Bicycle and Pedestrians Advisory Committee
Thu, Apr 9, 2026 · Bicycle and Pedestrians Advisory Committee
https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/1056

== Executive Summary ==
The Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) held a comprehensive meeting covering a wide range of topics from routine approvals to significant infrastructure updates and public safety concerns. Key discussions included the legality of cyclists using pedestrian signals, safety issues on the Santa Fe Rail Trail, and updates on the Safe Routes to School program. The committee also delved into the city's road and trail maintenance programs, including funding, prioritization, and street sweeping operations, with a strong emphasis on data-driven approaches and Complete Streets principles.

Several public comments highlighted concerns about e-bike speeds, unleashed dogs on trails, and the need for improved signage and enforcement. BPAC members and city staff discussed the city's approach to addressing these issues, including a new sidewalk program and efforts to improve communication with residents regarding maintenance. The meeting concluded with updates on various subcommittees, upcoming events, and a call for new BPAC members due to upcoming vacancies.

== Key Decisions ==
- Approved the agenda for the April 9th, 2026 meeting (Passed 7-0).
- Approved the minutes from the February 12th and March 12th meetings (Passed 7-0).
- Referred the City Dog Bite Ordinance discussion to the Policy Planning and Law subcommittee for review and potential changes.
- Motion passed to submit the Technical Review Committee's recommendations (including green striping for crossings) to Director Lamboy for consideration (Passed 5-0).
- Tasked the Promotion, Education, and Communications Committee with investigating and proposing trail signage, including etiquette and awareness signs.

== Motions & Votes ==
- Motion to approve the agenda — Passed (7-0)
- Motion to approve February and March minutes — Passed (7-0)
- Motion to submit the Technical Review Committee's recommendations (including green striping) to Director Lamboy for consideration — Passed (5-0)

== Public Comment ==
Public comments covered a range of concerns, including the legality of cyclists using pedestrian walk signals, safety issues on the Santa Fe Rail Trail (e.g., electric bike speeds, unleashed dogs, need for widening), and the city's response to citizen complaints about trail conditions like broken glass. Don Cabaro questioned cyclist legality at pedestrian signals, while Brooklyn Friedman strongly advocated for rescinding electric bike access on the Rail Trail due to safety. Citizens also expressed frustration about persistent gravel/grit on bike paths and uncleared cinders on roads, particularly impacting cyclists. Concerns were also raised about the cost of sidewalk repairs for property owners and the design of a new complex's crosswalk regarding ADA compliance and safety. Judith highlighted the danger of fast-moving e-bikes and other cyclists on paths, emphasizing the need for education and clearer signage.

== Topics ==
- Bike Infrastructure Funding
- Santa Fe Rail Trail Issues
- Trail Etiquette and Signage
- Protected Bike Lanes
- BPAC Member Vacancies
- Pedestrian Light Legality
- Strategic Plan Review
- SAI Trail Extension
- Approval of Minutes
- Agenda Approval
- Bike Santa Fe Events
- Public Safety Committee Update
- Earth Day Family Ride

== Full Transcript ==
Madame Chair, Councilor Figali, we are live.

Thank you. Since we have a quorum, I'm going to call to order this meeting of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee for April 9th, 2026. All the things. Could we get a roll call vote, please?

Certainly, Madame Chair. Member Angela Bird Gray, late. Member Beatrice Farrell, excused. Member Judith Gabriel, here. Member Tony Gerix, here. Member Mark McConnell, here. Member Steve Bilchure, here. Member Ben Pengilly, excused. Member Gary Schiff Miller, here. Member Helen Wang, excused. Madame Chair Pat Figali, here. You have a quorum, Madame Chair.

Great. Thank you. Do we have any changes to the agenda?

I don't know if all the presenters are here.

Okay. Well, we can get to that when we get to that.

Oh, also elevated to a panelist. I couldn't say anything.

Okay. Well, glad to have you. Thank you. Okay. But so far as we know, the agenda is...

We get a motion to approve the agenda. Second. Great. We get a roll call since we have a member online.

Madame Chair, who's the second?

Uh, Gary.

Tony.

Tony. Member Tony Gerix. Member Gabriel?

Yes.

Member Gerix?

Yes.

Member McConnell?

Yes.

Member Piltchure? Yes. Member Pengilly? Yes. Member Schiff Miller?

Yes.

Madame Chair?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Great. Next, we have approval of the minutes for both February 12th and March 12th. Does anyone have any changes or amendments? No. None. Can we get a motion to approve?

Oops. Can we do both months at the same time?

Yeah, they're in the same...

I move that we approve the minutes for February and March.

Second.

Who seconded?

Gary. Member Gabriel? Yes. Member Gerix?

Yes.

Member McConnell?

Yes.

Member Piltchure?

Yes.

Member Pengilly?

Yes.

Member Schiff Miller?

Yes.

Madame Chair Figali?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Thank you. Okay. Public comment. If anyone is here from the public who is not on the agenda or commenting on a specific topic on the agenda, please come forward, state your name, and then go ahead. Try to keep it to two minutes.

71 Don Cabaro. I have a question and observation. It has to do with pedestrian lights. The pedestrian light turns white four seconds before the green. So my wife and I have been taking advantage of that, and we're at the stoplight. See the pedestrian light go, we go. Question: Is that actually legal? Is that legal? The observation, we do it anyway. The observation is that more than once now, we watch the white light turns white, we go, and a car goes at the same time because they're watching us. They're not watching the red light. They run a red light at the same time as us. That's, I'm not sure if that's a solvable...

Yes. I assume you mean when you're on your bicycle. So, because of the Idaho stop law, if you stopped at the red light and then there's no cross-traffic, you can go. So, you can go when that pedestrian white light turns white because if for no other reason, the Idaho stop law would allow that.

Yeah, but we're, there's traffic on all sides. So, we're waiting. There's traffic going crosswise. Then, you know, we see the...

But when you get the pedestrian walk light, the cross-traffic has a red light.

Yeah, they should stop. Yeah, the cross-traffic has a red light.

So you can go on your bicycle before that red light turns green.

I understand under the rule of the...

Yeah, under the Idaho stop, just in terms of the crosswalk. But because we have the Idaho...

The unsolvable thing is that people are watching us.

Yes. I've seen that happen as well. I don't think there's anything that can be done about it short of having a cop give them a ticket. Or maybe you could throw a rock at them. I don't know.

You're not advocating for rock throwing here?

No, I wouldn't advocate. It was just, we don't want to shoot at them.

Thank you. Do you have any other comment you'd like to make? Thank you. Is anyone else here for public comment? Please come up if you're not here to talk about something specific on the agenda.

This is regarding the Santa Fe Rail Trail.

Great. State your name and then you...

My name is Brooklyn Friedman.

Go ahead. I'm a regular user of the Santa Fe Rail Trail, and there's several things that are a concern to me, which I would hope other people would care about as well. But I would like to state that I would ask you guys to rescind what you're allowing right now, and that being the electric bikes. And I think it's really dangerous and problematic. And in my experience, more so often than not, it typically happens to be people of the older age bracket that are using the electric bikes on the Santa Fe Rail Trail, and they're going way too fast. And there's no way they would have that ability to do that on a regular bicycle. And as you age, and I could attest to this myself, I'm a lot different now than I was 20 years ago. My reaction time isn't as good. My balance isn't as good. As great as I'd like to think I am, I'm not all that. So, let me be emphatically clear. You guys need to, I implore you to rescind that. I don't think electric bikes should be allowed on the Santa Fe Rail Trail. Very dangerous. Most people that are using it are generally using it, and they're cranking on the motor. It's just very, very, very dangerous.

One of the other issues is the dog. No different than probably the rest of Santa Fe. The dog issue is a major problem. People are not keeping their pets leashed. And even when they are sometimes having their pets leashed, they're not in complete control of their pets. I've literally had dogs lunge out at me while I'm on my bike and startle me to the point where I literally almost fell off the bike. And that's happened on multiple occasions. I've literally asked the people, "Please leash your dog." They completely blow it off. It's irrelevant to them. How do we get that to be enforced? I know obviously I can call animal control, but what am I going to do if I'm out on a mile marker on a dirt path? How do I call up animal control? I'm right here. You know, even if I take a picture, ask somebody for their name, in most instances, we're not going to provide their name willingly. So, I wanted to know what you guys could do to enforce those laws because it's a major issue.

Thank you. We actually have both those things on the agenda today, but we can, we'll get to those and discuss them then. And then if you would like to give public comment again at that point in the agenda, we can do that.

Okay. And then one more thing that I would like to ask as it pertains to the Santa Fe Rail Trail would definitely be to widen it. That would be very beneficial because when you're on a bike and you have a bike coming in the opposite direction, there's really not a ton of room between the two cyclists. There are some parts of the trail that are significantly wider than others, but generally speaking, if you have two bicycles on that trail, it's taking up a good portion of it. So, I would encourage the city of Santa Fe to widen the path.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Anyone else for general public comment? If not, we can move on to communications from other agencies. Bike Santa Fe is first.

Evening, Councilor and members. My name is Genevieve Morgan. I am a board member of Bike Santa Fe, and I'm here to give some updates as to what we're up to. We recently had a very successful event that we called Path to Wrath. At the encouragement of member Gabriel, we activated our membership to attend the March 25th City Council meeting to make a plea for monies, specifically budgeted monies for bike infrastructure. Individuals had different interests that they expressed they'd like to see funded, but in general, we'd like to see bike infrastructure. And we had a really great turnout. So, yeah, the bike racks were indeed packed, and we had a lot of our members and other individuals who came to the council meeting and made their pleas. And we have not heard anything quite yet in terms of any on the potential allocated budgets for bike infrastructure, but we are hopeful and anxiously awaiting word on that.

Part of that had to come from, we did an informal survey at our winter social event that we had for our membership, and it was informal. I'll tell you a little bit about the methodology. Member Gerlet helped to arrange this activity. So basically what we did is we presented several different priorities on poster boards, and I believe members have hopefully the list in front of them or will momentarily. So we presented a list of what we think are priorities for bike-related needs in Santa Fe, and the members who were present then had a, they could then take a red dot sticker and place it next to the priority that they thought was most important to them. And then we sort of tallied the results to see what were the clear priorities. And what really rose as the very clear priority amongst our membership is to have protected bike lanes in Santa Fe, which we all know there are not yet any, but we have had a pop-up protected bike lane that by all accounts was very successful. And so we would like to see that replicated in a permanent manner. We would also, I think, recommend that Cerillos Road become a protected bike lane. There have been several collisions and fatalities with cyclists on Cerillos despite the fact that there's a bike lane.

Some other priorities that were encouraged by our membership were improved connectivity as well as improved maintenance of bike lanes and infrastructure. So part of our plea for funding has to do with funding the maintenance and increasing infrastructure for bike infrastructure in the city. So I'm not going to take too much time to go through that. You can look through and see what the results are and read the comments. One comment that does stand out to me is, "Paint is not infrastructure." You hear that a lot. So bike lanes are great, but obviously can't protect you physically from vehicles that want to wipe you. So, yeah, please take a look at that when you have a moment.

We have some events coming up that we will be doing bike valet for. We will be doing the Free Family First Friday at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. That's May 1st. We will offer bike valet. And then the very next day, May 2nd, which is Love Your Watershed Day, and we will be doing bike valet at DeVargas Park. We'll also be present at the City Earth Day event on the 25th. We'll have a table, and we also plan to lead a group ride from the railyard as well.

Any questions?

Great. Thank you.

Did you have a question? Go ahead.

I didn't have a question. I just had a comment, Madame Chair. And thanks, Genevieve. A couple of additions. On April 16th, I believe there's a series of bike movies that will be displayed at Sky Cinema.

Saturday, 18th and 19th.

Sorry, 18th and 19th. And Bike Santa Fe is sponsoring the 19th, *Breaking Away*, which is reputed to be one of the best films of all time. There's that. And then on May the 9th, Ryan Harris is putting on a family bike fest for the Santa Fe community, primarily the public school community out at El Camino Real. So if anyone wanted to put that on your calendar, he's looking for volunteers as well. And that's a great event. Thanks, Genevieve.

Thanks.

One more event that I'd like to mention is the annual bike swap, which is happening on Sunday. They'll be at the Midtown campus, and most of the board of Bike Santa Fe will be there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Public Safety Committee, Steve Pilt.

Not much to report. I missed last month's BAC meeting. I also missed the Public Safety Committee meeting. We'll be meeting a week from this coming Tuesday. Hopefully, we can start talking some more about what we're going to focus on. I'll try to bring up the fact that in the past few months, there have been articles about the police department's use of drone technology, gunshot cameras, or whatever they're called. To me, those are the types of things that make sense to have some discussion at the public committee rather than just simply the fire department. Anyway, that's my report.

Thank you. Do we have Ryan online?

Mike, can you please promote Ryan Harris? He said he's coming.

Hi. I also had to be added as a panelist. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the committee. Thanks for letting me join virtually for a Safe Routes update. I wanted to start with some good news. We have gotten the Ortiz Bike Club off the ground at Ortiz Middle School. We have nine really excited members who have been coming weekly every Friday at 4:00 p.m. That's really going well. They were getting really excited, and we're using the Outride curriculum, kind of combined with the League of American Bicyclists curriculum, to put them on mountain bikes and make them feel like they're mountain biking, but we're really teaching them road safety while we're doing it. So that's been a blast so far.

We also, in the last month, well, last month, we added Cesar Chavez as another Walk and Roll elementary school, and next week we start with Gonzalez for a weekly Walk and Roll as well, which brings us up to 13 of our elementary schools doing at least a weekly Walk and Roll to school program. All very exciting. You got a little teaser for my family bike fiesta. We finally got official confirmation that we can use the site. So, we're good to go for El Camino Royale Academy, which is a great location. There's going to be a lot of different things going on there. We'll have a bike rodeo. We'll have tables set up doing activities. I want to put games and chalk stations and things all along that new Cottonwood Trail section and have groups leading group rides down that trail, back in, down to the end and back, so the younger students can start to practice riding in larger groups. That looks, yeah, I am looking for volunteers. Anyone who wants to help out, there are lots of different ways you can help. And I'm also looking for people to table. Quite a few of the organizations that I was working with last year were federally funded and are no longer in existence, including sadly, the bike blender, which I think was a really popular addition. And our musician also sadly can't make it this time, so we don't have our eco rapper.

The other thing I wanted to let you all know about is we put out a district-wide family survey about walking and rolling, primarily about people's concerns about getting their students to and from school. It's only been 48 hours, but we've had 59 responses, which I think is pretty good for our first go-around. And we will be putting that out once a month so that we can continue to gather data. And it does filter out so people can't respond more than once. So, we won't be getting repeat responses. And I would like to give you all a few notable points of data just from that first 59 responses. We did get responses representing 26 of our 32 different schools. So, we did get a really nice spread, even though it's only a few people per school. Like I said, it's early days, so I expect to get a lot more. The survey collects nearby intersections to their home, how students arrive and leave from school, distance of their commute, and then digs into what concerns parents have about walking or cycling to school.

The data that I thought was notable is about three-quarters of the respondents still take a personal vehicle to school and don't carpool. So, we have a long way to go. And so that's something to really consider. Right now, out of this group, we've got 5.1% of students walking to school. But interestingly, that doubles on the walk home from school. So, we have more students walking home from school than walking to school, which I thought was kind of interesting. Some good news is that 50% of the students have shown interest in walking or cycling to school. So, the youth want to do it. The kids want to walk to school. They're interested in it. So, it's really the parents that we need to get on board. When parents were asked what age children should be able to walk or cycle without an adult, the most popular answers were about even at third, fifth, sixth, and seventh grade. I'm not sure what's going on with the fourth graders, but that's where that landed. But what I think is interesting is the next most popular answer was 10% of the respondents thought no age is appropriate all the way through high school. So, that's another thing to kind of note with parents and their feeling about the safety of their students walking and riding to school.

When asked about what concerns stopped them from choosing to walk and ride, the categories that scored the highest were kind of predictably all safety-related other than time and distance. So, speed of traffic, sidewalk conditions, safety of crossing and intersections. Though there was a fairly good turnout that are concerned about violent crime as well. But the good news here, and this is the real takeaway for me, is that 57% said if conditions improved, they would let their children walk or ride to school. And that 74% of parents want to see more walking and cycling activities in their schools. So, we definitely have interest in what we're doing. We have people who want to walk and people who want to ride. They just have these concerns that we need to address. There is an open comment section as well. Most, again, most of what we heard in that was safety, but there is a really large focus on violent crime. A lot of people mentioned sex offenders, and there's some real concern about people getting abducted. So, while the concerns are sobering overall, the data reaffirms that there are a lot of folks in Santa Fe who want what we're trying to achieve, a safe, walkable, and ridable city for everybody here. That's all I have.

Great. Thank you, Ryan. Yes.

May I ask Ryan a question?

Yes. Ryan, you sent out a volunteer request, and I got it. Did you send that to all the BPAC members?

I sent it to everyone whose email address I had. So, I think four or five of you should have gotten it.

We'll forward it to the rest of the BPAC members.

I appreciate that. I was going to ask, do parents recognize that perhaps they're part of the problem? In terms of, like, I often, if I'm leaving my neighborhood out by the Southside library in the 8:30 to 9:00 range, it is a challenge maneuvering past all the parents dropping their kids off at Capital High School. So, I could see why you wouldn't want your kid to ride the bike under those conditions, but you're part of the reason the conditions are bad.

Yeah, it is notable in several of those comments, they did talk about how they didn't feel like it was safe for their student to walk through the drop-off traffic. So, that is something people are recognizing, and I don't know if they're making the connection that if more people were walking and biking, then that would actually resolve a lot of that issue. But, you know, that's the next step. If they're halfway there, and if we can kind of get that information across to them, that there is a chance there.

Good luck with that.

Yeah. Thanks. Great. Did you have something else?

Yes, Madam Chair. Somebody emailed me who wanted to comment during public comment, raised their hand, and they were not recognized. So, I'm wondering if at some point we can go back to that person.

Okay. Where are they on the Zoom?

They're online.

Okay. I was not aware until today we could take public comment online.

Sure. Okay.

Thank you. We could do that after, after the, no. Ryan, anything else? Are we good? Did you, Tony? Go ahead.

Just a word of congrats, Ryan. Sounds like great work. Keep it up.

Thank you.

Great. Next on the agenda is Metropolitan Planning Organization. Eric Anie seems to be here. Good evening, everyone. My name is Eric Anie. I work for the Santa Fe MPO. A couple of announcements and a little comment. Number one, Leah Ingvy, transportation planner, has returned from a 1400-mile bike ride and successfully. We welcome her back. So, we've got a full team. Carrie Tremble is a new member of the Santa Fe MPO transportation planner. While Leah was away biking, an interesting statistic is that New Mexicans travel on average every year about 27.8 billion miles. And then a simple calculus of per capita of the metro area of us who live here, we contribute about 61.04 billion miles of vehicle driving. Thank you to Leah for not adding to that. I am definitely part of the problem.

With that stat, I wanted to talk a little bit about what's come up recently in the news is this Marriott Hotel, right? I'm sure a lot of you have heard it or read about the comment. And I just want to, the lens that I look through, knowing that vehicle miles traveled are compounding everything that you guys represent and work towards, is reducing those vehicle miles traveled and transferring those to walking. Right. So, the hotel, I don't care much about the hotel. It's not about that. It's the location. If you drop a pin in that intersection and you ask yourself, what are the locations within a five-minute walk? What are the locations within a 10-minute walk? And it's pretty extraordinary the locations that will attract pedestrians, whether it's the railyard, whether it's the train station, whether it's the burrito spot, you know, all of the things. So then I would just like to ask is if you move that location because we're alarmed that drivers will be inconvenienced, and they will at that location. So, if you move that location maybe a half mile away, you drop the convenience of walking dramatically, and then you actually contribute to vehicle miles per hour. So, that is a lens when I look through when I see a development, and hopefully maybe you can too, in terms of the mathematics, what we do in Santa Fe is that short trips under a quarter mile, is that we tend to drive, and we're shorter trips, our goal is to stop that. So, hopefully that gives you some perspective because the vitriol seems pretty significant.

Number two, Pack to Rack. I just want to congratulate folks who did this. So, I asked the mayor for permission to make this announcement. The mayor's added $100,000 specifically for that, this gent, and he'll talk a little bit about more about that. That is a significant success. Now the second part of his commitment, and it's up to the city council, the courts to approve this, but is to look at an annual amount with the first one being a swag, and the next one that we'll work with Marcos here, come up with more of a measured approach to what would be a good maintenance. The next step, and Marcos and I spoke about this, Mr.

here earlier today is what are the frameworks around what exactly is bicycle and how do we keep that integrity going forward? That's all I had. Thank you.

Thank you. I think we got at least one question for you, Eric. So hold on.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Eric. Thank you for talking about the Marriott project, and I agree with everything you said. I'm a supporter of development in that area, whether it's this or the other. Are you able to, anybody, staff, describe to me the siting location? It's a triangle. It's got to be further set back, I'm guessing, and it would weave into Pen Road. Is that the case? Is it going to relate to the site? Is it going to be, and certainly the traffic?

I think this is a...

You can't talk about it.

I don't think we can talk about it. Sorry.

Oh, okay. Well, I wanted to try, but I understand why.

If it does come to City Council, which it might be doing, then you can ask all the questions there.

Oh, so the plans are in the city office, though, and they're publicly available?

They should be in the Planning Commission minutes from when it was heard at Planning Commission.

All the maps and a site plan that you can read. I would think so. Yeah, they should be in there.

Because it's public information. Okay.

And there should be the video from them.

Okay. Thanks. I think that's really essential right now. The sooner the better we have access to that. Thanks. Thanks, Eric.

Tony.

Thanks, Eric, and thanks, Madam Chair. I just had a question. Does BPAC have a role in a project like that? Comment on bicycle, what effect, positively or negative?

I cannot comment on it. So, I believe that you could as members. I think that if it does go forward and there is a site plan, it might come to, and it might come to Gary's subcommittee as a pedestrian infrastructure issue, since I believe it would be adding sidewalks and such and be located along the trail. But yeah, as someone who might be hearing the appeal, I cannot have any opinions on it. But I don't know.

Opinion as individual.

I don't know. Do you have something?

Madam Chair, the BPAC voted in February to request Mr. Eric only to talk with Director Heather Lamboy if BPAC can have a seat at the table reviewing those kinds of plans.

Do we have any update on that, Eric?

Oh, yeah. Is Eric Anie in the room? I didn't drop the ball, but Heather had been out from where there was a family issue. So, it's on my list.

Thank you. Yeah, we will see. But I think it would be appropriate at least for the safety subcommittee to review whatever plans might come out of it. I think that is after, as if it goes forward, and not understanding at this point in the process, because they don't actually have any, well, they do have authorization with the Planning Commission, but if it's appealed, then they might not actually have authorization to go forward yet.

So, timeline?

The estimated timeline, it's appealed. The governing body just heard an appeal this week that was from October.

Oh, so I have about four more months. I don't know. I haven't seen it, but...

Okay.

Has supposedly had an appeal filed.

Okay. Thanks. I'm going to access them from public records, and I'm planning to write an editorial in the paper, and I would encourage we to do so as well.

Yeah. All of everything that went to Planning Commission is public. It should be on YouTube and the minutes on the clerk and the packet also.

Thank you.

Yes.

One quick thing. So, as on cue, Tremble walked in. Would like a formal introduction to, wouldn't mind.

And thank you.

Thank you. Carrie, being the newest member of MO. So, welcome. Do you want to just come so the folks at home can see you and say hi?

Yeah, thank you. I'm happy to be here. I just started as a new transportation planner at the Santa Fe MO end of January. So, I'm almost into three months, three full months. And really enjoying it. Happy to be here. Coming from Denver, where I was the bike pedestrian planner for the DOT for the Denver region. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, Tony.

And Carrie, I just wanted to add that she's coordinating what we have called Summer of Bike and Bike Month. Well, the point person there.

Great. Are we able to promote whoever is online? If you could raise your hand again, and we can promote you for public comment. Michael, please.

It's Philip Crump. We, is he still there?

There we go.

Come on.

Yes.

Great. We can hear you. So, and we can see you. Great. Go ahead.

Thank you. So, last fall, I think it was last fall in the summer, I was having a conversation with Angela Bordigore about the bike racks on the plaza, and that came up in the BPAC meeting. And then Chair Mike Garcia said, "Well, maybe I could use discretionary funds." But he seems to have gotten sort of busy these days. But I just wanted to ask about status of any bike racks on the plaza. Where that might be. I see that agenda item 7B talks about bike infrastructure, and one thing that I've considered just for note is that space on the northeast corner of the plaza, which has dirt and includes the large electrical box, might be a location. But there may be other places around the plaza. So, thank you very much. Appreciate the opportunity to speak, and I thank you all for your service.

Thank you. I believe we have secured a few thousand for bike racks around town. Not specifically only on the plaza, but there will also be some on the plaza. We're also working on getting perhaps some additional funds from tourism to have fancier bike racks on the plaza. But I'm hoping that by this summer there will at least be more.

Super duper.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

Great. And then moving on to discussion and possible action items. 7A is updated and input citywide trail maintenance program BPAC maintenance resolution followup from our Parks and Open Space Division Director Melissa McDonald. Thank you for coming, and please tell us all things.

Hello, Chairperson Fagali and members of the BPAC committee. My name is Melissa McDonald. I'm the Parks and Open Space Division Director, and I'm here to update you on our trail maintenance program. Essentially, we have, we're kicking off this year's work now, probably about a month ago. We've been doing a lot of tree pruning, but we generally break the trails up into, and I'm assuming this is what you want to know about. I'm happy to answer questions once I'm kind of done telling you what we do. But right now, we break up our trail maintenance. We have four people who do trail maintenance with a superintendent. They basically break it up into the larger trails, which they do three to four times per year. On a good year, they get to it four times. Some years they can't if it's really rainy, they just get a lot of work. So, and those trails are the Santa Fe River Trail, the Ake Trail, the Royal Chimiso Trail, the Rail Trail, and they also work at Latira Open Space three times per year, and that's more recreational, but it's important too. The next set of trails we do are two times a year, which is a PBLO del Sol, None, and Cruz Blanca. And then we do all the trail heads two to three times per year. And we also do park trails and loops within various parks. And then we do, of course, snow removal. We do tree pruning, and that kind of covers most of it. We also, thanks to our Streets Department, we just got a couple hand push or smaller asphalt machines so that we can kind of patch up cracks, which is great because it saves the city money. So, thank you so much, Marcos, for that. And so, you might see us out there doing that work. I also want to let you know that we have some ongoing work that just started at the Royal Chimeso Urban Trail, and that's going to go on through, looks like August 2026. Hopefully, we'll get it sooner. There is a detour there. And then starting, I think, Monday, we're closing the free ride pit at Lria. Always forget what that's called. It's like the jump pit that my kid has broken his arm on like three times. It's a good thing we, you know, it's used at your own risk, right? But what is that called? It's a trash pit. Always forget that. But that's being reworked and improved and maintained, and that's going to be closed for until May 29th. So, and then we're also going to be having this a opening on the 25th, Saturday, from 10 to noon at the motocross, which is also recreational, but you guys are bike and bike people. It's not really bikes, it's motorbikes, but thought I'd mention it in case there's people listening. So, with that, I'll stand for questions.

Thank you, Director. Member Judith Gabriel.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have two questions for you. One may be answered later in the agenda, wondering if any of that $100,000 will be going towards parks folks for maintenance or signage or whatever. I don't think so. I think that's really for bike lanes and more hardened surfaces. Marcos, is that money going to be any kind of planning or is it just for services? Okay. So, I'm just going to speak into the microphone so people understand. So, Marcos believes that that's mainly for actual maintenance. But no, our budgets are set mainly, we have a small budget, but we have labor, and they do the cleanups and the pruning and things like that.

Okay. Because one of the discussions we've had many times is signage for this, for the trails about etiquette and staying to the right, passing on the left, not speeding, etc. So, maybe that's a continuous conversation we can have because I assume that maybe would come out of your budget.

Some of the trail signs are out of our budget. Complete wayfinding is typically through Romela's budget. So, there is kind of, we do replacement type work. We don't do new sign work. Occasionally, we do new sign work if it's smaller. But we do more replacement work, and we do have an emphasis like kind of coming up on getting some of the faded signs replaced. So, I have my crews looking at signs that can be replaced. It's kind of endless. There's a lot of them. But we kind of just do the replacements.

Okay. Thank you. The other question I had is I was running in the Aoyo Chamiso Aoyo the other day, and there were three guys picking up trash from Proscape, and I asked if they were contracted with the city. Is that part of your department or whatever? I was pretty impressed that they were picking up stuff in the Aoyo. I've never seen that before.

Yeah. It probably is because we are doing cleanup in the Royos all the time. So, that's usually through my River and Watershed section. So, they do pickup, and they also do tree pruning and fixing some of the structures if there's structures that need repair. So, yes, the River and Watershed does that. And also Keep Santa Fe Beautiful does that. And on the 18th, we're doing a big cleanup called the Great American Cleanup. And so, I want to, and that's Keep Santa Fe Beautiful out of Conservation and Sustainability. But that program also does a lot of cleanup in Aoyos, and they're having that on the 18th, Saturday the 18th. You can register in advance or show up that day, and I think it's really early. They have burritos and all kinds of stuff, and I think it's, I'm, it's not my thing, but I think it's 8 to noon or something like that, but it'll be on the website.

Well, I wanted to thank you for that. There's sleeping bags and all kinds of stuff in that, and it'll help a lot. Great. Thank you.

Any other questions? Steve, what's your policy of responding to citizen complaints, particularly if the issue might involve a significant amount of money?

Madam Chair, council members, I'm not sure exactly what your question is. I do try to get back to them within 24 hours with a receipt that I've received your call, and I've instructed all my people to do that. Most complaints go through our CRM system, and then by the time it gets to us, we do try to get a call back. But it depends on the complexity of the problem. So when you say what's our response time, it kind of depends if you're talking about, is it going to get solved, or are we just responding to you? We tend to respond and say, "Hey, we got the complaint," and then we look at it and see how long it's going to take to be done or if we can do it. Sometimes things, like signs, might not have a budget to fix. So it really depends on the concern. I do make it a policy to try to get back to people within 24 hours so they know that we received the complaint, and that's something I do ask my crews to try to make sure happens.

An issue like broken glass on a trail, which unfortunately does happen, I assume that gets addressed pretty quickly. Something like, and I think I put a request in a month or so ago, something like the Gail Rya Trail, which is absolutely hazardous for one section due to tree root upheaval. That's a long-term fix, but probably a short-term fix might just be a warning sign for bicyclists, at least, of rough trail ahead.

I'm having trouble hearing you. I heard about the glass on the pavement, which I have allergies pretty badly. I've heard about the glass on the pavement, and then you said something about the Gail Rya Trail. There's a small section which has tremendous buckling of the trail due to...

Oh, yes, I do know about that.

So, that's obviously a lot more expensive to take care of.

Yeah. So we do have that on our list to look at. And I think that they've scheduled work. And I'm sorry, I don't know the date, but I think it's in the next couple of weeks that they're going to be doing some work on that trail, and I can double-check to see if it's for that buckling. But I do know we had a conversation in our staff meeting where they talked specifically about the Gail Ryber Trail, and they're going to need to close it so that they can do repair. So, I'm pretty sure that's the area you're talking about, but I'll check.

Yeah, I mean, my thought is just as a minimum, just put up some warning signs that rough trail ahead.

Yeah, we're going to close the trail, put it on the orange barrel, and my trails crew is very good. They have had, I'm constantly training people on the notion that trails are like roads, and when you close them, if you have to close the trail, you have to put it out on our orange barrel or have a detour. And we have a little bit of a learning curve at times on that because they don't always understand, but I'm definitely on them about it, and I think you're going to see improvements over the next little while. We had a training about that recently.

Speaking of roads, just one other question. I notice the county often has signs up about county maintenance ends, but I wonder, do you ever have issues where people contact the city to take care of a trail and you have to say, "I'm sorry, this is actually out in the county. It's not our jurisdiction," and whether some signage would be helpful in reducing inquiries like that?

Thank you for the suggestion. I'll take that back and look at it. We do have at the parks our on-call number where people can call. But I don't think we have it on the trails, and I'd have to look into that because, of course, we need engineers to place signs and that type of thing. And again, that's new trail type stuff, but I can look into it. Maybe on the major trails, that might be something that we could look at. Yeah. Not all the trails, but major trails, we could look at that. Would that help, you think?

I think so. Well, I ride with the seniors on bikes, and I'm amazed how many people don't know where the city limits are. So, they'll start chewing on my ear about, "How come this trail you're on, BPAC, can't do anything about this?" Well, it's actually out in the county.

Yeah.

We have no jurisdiction there.

Yeah. And when we get calls, we try to tell people, but it would save us getting calls for sure. County people might not like that.

Great. Angela, thank you. I'm going to take this opportunity to thank you. I have really felt an improvement in the parks maintenance, and I want to specifically refer to Regal Park, as well as Yucca Road and the bike lanes, and Herb Martinez Park is on its way. I guess it's going to be the big spot to be on July 4th, and the Camino de las Canas as well. And I just, I was going to write this to you in an email, but I'm just taking this opportunity to thank you for that. You've really kept up with the medians along Rodeo Road as well. We haven't had a lot of rain, so probably not as many weeds as usual, as well as new fixtures. I've noticed new trash cans. And another comment I have is that when the signage comes up in public works, that when you all have the opportunity to replace signs or to revise that, if you could coordinate, because that's an opportunity then to revise the sign to actually say more. That's in the vein of what we're asking for. So, I would just appreciate that coordination if possible.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you recognizing my crews. We've been working very hard. We have a new way that we're looking at things at the city, which are key performance indicators or KPIs. I'm very proud of my crews because we have worked really hard to raise our level of service by 50% in the parks, and my crews have been really working hard, and we've done cross-training, and they're really excited about it. And I think there's, I love the program actually, because it really helps us target our maintenance activities. So, it's exciting. And in terms of Herb Martinez, you know, we did get a legislative grant to do some improvements in Herb Martinez, and we haven't gotten the money yet. It'll be in a little while, but we're excited about kicking off community input on what that's going to look like. So, yeah, we're really excited about it.

Thank you so much for all that. I appreciate it.

Great. I neglected to open this for public comment. So, if anyone in the room has public comment on what Director McDonald said, you can come up. And if not, thank you, Melissa. I do really appreciate, especially the putting up detours and telling folks when trails are going to be closed. That is super helpful. Thank you.

Thank you all.

Okay. Next, we have discussion funding and budget maintenance of bicycle and pedestrian facilities. BPAC maintenance resolution follow-up from Judith. Do you have anything to add about that?

Only I will be very curious. The $100,000 is a fantastic surprise, and I'm wondering how things will get prioritized. I don't know if they will be tied directly to the maintenance resolution or if there's some leeway about using some of the funds or things that may be related but not part of the maintenance resolution. So, I'll just look forward to hearing about this a little bit more.

Great. Any members of the public want to comment on this? Any members of the board? Okay. Oh, Tony, did you have...

I just, to follow up with that, it would be wonderful to know who will be the point person or the point agency. There's a number of biking organizations, nonprofits in town that...

Well, fortunately, next we have Interim Complete Streets Division Director, Marcos Escoel, for an update and input on our $25 million general obligation bond for citywide roadway rehabilitation projects. And you can talk a little bit about this upcoming maintenance funding as well.

Do we need to project the...?

Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. It looks like Mike's got it.

I think we're good, right? Does that need to be full?

Okay, there we go. Thank you, Michael. Madam Chair, committee members, thank you for having me. As you've heard a few times, my name is Marcos Eskeell. I'm the Interim Complete Streets Division Director for the City of Santa Fe. The chair and the committee had requested that I come and speak on the geo bond and how it applies to you, tech, and the bicycle and pedestrian facilities infrastructure throughout the city. In order to do that, I thought it would be fit to help you understand kind of how we approach our road rehabilitation as a whole. Kind of a high-level view of how we do this to begin with, because that absolutely has a huge impact on how we apply the bond to all aspects of our roadmap. Right? So I have a short presentation I'll give you here, and then I'll go to questions if you have any following. Are we good? Okay.

So our complete streets road rehabilitation program, this is kind of how we prioritize improvements based on road conditions and funding. And this presentation explains our approach to the road rehabilitation, including how we assess roadway conditions, how we prioritize projects, and how available funding shapes our annual program. The goal is to give a clear understanding of our current road rehab process. The overview of the road rehabilitation program is to maintain a safe and reliable multimodal roadway network. Resource-driven evaluation of pavement conditions. Prioritization based on safety, traffic, and cost-effectiveness. Funding determines the scope and annual lane miles improve focus on long-term sustainability and public benefit and build the foundation for future data-driven payment management system. Our goal is to maintain a multimodal roadway network that is safe and efficient for all users. We rely on data from our day-to-day operations and public input via our CRM system to evaluate pavement performance and determine the best treatment. Annual funding availability is a key factor in determining how many miles of roadway we can improve. So, balancing preventative maintenance and reconstruction is critical. We are also anticipating integrating a data-driven payment management system into our program here soon. PCI analysis and software. So how PROWAG-compliant pedestrian and bicycle improvements occur throughout the city. Our road rehab program incorporates improvements consistent with the Public Right-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines (PROWAG) to enhance safety, mobility, and accessibility for all users. Special attention is given to complete streets considerations and recommendations focused on the vulnerable users of the roadway. Our key upgrades include accessibility pedestrian routes meeting PROWAG standards for cross slopes, running slopes, continuous pathways, reconstructed curb ramps with compliant slopes, detectable warnings, and landing areas, improved crosswalk visibility in alignment with accessibility connections, bicycle-friendly corridors, features such as pavement improvements, multimodal intersections, treatments, traffic calming, and striping. ADA-compliant signal upgrades, including pedestrian push button placement and sidewalk rehabilitation to eliminate hazards and ensure accessibility widths.

These ProAG improvements ensure that all pedestrians and bicycle facilities meet current federal accessible standards. ProAg provides a clear design requirement for accessible routes, curb ramps, and crossings. Improvements help reduce barriers for people with disabilities, seniors, and all users. Bicycle and pedestrian enhancements, excuse me, support multimodal goals and complete streets policies and goals, for example, the City of Santa Fe Street Design Guide, ASHTO, for example. Compliance also reduces long-term liability and aligns projects with ADA expectations. These upgrades improve safety, comfort, and usability across the board.

One example of how we're applying all these things to reality is Airport Road. As you all know, Airport Road, thank goodness, just finally finished. Phase one just finally finished getting paved yesterday. So now, within phase one, we're working on striping. What you're looking at here is a typical section of Airport Road, how it existed prior to us paving. This is just a few weeks back. This is what we were looking at. The existing typical section had 11 to 12-foot-wide travel lanes and a 4-foot-wide bike lane. What you're going to see here is what we're, let me get that shoulder. Through striping, we've expanded the bike lanes to 5 feet with a two-foot buffer and narrowed the driving lanes to approximately 10 feet, which can provide traffic calming by visually constraining the driving space. I'll expand a little bit more on Airport Road when I'm done because there's a lot more to this plan, but we literally got the concept today. We're going to still review it tomorrow, see how we can apply it to a road, but I think it's something you guys, but I'll talk a little bit more on that when we jump.

The road condition assessment process. So, these condition assessments are the foundation for our rehabilitation program. By using resource-based and observable criteria, we ensure consistent and objective evaluations. We combine field inspections, staff reports, work orders, and resident complaints to create the inventory of roadway health across the network. Our evaluations include asphalt distress types, ride quality and drainage structural issues, traffic volume, and road classification. We're working to modernize our condition assessment through the city's OpenGov asset management system and then the future addition of the NPCI Pavement Condition Index, which gives a road assessment service that can help us grade conditions and provide assessment management data for sound financial optimization modeling of the roadway maintenance needs. This model helps ensure consistency and fairness. After generating a preliminary list, our staff validates the list in the field. These ensure no important issues are overlooked and make our program more accurate and predict the conditions category and treatment types. So, this is kind of how we classify the condition of the road and what treatments are appropriate for it.

Good condition. Matching the treatment to the roadway condition is essential. Preventative maintenance preserves good roads at a low cost. Roads in fair condition need surface-level improvements, while severely deteriorated roads require major investment. This approach greatly reduces life cycle cost. A good example is Jaguar. We're also doing Jaguar right now, it's under construction. What you have is we're doing a mill and fill, which is where we take an inch and a half to two inches off the top of the road surface and then we'll reapply that with new asphalt. However, the cracks on the roadway go all the way to the subsurface subgroup. So, a combination of these maintenance applications is we're going to mill the road, but then we're going to do full-depth reconstruction along those cracks to patch them appropriately. That's kind of one of the combinations that we use. And then another example is beyond maintenance. So, that would ideally use a PCI score. We wouldn't use it alone. Safety factors, traffic patterns, and equity considerations all influence prioritization. We also coordinate closely with utilities to avoid cutting into the new pavement later, which protects public investment.

Funding can come from a variety of sources, each with its own restrictions and timelines. Grants often require matching funds, while CIP dollars, for example, support planned long-term investments. Utility coordination is especially valuable for high-cost reconstruction work. And currently, our $25 million GEO bond is our primary source of funding for our road rehab over the next few years. However, it does not include all our citywide road rehab projects. The $25 million road bond. So, here are the planned annual expenditures, which I'm sure you all are aware of. This first year, fiscal '26, we're trying to utilize $9 million. Fiscal year '27 will utilize $8 million, and then the following year, fiscal year '28, another $8 million. Our year-to-date expenditures right now, Airport Road from end to end is approximately $5.5 million, and Jaguar Drive from Alan Elo to Paso West is approximately, we're approaching this year's goal very quickly. Funding is a major driver of how many projects we can deliver each year. Sometimes it's more cost-effective to treat large numbers of good roads preventively. Other times, reconstruction becomes unavoidable. Our multi-year plan helps smooth these situations.

This workflow here ensures accuracy, transparency, and collaboration. Each step builds on the previous ones to create a final project list that's realistic, justifiable, and cost-effective. So, we do condition surveys, data analysis, ideally right as we get PCI index available to us, and then field validation, funding evaluation, draft project lists, interdepartmental coordination, final approval, and then we go into design if the program benefits. Using a data-driven approach ensures fairness and allows us to justify our decisions to the public and elected officials. It also ensures we are spending taxpayer funds in the most responsible way possible. And going forward, we want to expand our data capabilities, secure more funding, and better communicate our program to residents. These improvements will help us continue raising the quality of our road.

I'm going to talk a little bit about street sweeping. I know that was an issue. Romelo had requested that Fed, our superintendent, for these out of town, and I asked him to kind of go down. I'm familiar with it, but just the perspective on street sweeping and what we do in storms and maintenance of the bike routes. So, our street sweeping plays an important role in both everyday operations and after snow events to include public safety. We remove debris, gravel, sand, scoria, glass, and metal that can damage vehicles or cause accidents. Keep bike lanes and shoulders safe for cyclists and pedestrians. Eliminate loose materials that can cause skidding or windshield damage. Restore normal traction conditions to both vehicles and bicyclists. Reduce dust and fine particles that become airborne from traffic. Stormwater quality prevents pollution, oil, metal, and trash from entering storm drains. Helps protect rivers, lakes, and ground. Drainage efficiency. Sweeping keeps our gutters and inlets clear to prevent localized flooding. Improves flow during rain events. Ensures snowmelt can properly flow into drainage systems to reduce the risk of ponding and refreezing. And then infrastructure preservation. It removes abrasive materials like salt that wear down pavement over time. Extends the life of the roads and reduces maintenance costs. It helps maintain curb lines and roadway edge visibility. And then community appearance. It keeps our streets and bike lanes clean, improving overall neighborhood aesthetics and supports community pride.

Our priorities. So, this is what we do when sweeping priorities for bike lanes and then post-snow cleanup procedures. First priority is our main arterials. These are our highest priority, and they're swept one to two times a month. Post-storm, we clear them within 24 hours if we know that we have a break in the storm and the storm has left. Secondary streets are swept once a month, depending on the severity. Then post-storm cleanup, we try and clear within 48 hours if we know that we have a break in the storm, the storm has left. Our residential areas are swept one to two times every six months, and post-storm, clear as necessary, depending on severity. And then the plaza area is swept one to two times a week post-storm. It's a little harder to do this, especially if we have to do ice removal downtown because literally downtown we have to go in and actually scrape the ice off the downtown plaza area and haul it out, which is a huge endeavor. So, typically, storm ends on a Tuesday, so through the night in the downtown area.

One thing I wanted to bring to your attention is the perspective of our actual scope. We have, I believe, five sweeper operators. We have two and a trucker at night and two sweepers that run during the day. For your perspective, if we look at Airport Road, it typically takes two sweeper, two sweeping units, two trucks, two days on the night shift when there's limited traffic to sweep, two full days to sweep. And Cerrillos, for example, can take the two sweepers four days to sweep, just so I think a lot of times it's hard to imagine. You can go, there's a sweeper out there, and it's fast passes. They're running in tandem. They have to dump on the road. They got to go back and forth, and it's just, again, depending on how much it is, quite a process. So, capacity for us is a huge city. With that, anybody has any questions?

Thank you. Does anyone in the room have questions other than committee members? Come up if you do. A pet peeve, on the route that I take a lot, has a side bike path. There are sections there where gravel and grit has been in place forever. I have to go out there, shovel it into the road. A lot of work, and very, it would be nice, one pass. Like I said, it's been.

Thank you. Just one question for you, Mr. Eco, before I open it up. Is that something that if a constituent were to report to constituent services, would that get to you, and then you would know where the problems are?

Absolutely. And thank you for bringing that up, sir. Absolutely. If we do reports to CR, our CRM are reported to us through constituent services, and those are taken care of via the time sweepers and try and handle those requests as soon as possible.

Thank you. Tony, do you want to go first? Thank you, Mark, and thank you, Madam Chair, and Marcos, for that presentation. So, I think Madam Chair wanted to, did ask the question that I wanted to ask. So, constituent services is the proper place that would get to you because I have the same concern as the gentleman just mentioned. Don Gaspar is not the only one. Cerrillos Road doesn't get clean, and Old Pecos Trail had cinders on it for months, and now it's clean and wonderful to drive. That's been dormant for months. And I think what often happens is that then I get a little worried. I have to move closer to the lane so I'm not riding on cinders. And so, whoever's sweeping, oftentimes they don't go all the way to the curb, sweep the cinders. But my main question is, if we have issues like that, constituent services is the best way? Absolutely, yes. And it's kind of a catch-22 because typically what's happening is, again, the capacity, right? It's so hard to get up count, but then we try and try and address the CRM as soon as we can. So, you might be pulled off one section to go address another.

But yes, that's absolutely the best route to take. The CRM is the most efficient way to get something done if you're seeing it's not getting done because we're trying to address those.

Great. Just two other quick questions. I'm speaking now as a member of Bike Santa Fe. We put out a newsletter every month, and would it be appropriate to communicate that in our newsletter that if anyone has sites that they see need cleaning, etc., immediately go to constituent services?

Absolutely. And if you want to reach out to me or constituent services, we can get the website.

Thanks. And then lastly, my question is, if this $100,000 that Eric just now dropped on us becomes a reality, is your agency or your outfit the driver of that, or do we know?

Yes. So, my understanding is if it does get approved, it'll be applied specifically to our budget. Where it ends up in our budget is key because one thing we need to consider is, is this something that will immediately be used every year, or do we need it to be able to roll over for CIP funding, which I think is three to five years to get CIP funding in place? But this was the mayor's approach on us trying to meet the guidelines of the resolution right now while we work long-term on developing the actual formula to sustain that, hopefully forever, right? But one issue we run into is the complexity of defining the maintenance itself versus the process that I kind of just described. We've got to work through that part, right? Where is it best utilized? And that's yet to be determined. Eric and I, like you said, I know Miller had some really good ideas on how we establish that formula. So, we're going to work together to figure out how best we can apply that and then work long-term to recruit.

Well, thank you very much for that. That just reminded me of a last question. Would you be open and willing, once that becomes a reality, to meet with certain constituencies like the high school community, the disability pedestrian, to give input?

Yes, absolutely. Because I will appreciate seeing what, I'm sorry, what was your name?

Genevieve.

That helped tremendously, like to see what's priority to you because that's going to help us determine the best utilization of those funds. So, yes, absolutely. We're open to meeting to discuss.

Thanks very much.

You're very welcome.

Yeah. Go ahead.

So, I just want to understand a little closer. You have five sweepers.

Yes, sir.

And they're dedicated full-time. Is the ability to respond to storms and then these specific locations that would come up through a, I don't understand CRM, but I'll find out later, or just your general schedule of sweeping? It's a budgetary limitation for you to have the capacity to really address it.

Well, that's correct.

Yeah. And let me correct one thing too, because when I say five sweepers, I might have, they have four actual sweeping units and five sweeper operators. One of them drives a truck so the sweepers can dump them instead of having, yeah. So, and I'm sorry, I might ask you to please repeat your question specifically.

I'm just trying to understand the limitation. Is it purely a budget limitation, or is it the age of the equipment that doesn't do as well? What is it that you need to be able to do more sweeping?

Right, Madam Chair, thank you. Committee member Mark McDonald, thank you for the question. All of the above, right? So, when I speak of capacity, it's the actual amount of vehicles we have. The reality is we don't have enough sweeping units for the size of Santa Fe to maintain it as we were working, and it's also a staffing issue. That being said, it makes it a budget issue, right? So, one thing we are facing is that sweeping units typically have a lifespan of about four to five years. So, maintenance is a huge issue. We had sweepers that we've had, I think, been utilizing for upwards of 18 to 20 some years. A couple of them we have been able to slowly replace those, but one approach we're taking to improve that is we were looking to start leasing equipment. The sweeper lease kind of hit a snag, but we're looking to rent sweepers to help accommodate the expense, right? Because you're upwards of almost a million dollars a year, and the turnaround on them is so quick because they just take a beating, a lot of moving parts. So, yes, all of the above. It's our capacity. One other comment, and it's just a curiosity, I'll have to do some more studying, but I noticed during a storm event that a lot of sand and rock and stuff is coming from, it's coming up and over the curb, or there is no curb. So, are there things to consider or look at to mitigate how the material is ending up in the roadway in the first place, which would reduce your sweeping requirement?

Right. So, that's multifold. Some of that would become a land use issue if it's coming off people's properties. Alamita is a good example of that. That's not the only place we get it. We get it off roads as well, right? So, just given the elevation and the steep inclines in Santa Fe, it's something that would be difficult to address easily. But yeah, road conditions, for example, and that's one of the issues. A lot of our higher elevation roads, our steeper roads, are base course roads that the neighborhoods prefer remain base course. The issue is when you get heavy rains, that base course easily washes into the roadway. So, it's not as easy a fix as we like. So, ultimately, it's just a maintenance. We've got to just continue to coach it via maintenance. And during storms, we do kind of have as many people as we can. They immediately, including the sweepers at night, will actually head out with our loaders and our trucks, and they'll go scrape those roads where the buildup is, the silt buildup is extensive, before we have to sweep them. So, just so I understand, a lot of the material might be coming from gravel connections to an asphalt surface where it's running off because there's no asphalt apron.

Exactly.

Section that would keep it further back off of the travel way.

Right. And that's one thing we're trying to help with too, is when we are rehabbing roads in the area, and as we can, we're trying to kind of extend those aprons a little bit further because it also helps with rutting and, and I can't think of what we call it, washboarding, right, when people first approach a dirt road off of a paved road. So, we're working to kind of try and help that, but ultimately it's going to be an issue we just constantly deal with given our elevation. Okay, Marcos, thank you for your efforts. I appreciate it. You're welcome.

Ben, do you have a question?

Yeah. So, first I want to say that I'm very excited to see that there's going to be a buffer on the bike lane on Airport Road. The question is, when restriping, will you be restriping all of Airport or just the portion of Airport that was repaved?

So, Madam Chair, committee members, thank you for the question. Yes. So, we're approaching Airport Road in two phases. Phase one was the portion we just did from Country Club to Srios. That's going to begin. All the what we call the long line striping, which are your straight lines, your road, your lane separators, will begin, I believe, on the 13th next week. And then WSP, who's doing our striping plan, just submitted the concept for the pedestrian and the bike improvements we can do throughout that corridor. I'll be meeting tomorrow with Eric from NO and WSP to go over those. But yes, right now phase one will be striped from Country Club to Sri Rios, and phase two will begin after Parks is doing some median improvements in the area that are going to start soon. Once those are complete, we'll work on the rest of Airport Country Club 2. But the bike improvements, the striping improvements, all that will strip of the board.

And I'm glad you brought that up. Well, let me, did I answer your question first of all?

It cut out a little bit at the end. But to be clear, on the 13th, when the restriping of phase one begins, will that include the bike buffering and the driving lane reduction, or will it be what it was previously?

It'll absolutely include the drive lane width reduction. Tomorrow we'll determine if we can do the bike with lane and the buffer yet. Reason being is a lot of the concepts are things that could help enhance those. I'm trying to explain this. We have other applications we're utilizing that might prevent us from doing the bike buffers just yet until we can review and confirm the concept.

Gotcha.

And yeah, and that, we're not going to have to go back and redo anything, but before we put the stripes down, we want to make sure that the additional steps we're taking in striping can be done so we don't have, I'll give you an example. We're trying to determine, hey, does one of those stripes need to be green, for example, right? We do have some green paint applications we're using throughout the process that we'll review, but again, we want to make sure that we don't have to go back and redo it. So, for now, it's going to be anything that won't affect any of the additional bike and pedestrian improvements we're doing, but those are still coming shortly. It's just a matter of us reviewing them and approving them here in the next few days, and then that may be applicable immediately if they can fit it right into their schedule. Otherwise, it is coming soon.

Okay. Thank you. That answers my question.

Yes. Go ahead.

Thank you. So, if I understand correctly, your division is responsible for everything at the surface in the whole right-of-way. So, like on Jaguar Riders, there's new ADA ramps being installed. That's a complete streets project.

Yes, sir.

Okay. And same thing, there was just some relocation thermoplastic chevrons and speed humps and some crosswalks out in that area. Same thing.

Correct. Yes, we can see that.

Yes, sir.

We've dealt with Romela mostly on capital improvement stuff through police tweets as opposed to this type of stuff. So, that helps to understand who does what. And one thing that can help clarify that too is anytime we do maintenance to a roadway, surface treatments that don't alter it don't trigger PROAG requirements, but any treatments we do like milling fills do trigger the PROAG requirements. So, once those requirements are made, we go through the area. And here's another thing you might not be aware of. Through the geo bonds, we have a sidewalk program. And in reference to the sidewalk program, what we're doing is all these roads that were, that are on the geobond list, we have WSP inspectors going in advance of us, and they're actually inspecting the curb line, all the curb ramps, and then the pedestrian access route as a whole. And anywhere there's any violations, if they're, so the city code requires the homeowner contiguous property owner contiguous to the sidewalk to maintain. So, they're going in advance and they're notifying via notice of violation any property owners that have to make improvements, but the city has a process where if they can't afford to make improvements, we have contractors that we can utilize to go do the improvements and then a lien later can be placed on the property. What that's doing is, is that's helping. We're trying to get, we're trying to get the pedestrian access route improved prior to us having to go through and pave the road.

That way the whole public right-of-way is addressed as a whole and completed. Thank you.

Angela: Thank you. That's exactly what I was going to ask about. Complete streets means you're looking at the sidewalks as well.

Yes, ma'am.

And is it on the expense of the owner to replace certain sections?

Yes. So people will be getting notices.

Yes. And the city will be hearing about this too.

Absolutely. It's been in place. We're utilizing, so we have two separate sidewalk programs. One's just general, right? Enforcing, complaints come in, we have them inspect, and then if an NOV is issued, it's issued. But then we have this one specific to the geo bond utilized through the geo bond fund so we can ensure that we're getting everything to the right-of-way. But it's been enforced for a little bit and people have a means of appealing.

Yeah.

And then the vast majority of the public seem to, we have kind of two situations. The vast majority of businesses seem to be willing to do the work themselves. And then the vast majority of the public seems to be willing to just let the city do it and then the property. And you have some that are fine with it, some that aren't, but we get regular visits from the public that voice their concern about the code that you have to pick the pedestrian access routes. It's almost as important as repairing the roads. Some of the sidewalks, they're just so uneven and unsafe. So the part of the GO bond money then is part of fixing some of those sidewalks. Not at all. Okay. Because I'm just, well, that's good to know. So sidewalks may not be improving right now on those roads where you redo curbs, right?

Well, it is. So part of that money is when we create the scope of a section, a road or a corridor we're going to repair. If we do find violations or curb issues, sidewalk issues, when we're developing the scope for that project, we are including that concrete work in the scope of our rehab project, understanding that if the property owners are able to fix it prior to us going through, then that budget, the remnants of that budget can be applied to the next project, right? But if not, we're encumbering the cost, planning on recouping it long-term. Right now, it's been a pretty good, it's been a benefit in terms of it seems like mostly the businesses are complying, the residents are complying. It seems to be working. We're just trying to get the program ahead.

You're welcome.

Yes, go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for helping us understand the process. I want to just follow up with one thing about the sidewalk issue. Is constituent services also a good place to report that? I mean, quite often you're walking along, you have no idea who the neighbor is. You maybe don't want to tell them they need to fix their sidewalk. Would you recommend going through constituent services for that, too?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. My other, it's really a comment based on what Tony said about working on the budget together. And I don't know what the exact mechanism is for the city because I don't know how many advisory committees have been authorized or encouraged through something like a maintenance resolution to not only provide input but also review a budget. A really good reason to involve Bike Santa Fe, BPAC, and other constituents. We have collected a lot of data over time about what cyclists and pedestrians think are important issues. So we can bring that to the table and I just think it would be a great collaborative process for us to sit down together and prioritize how to spend that money and what would be really important to the constituency. So thanks for coming tonight. It's been really informative.

Anyone else? Thank you so much, Director, for coming. Romela, did you want to add something?

Excuse me, Madam Chair. So in BPAC resolution, BPAC has a role in reviewing plans for even for maintenance. So I would like to suggest that when you meet with Mr. Onie, to also include the BPAC. There's a technical review subcommittee of BPAC and the chair is Mr. Gary Schiffmiller. And they are, please include them when you review the plan sets. Thank you. Just because it's in also, it's in the resolution.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Romela, for bringing that up. And yeah, thank you, Director, for coming and for giving us all that information. I think it was very helpful. So,

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next on the agenda is city dog bite ordinance discussion of potential updates regarding pedestrian safety and enforcement. That is my item. My main purpose in putting it back on the agenda this month was to assign it to a subcommittee. I think it would probably make sense to go to the policy subcommittee if that is acceptable to review the ordinance and see if there are any changes we can make. Does anyone from the public have any comments on this? We heard a little bit earlier, but anyone else want to talk about it?

The concerns are that what's on the book isn't being enforced or it's listing is a bad.

Yeah. The concerns are one that it's not being enforced and two that it is very, the way that it is written is very hard to enforce and that the language in it could be tightened up and made more clear and more easy to use. It's not very helpful from the testimony we heard last month. So if you could look at the video from last month, we did have a fairly large presentation about what could be done on it.

In Santa Fe, there's, I don't know what people got going on their fences because I often see these huge dogs poking their heads above six or eight-foot tall fences. I mean, are you guys really that powerful or they got some, they got some jumping.

One ride today and this county with his dog actually cleared the fence. He was so eager to get.

Two of our bike. Did you have something, Mark? Okay. Does anyone want, do we usually make motions to refer to subcommittees or we just agree? I don't know what you've done in the past. Do we just refer it to subcommittee? Do we need to make a motion to do that? Okay. And you're good with it going to policy planning and law. Okay. So we will refer that to policy planning and law committee. And then when you are ready to report back, we'll put it on the agenda. Great. Okay. Next, review of the Zia Station development signage plans. Gary Schiffmiller, technical review subcommittee chair.

Thank you, Chair. The technical review subcommittee met and discussed this project and as I've mentioned probably previously, and I'll just reiterate that I find it completely unacceptable that this project was done without any consideration for bicycles whatsoever. That being said, it's probably too late to remediate those problems and maybe the best we can do is put some signage. So the signage that we discussed that we would like to see includes bikes may use full lane signs on Galisteo in both directions. Sharrows would be acceptable, but I would say in conjunction with the bikes may use full lane signs. I wouldn't want to see sharrows by themselves simply because a lot of people just don't understand what information they're intended to convey. There was some discussion that people often miss signs like the bikes may use full lane signs and for that reason it might be good to have both sharrows and bikes may use full lane signs. Also on Zia Road eastbound, west of Galisteo, before the dedicated right turn lane starts, there should be signs that say right turn, yield to bikes or something to that effect. Something that gets the cars to yield to bikes that are in the bike lane when the cars are moving to the right to prepare for a right turn. Also westbound Zia, west of St. Francis and before you get to the turn there. Yeah. Well, that would be a left turn into Galisteo. So I think there's another street across from Galisteo. So the first thing I mentioned was eastbound Zia, west of Galisteo. There's a right turn lane for cars that want to make a right onto Galisteo, but across the street on Zia westbound.

Into the new, the new compound.

Yeah, there's a new compound. There should also be a right turn yield to bikes. The five-foot shoulder on Zia, both east and westbound, should have bike lane markings because it is, it's a shoulder. It's a striped shoulder, but it's five feet wide and it's functionally a bike lane. So there should be bike markings. Also on eastbound Zia, before one reaches Galisteo, there might want to be a yield to pedestrian signs, right turn yield to pedestrians with those pedestrians that are crossing Galisteo going to or from the train station. There was some discussion of the possibility of a no turn on right on eastbound Zia when you get to St. Francis because there's rail trail traffic crossing Zia.

When that light is red.

On up from St. Francis, there is a red, red arrow.

There's a red arrow on southbound St. Francis. I'm talking about eastbound Zia.

Okay.

When that light is red, there may be rail trail traffic crossing Zia.

Yeah.

And so a no turn on red may be something to consider. I didn't see any indication really at all about the rail trail crossing. There's no signage of any sort for traffic on turning onto Zia from St. Francis or traffic that's already on Zia. There's no indication that there's a rail trail crossing there. I'm not exactly sure what sort of signage would be needed, but something should be there to let drivers know that there's a, you know, a major trail crossing. I also didn't see in this plan any signage or striping pertaining to bicycles at all on Zia east of St. Francis. Not exactly sure, you know, if there's room for bike lanes there, but I don't think there are bike lanes there. There, if there's no bike lanes, there should be bikes may use full lane signs, something to that effect. That's what I have. If any members of the technical review subcommittee have anything else, Ben or Mark, speak up, please. If there is anyone from the public also who would like to comment, let's do that before we get to non-members of the subcommittee.

You state your name again.

Genevieve Morgan, President of District Two. So I'm speaking just as an individual, not representative necessarily. Thank you, Chair and members, for considering, excuse me, those changes around Zia and Galisteo. I really like a lot of those ideas. I travel that area twice a day every week. And I do have a suggestion for the crossing at the rail trail from north of the crossing to where the runner station is. Green paint even would be a pretty simple fix just to show. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people literally cross on the tracks, walk or bike on the railroad tracks to get, they think that's where the crossing is instead of just crossing at the crosswalk. That's wild to me and super dangerous. So maybe green paint just to show, you know, leading from the rail trail across the crosswalk and then leading into the rail trail again on the other side would be, I think, a huge improvement. The signage ideas I also really like and right now, so thank you for keeping those considerations.

Thank you.

Yes, Steve.

Quick question. Given the status of this project, is this something that the developer can be required to do or is the city going to have to do this if we've already accepted the roadway improvements?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Member Pilchure. When we were discussing this on site, Director Lamboy, I asked Director Lamboy if BPA can still make recommendations, and she said yes, just email me the BPA recommendations and I will see if they can be done. But the request from Ms. Morgan that is already public right-of-way, so painting it green could be directed to the maintenance group. And I will try to see if there is some capital funding. We have a small funding from roadway impact fees, which we already spent, but there's some like $1 million coming in July. But we are prioritizing all projects under construction, so if there's some funding gap, we can use that money. But painting over that crosswalk, do you think we can? I don't know how much money or how much funding is left with maintenance for maintenance.

For the question, Romela, Madam Chair, Romela, excuse me. I think it's something we can definitely look at. It's my understanding that we had just been approved for a grant that I believe Jennifer Marl, the former Streets Director, had applied for. Maybe you did, I'm not sure, but the grant was to help us with rehab improvements at all the railroad crossings, specifically the roads that need to be done. Something important to understand is the railroad owns within 50 feet of the tracks, right? So we have to get the permission to do this. But this was something we knew needed to take place. And in my discussions with Jennifer about the need to make improvements, it was also just like anything else. If we alter the pavement, if we do milling fills, for example, then we have to bring the pedestrian access routes into compliance. So, even if we don't have the funding to do it now, we may be able to utilize that. I don't want, I can't, I'm not going to commit until I know that we even got that grant for sure. Absolutely, if we did get that, we can utilize that to make those improvements at all the crossings that we need to address. So that's something we can also discuss, but that'll trigger PROWAG requirements throughout those areas as well. And I'm not opposed to if we can make simple improvements like that.

Thank you, Judith.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, maybe stay there for a sec. Are you talking about the proposed striping that we have previously discussed at Siringo, Second Street, Alta Vista, or is that different?

Madam Chair, Member Gabriel, so there is a project called Rail Trail Intersection Improvements at four intersections. We are receiving funding for constructing those improvements for two intersections. Again, it's federal funding. So it's Siler Second Street, Siringo Road.

Rodeo Road.

Rodeo Road.

Siringo Road, not Siler.

Not Siler.

De Peralta.

Yes, thank you. What was the fourth one?

Second Street.

Street. Yes.

So, we got funding for not the railroad itself. It's for the rail trail.

Rail trail intersection.

Yeah, that's the way I understood it. It seemed like they're so close to each other. It's related.

Kind of, sort of.

Okay. So, that was one question. I really like the idea of somehow enhancing the intersection as people are either turning right onto Zia or turning right from Zia to St. Francis. I'm wondering if that would help the issue of people running the red lights there to have more warnings about it being a rail trail crossing. Because I think everybody is well aware that people run the red light all the time, and I've also had people turning right to go south on St. Francis when I'm already crossing the road. So I think that could be a great enhancement. One other question I have is about the crosswalk because it's a bizarre-looking crosswalk, and I'm not sure if I understand it properly, but it looks like you come out of the new complex, you have to walk down the median, and then cross again to get to Galisteo. And maybe I'm not seeing it correctly. I don't see a cutout or anything, and that's what it looks like on the map. So, one question is, is that ADA accessible? Because it seems like a really weird thing to do to have to scooch around, and should there be some kind of signage there because that seems like a really dicey crossing to me. And am I understanding it correctly?

Thank you.

You're understanding it correctly. And I think the thought here, I've seen it at other crossings, is there's a pedestrian refuge in the middle. And the way it's set up is when you're crossing from either direction, you have to turn right to go through that pedestrian refuge. And in turning right, you face and look at the oncoming traffic.

And I get that. I'm wondering if somebody in a wheelchair could navigate that or anybody who might have more of a challenge of getting across the road just because it's not a straight line and it's not a typical refuge. But I get what you're saying. So I'm just a little concerned about that. Yeah, Member Gabriel. I believe it's similar to the one that is now on Guadalupe, kind of near Johnson Street. There is a similar cut through the median, and I have not tried it with a wheelchair, but it does seem like it would be navigable. I believe they're similar widths in the plan. Director Esel, do you have any knowledge of that? Yeah, just to, I think you're referring to the hot crossing in that area, but just to assure you, that's probably priority one when they're designing any of the crosswalks is the ADA compliance and the safety for all the vulnerable users of the roadway. So I would assume that it is, and if it's not, through inspection, they would have to alter it. So what happens is that for private developments, before the city accepts the project, our inspectors inspect all the signage, crosswalks, etc., for ADA and PROWAG compliance. Until they accept it, the city will not accept the project. So, and the Guadalupe project, all those are ADA and PROWAG compliant. You won't believe the number of NMDOT and FHWA and ADA and PROWAG experts who audited and looked at all those things before they said, "Okay, we are accepting the project." That's the beauty of federally funded projects. There are so many eyes on the project.

Thank you, Romela. Do we have to refer this, or did you, I saw you taking notes on it.

Madam Chair, just a motion to submit the recommendations of the Technical Review Committee to Director Lamboy for consideration.

Great. So, you want to make a motion?

I'll move that we ask Director Lamboy to consider all these, including the green striping that Genevieve suggested.

Second.

Second.

Tony second. Can we get a roll call, please?

Certainly, Madam Chair, Member Board of, sorry, Board. Member Gabriel.

Yes.

Member Gerix. Member McConnell.

Yes.

Member Pilchure.

Yes.

Member Pengilli.

Yes.

Member Schiff Miller.

Yes.

Me.

Madam Chair.

Yes.

Motion passes.

Thank you. Next is results from Bike Santa Fe priority exercise. Tony, we discussed it briefly, but if you have more.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and we have already heard it, so I'm not going to repeat it, but my follow-up question, I think, was also answered by Marcus's presentation. Now that we have the results, granted small perhaps, but it was, there's some good data here that need to be taken into consideration, and we don't want to waste it. Our communications person was here, he just left. We want to communicate to our constituents to see not only the results of the survey, but what are the next steps after. And I think the next steps after Marcus's presentation is that he will be getting these data and any other data. I believe that's the proper next step.

Right. Steve.

Are you still here?

Yeah, she's still here.

Are you considering having this survey day out at the bike swap?

That hadn't come up, but we can consider it. Yeah, that's a good idea. Are you asking that we extend the survey or post the results that we have?

Thinking of possibly extending it, that, you know, you can claim to not have such a select group when you go out beyond Bike Santa Fe and say, "Hey, we just asked the general public too, not just our members."

I think that's a great idea. We can definitely do that.

Or we can do it at our table if I want to.

We, I think we can do it. We.

Yeah, we'll do it.

And if anyone wants to add any questions, please send them to either yourself. Take care of it. Great. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Discussion, Bike Month activities and Bike Santa Fe Bike Summit implementation plan. Sorry, implementation plan. Member Judith Gabriel.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, first, just talk briefly about Bike Month. Unfortunately, I haven't been to any of the meetings, but have been in communication with Ryan, and we will be forwarding a request for volunteers for the Family Fiesta. It won't be the same as last year, but last year was really fun. We actually rode from Frenchy Field down to whatever that school is near the pool. I forget the name of it. The community. Yeah, Aspen. And then we kind of got rained out with the rest of the stuff. But he is desperately in need of volunteers. There's lots of opportunities. They're doing a bike rodeo and need people to help kids enhance their skills. They're going to have a little trail ride. They will also have activities with chocolate and stuff. So they need lots of volunteers, and I think it will be a very fun event. It was brought up in a casual conversation whether or not BPAC should have a table there. I personally will be volunteering, and it is difficult to get people to staff a table, I think, especially on a Saturday. So if people are interested in doing that, it's from noon to 3, I believe. Okay. It's mid-afternoon, and I will just ask.

10 to.

10 to 2. God's sakes. May. Jeez. Okay. May 9th, 10 to 2. And I'm asking now if BPAC members are interested in staffing a table. If we can't get it together, we won't do it. But I would still encourage people to volunteer if you would like to do that. So, that is one of the things. In that casual conversation, it could be a really good opportunity to ask more families with children what their priorities might be. So, that's an opportunity there. The other thing is, we still have two slots that we could use another person at our table at the bike swap. We have two people opening from 8:30 to 10. We have one person from 10 to 11:30, and one person from 11:30 to 1. So, those second two slots, we don't have to have two people, but it could be helpful. So, please let me know if you're able to do that. And thank you to those who have already volunteered. We wanted to ask one question, and I put this out to people previously, and I tried to find it on my computer. I couldn't find it. The question, because the Promotion, Education, and Communications Subcommittee has identified connectivity as one of the important priorities for us this year. We wanted to ask something like, if you could make one connection between different trails or between one trail that has a break, what would it be? Wanted to get feedback on that. I didn't hear back from anybody yet. So again, I can send that out to the group. You can give me feedback. That would just be an easy way to get some information about connectivity and would appreciate your input on that.

And then the last thing is Romela invited me to participate in a meeting with folks from the city. I can't remember which department it was, the communications team, about a bike summit. We had originally submitted a funding request. We did not get that funding, but we would still like to have a summit. We talked about the best time for that being before school starts. We talked about doing it during Bike Month, but we need to do a really good job on this, so we need more time to plan. So we're looking at late July. There is information in your packet. It's a draft agenda, and of course, that would bring together lots and lots of partners, and still lots of stuff to be determined. Is there anything you'd like to add to that, Romela?

Romela: Not really.

Okay.

Romela: You're leaving BPAC, so I will be abandoned.

There will be other BPAC members here. So that is all that I have for those items. Thank you.

Thank you. Romela, I don't understand how councilor funding works, but I apparently might have some money for some kind of events. So we might be able to, if we host it in District 1, which we are in right now and where the convention center is, we might be able to use that funding. So let's talk about that. I'm again, I don't actually understand what it's for.

Romela: And I requested some funding.

Yeah. And he said he will see what he can do.

Excellent.

Romela: I got you on record.

Moving on. The next discussion is e-bike speed on trails. We heard from a member of the public earlier. My intention was this was also to refer it to a subcommittee. Do we want to discuss any of it now, or do we, Tony?

Tony: Only that there's an existing ordinance that BPAC worked on prior. Back member Yolanda Isis, who was the driver, whatever changes you want to call her, she and Cal Spencer, government in...

Judith: Judith.

Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the things about that ordinance, it was named an e-bike ordinance, but it really was legislating behavior on the trail. And I do know that the suggestion was that you shouldn't set a speed limit because if you're not going to enforce it, and it's hard to enforce, there's no point in doing that. But what we did put into that ordinance was something like riding at a speed that is considered reasonable or something like that, which is...

That is what it says.

Yeah. Incredibly...

And prudent under the conditions then existing.

Yeah. So here again is where I think signage on the trails could help tremendously. I really urge us to figure out a way to find money to put trail etiquette signs at some of the trailheads, some of the crossings, explaining how to behave on a trail as a pedestrian or a cyclist. And I think that's the best we can do. We can't enforce, we can't enforce speed on the trail from my perspective. It just, we don't have the capacity, I don't think, to do that. So it seems like education and encouragement is the way to go. Thank you.

Yes.

Yeah, I would second that. Enforcement's impossible. You can't control people going through red lights in Santa Fe. How are you possibly going to control an e-bike? I think it really is going to come down to, I don't know. I just don't, I don't think it's realistic. Even a sign, if someone's going to wantonly speed at whatever rate they want to go on the trail, a sign is not going to change their behavior.

I agree that some people will do that, but I think signs will remind many people who are considerate that they shouldn't go too fast. And even if it's not enforced, I think some sort of signage reminding people that 15 miles an hour, for example, might be, you know, considered, I don't know how to phrase this without making it sound like it's an ordinance and it's not, but you know, something to remind people that they shouldn't go faster than 15 just out of consideration for other trail users.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. I remember looking at this a few years ago and doing some research and found even the city of Portland, which is a very bicycle-friendly city, does not impose a speed limit on its trails. In fact, most communities I looked at did not have speed limits. It's more, maybe you want to keep up this length, you know, maybe be recommended, don't go beyond 15. I don't, I don't know. I agree it's hard to enforce, and the only thing an ordinance would actually do in case of an accident, somebody might be able then to be able to prove that, hey, I got hit by something going 20 miles an hour.

Okay.

Judith: I actually think perhaps we could reference the ordinance because there is a statement in there about it. And also as part of the education is just, you know, considering the safety of others. And I would also like to say that it is not just e-bikes that go whizzing by people on the paths. And it's especially dangerous if you have a dog or you can't hear very well, because the other thing is a lot of times people don't tell you that they're passing. So I think there's a great opportunity for education and encouragement here. And we could, we could do better than we're doing right now. Thank you.

Yeah, I've had the experience as well that bicyclists don't give warning. I've also had the experience that when I give ample warning to pedestrians, they're either not aware or they're wearing earbuds. And there could be signage to both bicyclists and pedestrians to be aware of each other. And I would also say, even though it's not directly related to e-bikes, but it's about signage on the trails, I think at every access point there should be a "no motor vehicles allowed" sign because I have seen motor vehicles on every trail in this city.

Several, but it's probably not every entrance. Did anyone else have anything to add? I had someone ask me the other day, I think at Alta Vista on the Rail Trail, a runner asked if pedestrians were allowed on the trail. So we might also need that signage. I was like, "Yes, it's actually, yeah, you can, you can go on there." I think because there was a bike sign. But I don't know. I think everyone else is not biking. So does one of the subcommittees want to look into what that signage could look like, or do we want, how do we want to proceed with this?

Didn't we look at this before? I remember...

Vaguely, you had given us a full presentation.

Yeah.

Cities have done.

Yeah. I will, there was a, before it became BPAC, there was a BTAC, there was a presentation from the division director of Parks and Recreation in 2019. He presented this signage for trails. I can perhaps dig it up.

You actually gave us lots of examples at one of our more recent meetings.

Yeah.

Okay.

There were some really good signs that we looked at.

Yeah. So I just want to inform the committee that in Table 80 of road impact fees, there is a location of $300,000 for bicycle lanes and wayfinding signage. If the committee can give me the signage that they want, or maybe hire Mr. Rogers to design the signage, we can pay for that.

Would that be considered wayfinding to have trail etiquette signs, or something that's not exactly wayfinding?

Because the language in Table 80 is very general, so we can use that funding.

Great.

Yeah.

Does someone want to volunteer to take that on?

I'm wondering if it should be the Promotion, Education, and Communications Committee, acknowledging that Tony and I are both going off, and that it may be difficult to get this done before we go, but we could take a crack at it, right?

Sorry, it seems like an education and communications thing.

It does sound like education. So, if you're willing to look at that, and then we will, we will work on getting, getting replacements, trying to get replacements for you, too. Okay, great. So moving on to subcommittee communications, policy, planning, and law.

Obviously, now working on this animal control ordinance, delivered to Romela. What's our time schedule for looking at the strategic plan? I know I got input from Judith, and I did some, made some recommended changes, and...

Romela: Yeah, if we target a presentation to the governing body, so we need to discuss that in the following meeting. And I think we need two meetings to discuss the amendments and then approve the amendments. And July is the presentation. And you can still present it, or member Gabriel can still present it to the governing body meeting, at the governing body meeting, like what we did with former member Yolanda and you, Res Center.

We can talk about next meeting then.

Romela: Yes.

Sounds good.

Sounds, yeah. Promotion, Education, Communications.

I just wanted to thank all the advocates who showed up for the City Council meeting. I think that was a tremendous collaboration with Bike Santa Fe. And just am very grateful that people not only showed up for the meeting, several people wrote to their city councilors as well to talk about funding for bicycling and pedestrian issues. So thanks to all who did that.

Thank you. Technical Review, Gary.

Gary: So the Technical Review Subcommittee has been attending meetings for both the Henry Lynch Road project and the SAI Trail Extension. The SAI Trail Extension just had a public meeting this week. That project is, is under sort of a time constraint to get some money spent. And so we're working to get it done by, is it June?

Romela: The target is to send the plans, the final PS&E plans, specifications, and estimates by June 15th.

Gary: So that's going according to plan. And the Henry Lynch Road is at 90% now. And I know I've mentioned it before, but I'll say it again. It's going to be the first project in Santa Fe with protected bike lanes. They're going to be grade-separated bike lanes. It's not going to be any, any kind of physical, it's not going to be bollards. Basically, what we've done is simply moved the curb and gutter to the left side of the bike lane. And so it cost virtually nothing. They have to put a curb and gutter in anyway. So all they're doing is moving the location of the curb and gutter so that the bike lane is raised up from the road. And the other thing it does is it narrows, visually narrows the road. The driving lane will remain the same distance, but it visually narrows the road, which should slow traffic. So the car traffic will be separate from the bike traffic, which will be separate from the sidewalk and the multi-use trail.

Great. Thank you. Do we have any matters from staff?

Romela: Yeah. Yes. That, so member Gabriel and member Gerix are retiring. They served six years on BPAC. And then member Pilchure is not...

Non-stick.

Romela: For the third term, but he said he has served for four years, two terms. I just received the resignation letter from member Betrice Farel, who is a Santa Fe County resident. But fortunately, member McConnell is moving to the county. So I have to change the advertisement because I requested Comms to advertise these positions to change the Santa Fe County resident to District 4. So can we just reiterate which districts, or Judith, and two?

Two districts, two.

Romela: Two district two and one district four.

One district four, one district three.

Okay, so if anyone lives in not District 1 in the city and wants to be on BPAC, now is your chance. Though...

Romela: Madam Chair, he's, member McConnell is raising his hand.

I mean, the move is likely, but not 100% confirmed. So give me a little bit more time before...

Okay, well, county member, and then if we need to rearrange, we will. But okay, so county member and two and District 2. So tell all your District 2 friends. Anything else?

Romela: It happens, Madam Chair, is that if there is a subcommittee member who has served on the subcommittee, they have the priority to become a member.

Great. And you'll get that to our subcommittee lists, or the chairs of the subcommittees will get that out to the list.

I'm sorry, I didn't understand.

If someone's on a subcommittee now and wants to become a full member, they have priority as being someone who's already involved. So, if we

I have been recruiting from

Great. Yeah.

If we could all, you could all tell your subcommittee members if they want to, if they live in the right districts and want to become full members. Anything else? Okay. Any matters from the committee? Anyone have anything they want to talk about? We haven't addressed, Angela.

This is a little out of our, sorry. I don't have anything in particular, but I just wanted to clarify what Seia Trail Gary's talking about. That sounds like a showcase where

It's Henry Lynch Road. Yeah.

That's what it is. Okay. Henry Lynch. Thanks. So,

No. Anyone else? Matters from the chair. I believe that Councilor Barrett and I are going to lead a little family ride on Earth Day from Rail Yard Park to the turnaround sort of near Capito and back. It's just a little family-friendly bike ride. We might be asking Bike Santa Fe to help us promote and/or join. But that, great. Okay. So that'll be April 25th is Earth Day at Rail Yard Park, which should also be fun. There will be goats. There will be a Graze Days, which are my favorite Rail Yard Park events. And yeah, our next meeting is May 14th, which is also Thursday. Yeah.

Is that something we could put on the BPAC website? And I meant to ask you about the family rodeo as well. We can put these things on our website.

Yeah, if Ramela, if Ramela can do it, we can do it.

We just have to do a comms request, right?

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Councilor Barrett has put in a comms request. So,

Okay, good.

For the, for the bike ride, so hopefully that will happen. I'm not in charge of that. So, yeah, May 14th for the next meeting. Tell your friends if they want to be members, and we are adjourned. Thank you.