Mollie said that she was the only MDI Bicycle Association member able to attend this meeting. She will keep the Association members informed about upcoming meetings. She added that some members of the Association are interested in advocacy work, but others are more interested in organizing bicycle activities.

Mollie, Zack, and Heather Albert-Knopp attended the Bicycle-Friendly Communities conference organized by the Bicycle Coalition of Maine and the Maine Department of Transportation. Zack won a bicycle rack that he is donating to the town of Bar Harbor.

Zack said that the safe routes to school session focused on parents who established a monthly training program for kids to learn to bicycle safely.

The Portland bicycle routes session focused on the fact that Portland re-striped their streets to create narrower vehicle traveling lanes and wider shoulders for bicycles – an easy step to calming traffic while providing for greater bicycle access. Zack and Mollie said that this may not work for our region since the travel lanes are already quite narrow and most of the roads are state highways that have restrictions on how narrow the travel lanes can be. He also said that the state has a policy to add paved shoulders any time a road is totally reconstructed. This does not include when a road is resurfaced. Doug wondered what projects are considered total reconstructions vs. resurfacing. The committee agreed that they will need to consult with MDOT on this question, as well as whether MDI roads could be restriped, and the upcoming schedule for road improvements.

Mollie said that the panel discussion on working with community officials included a speaker who set up his bicycle planning committee as a semi-official committee of the town under the planning department. The town kept the group informed about road improvements and other planning projects whereas the bicycle committee helped set up and conduct the necessary public meetings. Doug suggested that the MDI Tomorrow Bicycle and Pedestrian group could offer itself as a resource to local towns.

Zack said there was a session on healthy communities, and that he felt that Healthy Acadia was already carrying out the recommendations of this session. He added that he happened upon another session on new ways of holding bicycle rodeos – instructional fun to teach kids how to bike safely. The physical education teacher in Tremont, Mary Booher, and Tori Minutolo have all received some training on conducting bicycle rodeos.

Other suggestions from the conference included using oneself as a pace car (i.e., driving the speed limit in order to force others to slow down) and developing signs, like political signs, that can be placed in one’s yard to advocate slowing traffic for a safer and healthy environment. Mollie added that the newspaper reported on people in Hulls Cove who were concerned about traffic speed and that we might be able to partner with them.

Doug informed the committee about a program run by the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) to subsidize the purchase of bicycle racks for placement in public locations. MDOT pays half the purchase price, and the other half comes from local contributions. The MDI Bicycle Association, Healthy Acadia, and Friends of Acadia have each committed matching funds to the program, which will enable the MDI Tomorrow Bike/Pedestrian Committee to purchase bicycle racks for each of the towns in the MDI region. Doug added that there’s a good chance the committee will secure a $500 seed grant from MDI Tomorrow. Based on these donations and grants, Healthy Acadia sent out information to each of the towns asking them to select the racks they would like to purchase. The hope was that towns might also be willing to invest some of their own funds, if they had multiple locations where they wished to place bike racks. The grant program ends September 30^th.

Mt. Desert and Tremont have responded with their orders. Zack spoke with Chip Reeves, Public Works Director for Bar Harbor, who placed an order for a bicycle rack for the ball fields. Zack said that he has been working with Chip on other possible locations, such as Grants Park and Connors Emerson School. Chip is going to seek direction from the Parks and Recreation Committee on where the bike racks should be placed. Zack said that in some cases, the town is uncertain whether it owns the sidewalk.

Verna expressed interest in having a bicycle rack placed at Somes Harbor. She will contact the Harbormaster at Mt. Desert to see if the bicycle racks the town ordered are intended for this location, and if not, she will encourage them to place some there.

Doug said that he will follow up with the towns that have not yet placed an order for bicycle racks. Stephanie added that she will research costs associated with donation plaques for each of the racks.

Stephanie noted that a number of "Share the Road" signs have appeared on the Eagle Lake Road. Jim Fisher indicated to Doug that MDOT probably placed them since Rt. 233 is the official bike route on MDI and is a state highway. Zack pointed out that MDOT may be paying more attention to the Eagle Lake Road since there was a fatal bicycle accident there this summer. Howard added that MDOT might also have emphasized the Eagle Lake Road because of heavy bicycle use between downtown Bar Harbor and the Eagle Lake entrance to the carriage roads.

Doug volunteered to find out from Victor Smith at MDOT what the state’s plans are for placement of additional signs and to see if they would be willing to work with the MDI Tomorrow Bike/ped committee on placement locations for the signs. Some members of the committee felt that the "share the road" signs were more appropriate for roads that have limited or no shoulders. Mary added that we should find out how much money the signs cost and whether the committee could purchase additional signs. Zack said that extra "bike route" signs might be needed, as well as "Yield to Pedestrian" signs.

At the Committee’s last meeting, members brainstormed the steps that would have to be taken to implement each of the priority strategies that the committee had selected. The committee followed the same process this meeting for the only priority strategy not addressed at the last meeting:

1. Assess and improve the sidewalks for accessibility and plow/maintain/sweep/trim bushes from the road shoulders and sidewalks.
1. Contact public works and get sweeping and trimming onto their regular maintenance schedules.
2. Determine if each town has a plan in place for sweeping shoulders and sidewalks and trimming bushes.
3. Determine if the towns address sidewalk and shoulders in their comprehensive plans.
4. Organize a community day to have volunteers out sweeping roads and maintaining sidewalks.
5. Ask the public on the MDI Tomorrow survey whether they would support additional maintenance of road shoulders and sidewalks.
6. Determine what the public rights of way are for the shoulders and sidewalks.
7. Determine what private landscaping is infringing upon the public rights of way and encourage these landowners to trip bushes back.
8. Find out what communities have done assessments of their sidewalks and how they did it?

Mollie also pointed out that we need a "cover your load" law for all trucks to avoid debris hitting cyclists and walkers.

The committee set its next meeting time for Monday, October 6^th from 4:30 P.M. – 6:00 P.M. at Park Headquarters. The meeting location has been confirmed with the Park. Stephanie will send out a list of the tasks for each of the priority actions (attached) and ask committee members to sign up to begin work on at least one of the actions prior to the next meeting.