[BikeLongmont] Trip Report: DRCOG Bike To Work Day Planning Meeting

[Richard Masoner]

I attended the DRCOG Bike To Work Day Planning Meeting on Thursday,
January 13 down in Denver. Here's my report. This email is being sent
to some Longmont city staff, Bicycle Longmont, members of the Longmont
Transportation Advisory Board, and a couple of attendees of the
planning meeting that I met. ACTION ITEMS are at the bottom of this
narrative.

I rode my bike to Roosevelt Park then took RTD to Union Station.
Somebody told me that good breakfast burritos could be had at "Paris
on the Platte" on Platte Street near 15th Street on Denver. The
burrito was about as awful as you would expect being served by white
guys with goatees working at a dive with a French name in the artsy
part of town.

>From Union Station to DRCOG is about 5 miles on the Cherry Creek Path,
or about 45 minutes at a non-sweating pace by bike. When I got to the
DRCOG building, there were fire trucks with lights and everybody was
milling around outside. Since I was early anyway, I went to Eastern
Mountain Sports where I spent way too much money.

At the DRCOG meeting, there were about 20 people in attendance. Most
were DRCOG staff. One person from each of Denver, Arapaho County,
Lakewood, GoBoulder, US36 TMO, and a couple of other organizations
were also there. A couple of people inquired specifically about Ben
Ortiz.

The first agenda item was artwork. Ft Collins artist Amy Martin has
created an image of a bike commuter for use in BTWD promotion with a
very open license. A sample of the image is available at
http://www.masoner.net/images/BTWD2005.jpg  I have a CD with full size
artwork that I'll get to Ben Ortiz; if anybody would like a copy
please let me know.

Next on the agenda was timeline of various projects: Sponsors,
T-shirts, promotion and communication, web site, breakfast stations,
media and public relations. Ben, please send email to Karen @ DRCOG
regarding contact information for boilerplate press releases -- i.e.
who the CityLine editor is and any city website contacts.

I requested that the DRCOG website for BTWD link to the various city
websites that promote BTWD. For example, when Longmont creates a BTWD
web page on the Longmont website, then DRCOG will link to that
Longmont specific information.

Maya @ DRCOG asked for local lunch station and "Happy Hour" locations
be sent to her so that DRCOG can contact these locations. If anybody
has ideas for these locations, please contact Ben (I guess). Ben, will
that work for you? Would you prefer somebody else be the contact
person regarding finding lunch and "Happy Hour" stations?

Regarding breakfast station locations, Matt Coffman @ DRCOG has
ARCVIEW layer data available of all those who registered for BTWD,
showing homes and work destinations. Ben, could you use that GIS info
to create a map of Longmont showing where people are biking from and
to? Also, do we have counts of those who visited the breakfast
stations?

There was discussion that BTWD promotion should begin early -- even as
early as next month in some ways.

9News hasn't committed in writing to sponsorship, but verbally they
apparently have indicated major sponsorship and promotion.

Some other ideas were tossed out: a commuter challenge, route-finding
mentoring, partnering with local media. DRCOG may send out emails to
last year's participants to find those willing to talk to the media
about their experiences.

The next meeting is Thursday, February 17 at 11 a.m.

Afterwards, Audrey DeBarros pulled me aside. She is US36TMO
Communications & Outreach Manager and she lives in Longmont off of
Airport Road. She would like to work with us regarding BTWD promotion
in Longmont. Also, I spoke briefly with Bike & Ped Planner Marni
Ratzel of GO Boulder about some possible regional promotion because of
all the bike traffic along the Diagonal.

On the way back to Union Station, my chain somehow got bent and it
would skip off of the chainring every third or fourth revolution. I
have a chaintool but no link pin, so I limped along until I came
across a local homeless woman. I gave her a few dollars and, after a
pleasant conversation, I asked if she could tell me where the nearest
bike shop is. She tells me that there used to be a Schwinn shop
somewhere in Boulder. I thank her for her help and pay too much at REI
for a new chain before hopping on a bus at Market Street back to
Longmont. I also dropped in at the Bicycle Colorado office and met
their new marketing and membership director, Amy Roberts.


****ACTION ITEMS****

1. Who will be responsible for collating information about possible
breakfast stations, lunch stations and "happy hour" stations? I
nominate Ryan Kragerud. :-) for the evening activities. Benefits: free
placement on BTWD map, free promotion at BTWD websites, recognition
from cyclists, possible new customers (I tried my first Lara bar at a
BTWD b-fast station and I've been eating them since).

2. City staff: Can you use the ArcView GIS layer data of 2004
participants to determine where Longmont breakfast stations might go?

3. City staff: Please consider creating a Bike To Work page on the
city website somewhere. Contact DRCOG about the URL. Content: Link to
DRCOG BTWD page, BTWD date, Longmont breakfast station locations,
information about Bicycle Longmont's route-finding mentor program.
Will a new bike map be out by June?

4. Bicycle Longmont: create a route-finding mentor program. :-)
Publicize the heck out of this. Most people who might otherwise cycle
can't figure out how to get from Point A to Point B on their bikes.

5. Figure out who will attend the next meeting. My vacation time is
precious and I can't really afford to go to too many of these
meetings. However, I really think Longmont can benefit greatly by
being involved in these planning meetings. Because these are lunch
meetings, just traveling to and from south Denver will take up your
whole day.

Richard Masoner
http://www.masoner.net/bike/index.php4