote? I think the motion was to direct Eric, Mr. Anie, and I think he understands the direction. Can we do a roll call?

Certainly, Madam Chair. Member Bordigay. Member Gabriel.

Yes.

Member Gerix.

Yes.

Member Piltshire.

Yes.

Member Pengilly. He had to leave. Snuck out. Member Shipmiller.

Yes.

Me. Chair Peg Ali.

Yes.

Oh, we have a call to. Thank you. The motion passes.

Okay. Moving on to subcommittee communications. First one is Policy, Planning, and Law. Member Piltchure.

Not much new to report. We're ready to go whenever we all are going to get together, take a look at the strategic plan. And this is— I'll just bring this up, not nothing really we're involved with, but I'm sure you're aware, on Monday, the Senate's Education Committee did pass Senate Bill 73, which would add an educational component about vulnerable road users to the driver's education process here in the state.

Great. Thank you. Promotion, Education, and Communications. Member Gabriel. Sorry. Our subcommittee met to discuss this year's initiatives and priorities for promotion and education, as well as potential modifications to the strategic plan. We also, thanks to Tony, will be meeting with Bike Santa Fe and Safe Routes to School and possibly some other partners to talk about collaborating more on education around biking and pedestrian safety. And then the folks organizing Bike Month had their first meeting. I did not make that meeting, but we will be involved in activities around, actually, it's still Summer of Bike, but it looked like from the minutes that there was quite a bit of discussion about there being a little bit more momentum, having a focus within a month as opposed to the whole summer. But it sounds like a big focus in May, and then Summer of Bike to follow. And anybody who knows more about that could certainly correct me. So we will be involved in that as well. That's all I have. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Technical Review, member Schiff Miller.

I prepared a little summary for you, just what we've been doing since I've been on the Technical Review Subcom, since I've been chairing. So I'll go through that. Some of the projects that there haven't been meetings recently because these projects are approaching completion, but we worked on the Governor Miles Road project. We worked on the— oh, I'm having a senior moment. Well, Henry Lynch, too, but I was thinking of the road that goes up to Tsuki. Bishop's Lodge. Thank you. Yeah, we worked on that. We're more currently working on Henry Lynch, and right now the proposal is to be the first grade-separated bike lanes in Santa Fe. So, I'm very excited about that. And there's also a provision to connect with a multi-use trail, the River Trail to the Asakia Trail, at such time that the trail is extended. And I know that Tim and the Conservation Trust want to extend that trail at least to the trail, at least to Henry Lynch Road, even before the rest of the trail comes out there, so we could have that connection. And right now the proposal is for ensuring there is enough right-of-way to expand the sidewalk into a multi-use trail.

I know Tim would prefer to just have the multi-use trail done right now, and there's budgetary reasons why that's been opposed. That's still up in the air a bit. We're also working on rail trail crossings at four different locations: at Rodeo Road, Siringo Road, Second Street, San Mateo, and at Pojoaque Pueblo. We're also working on the Acequia Trail extension between South Meadows and San Felipe Road.

What I prepared in the summary, I guess we've already talked about the fact that there's a lot of projects that we aren't given the opportunity to comment on, and that concerns me. Actually, I was going to quote exactly what you did, Section 3 of the resolution: "Advise on policies, projects, ordinances, etc." In particular, I could give a few examples. For example, the realignment of the Acequia Trail behind the Mandela School, we never got any word on. In my opinion and other people's opinion, whoever designed that apparently knows less than nothing about designing bike trails. It's terrible. There are about four 90-degree turns in about 100 meters. It's really awful, and we never had an opportunity to input on that, and we could have improved that for no extra money.

Another example of where we want input is Fort Marcy Park. There's a proposal now to redo a lot of the infrastructure there that would affect bicycle and pedestrian use, and we've heard nothing from it. That actually is a Public Works project, and like you, I agree we should be able to comment on projects whether they're Public Works or any other agency. So anyway, that's my summary.

Great. Thank you. The next one is the Vulnerable User Task Force. I know Member Wang is not here. Does anyone else who's here able to comment on that?

She, Madam Chair, she asked me to ask a member of the committee to be the interim chair because she will be on maternity leave for several months.

Yes. If so, there are three members now, BPAC members. But Member Schiffmiller is the chair of the Technical Review that lives with Member Gerix, but I do not know if you can appoint him at this section because it's not under discussion.

Right. Okay. So maybe we'll do that next meeting.

Next meeting. Yes. Right. If he is amenable, or if someone else who is eligible is willing, we can discuss that before the next meeting. The next item is members from staff. Any staff members want to comment?

I just wanted to mention to the committee that I, as a staff liaison of BPAC, requested our division director to increase our operational funds. In the past, we had $1,000 a year that we use for purchasing promotional items during Bike Month and Halloween, and trail openings. I requested to increase it to $2,000. Not much, but I was thinking that it will aid the Bike Summit. We don't know if we will get the funding for the Bike Summit, but I think that $2,000 from Public Works can do it.

Also, I submitted a resolution, and I think it was introduced last night, to apply for funding for construction of Henry Lynch from Rufina to Agua Fria, based on the 60% design with stormwater drainage and the roundabout, and the reconstruction of Henry Lynch. We need $10 million to $15 million in construction. When we began this project, we thought we needed only $5 million, and that includes the roundabout, but now it's $10 million to $15 million. That's all from me, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you. And that was introduced last night. Any other comments from staff? Okay. Sorry, I lost where I have the agenda. Matters from the committee. Want to start on this side?

All right, Gary, go down that way. Yeah, Tony.

Just a couple of comments. One, invite everybody on BPAC to the Winter Social at Bike Santa Fe that we heard February 28th. On February 25th, at the same location, we have folks that are building cycling education. This will be a combination of Bike Santa Fe board members at the same brewery. Who had mentioned cinders on roads, and more in the context of keeping that resolution. Madam Chair, I don't know if this is appropriate. Do you have anything?

Excuse me. What Tony just brought up, we talked about in our subcommittee meeting at length, and it relates to what Tony brought up regarding the bicycle, or excuse me, the maintenance ordinance. And really, it's not so much what the ordinance says, but it's again, my insight and experience is not just the mechanics, but how to finesse that, help the city finesse it. It involves interdepartmental, first of all, communication, but coordination. And I hope I'm, I mean, that's what I took away from what we're doing. And on my plate was to contact both the Parks Director as well as the Land Use Director, just informally, to discuss how that might, because I know they're good to work with and they work together. And how that would work for, I guess, each of their departments in terms of any of it, like, how would you, how you institutionalize these interdepartmental communications, which I know our Chair Miguel, I'm blanking on our mayor's name, Mayor Tub.

Garcia.

Garcia. Thank you. Gee whiz. But that's a theme of his, and it's one, it's one of age. I guess I'm just bringing up this issue because it's actually, it's like, it's like underneath everything, getting everything done is their staff. Do they talk to each other? Is their authority granted to work together? And that's what, that's where I'm coming from. Not just we want to see X. I mean, I wouldn't mind it, just like Public Works have X in the budget to give away. But it's like, how can we make that better for staff? I mean, for staff, for directors who have all this stuff to deal with, like not just another ask, you know what I mean?

Yes. Go ahead.

Since my colleagues brought this up, I think another important issue is the budget, because the budget has been contentious. We don't have a budget for maintenance, and it's insane to have infrastructure that doesn't have a budget. So, I would like to propose that we put this on an agenda so we can discuss it more robustly and possibly make a decision about how we can coordinate among the staff, request a budget, and really put this resolution into motion. So, is it okay to add this to our agenda for another meeting?

Yes, we will do what we can. Budget season is fast upon us. Anyone else changed their mind? Okay. Matters from the chair, which is me. Okay. So, a little bit about me. I am a cyclist. I live near the railyard. I work in this building. It's about a mile. I try to not drive. Sometimes it's not possible, but yeah, I was one of the main things that I went after when I was elected was being chair of this committee. So, I'm very happy to be here. I think this is one of the more involved committees as far as members go, and as far as subcommittee members, and everyone is very, very involved. We have all these groups from throughout the city who come and report to us. And I think this is a great place where we can collect our efforts and move them forward. And I think it's been really successful. We have all these trails that Ramela has told us about that are new. I think we can do a lot more, and I think with the resolutions that have come out in the past few years, if we can get them acted upon, we can do that.

So yeah, I would like to increase safety for biking and walking, increase the percentage of trips that are taken using active transportation and transit, and to implement a process where we have the new street designs where road safety is a major priority in our renovations and design work. So in that matter, last night, the City Council, the governing body, voted on our city priorities for the next four years and our budget priorities for the next four years. And one of the three priorities was public safety. And included in that specifically was road safety for all road users. As you probably know, we've had several traffic fatalities already this year. We're at the middle of February. And that, you know, I think that is unacceptable and would really like to not see that happen. We do have a Vision Zero ordinance, or resolution, sorry. And we would, you know, I would really like for that to be to become a priority and become something that we don't just have a resolution sitting in a drawer, but something that we are acting on every time we're considering doing anything to our roads or our sidewalks or our trails. How do we make those safer?

Guadalupe Street, you know, before, that's my neighborhood, the sidewalks were unusable. You couldn't bike on it. And now it's not perfect. I do have some a few issues with not being able to make turns onto side streets, which is bizarre. But other than that, you know, the sidewalk is great. The bike lane could stand to be cleaned, but it is, you know, much, much safer than the previous iteration. So, I'm really glad that that is now part of our stated priorities, and I'm hopeful that with that we can try to get some of this budget money towards transit, towards road safety, towards, you know, making this committee being able to do the things that it is tasked with doing, which includes education and putting on events and getting the word out.

Another thing I have been working on, which I know you all were working on before, is getting funding for bike racks, which is just not in the budget anywhere. It's not part of maintenance. It's not part of capital improvements. So I'm working on that. And hopeful that we can at least get some bike racks installed here downtown around the Plaza so that when we have our summer concert series and there are bikes locked to every tree and every pole, some of them will also be locked to bike racks. So that's something that I'm working on.

As far as the Bike Month update, you had asked, I was in that meeting. I believe that the consensus going forward is we will have a Bike Month in May, which will be the main push, and then for the rest of the summer it will be Summer of Bike. And so we're not trying to cram every event into May, but many events will be in May, and then it will continue out throughout the summer. And then I would like to mention again the event that Councilor Castro is starting to plan. I will probably help with that. That is a District One event. It will be at Frenchy's sometime in the spring. We're just in the very early phases, but the idea is to have food trucks and bicycle advocacy and active transportation and perhaps also transit if we can swing that in the short amount of time that we have. And just to remind everyone what Director Baca said, the Transit Advisory Board does have an opening. It is at large. So, anyone in the city can apply, and I hope people do if they're so inclined. Tony, do you have something?

Thank you so much for that. It's exciting. Energy looking forward is great. On public safety, I just wanted to remind everyone there is a Senate bill in the legislation, SB73, which is targeting more education. How about vulnerable road users? I don't know if the city has lobbyists at the legislature.

We do.

I'm not sure that they are involved in that particular bill.

Any of us, however, passed Senate Education.

Okay. Our next meeting is March 12th, 2026. And with that, we are adjourned. Thank you.