Advisory Bike/Walk Taskforce

Norwalk Bike/Walk Commission Pedestrian Committee Meeting Tuesday, July 14, 2020 2:00-3:00 pm Nancy Rosett, Peggy Minnis, Audrey Cozzarin, Barbara McCabe, Greg Pacelli, Kathryn Hebert, Deborah Lewis, Doug Hempstead, Theresa Argondezzi, Jahliah Green (phone), Barbara Meyer-Mitchell Plan for the Next Group of Schools to Address Much uncertainty about the new school year, including back to school plans and budget amounts. Existing projects. Kathy-Capital budget: $2 million Woodward Avenue and Ohio Avenue. Highland wouldn’t happen until Spring, at earliest. Data: Traffic counts will be skewed in the Fall, because behavior will be different due to COVID. Kathy suggests do the counts to get the data and see how it compares with past and future. Barbara Meyer-Mitchell: plan for three models of back to school. 1) Full back to school, including full ridership on busses (with masks) 2) Middle-ground with limited numbers in school due to staggered schedule, etc. 3) Complete shut down/distance learning. All three have different budget and traffic impacts. Survey Monkey Survey - Questions and How to Distribute Doug proposed surveying community members and students to better understand 1) how behaviors have changed during COVID, 2) if people expect to continue those changes in the mid- and long-term, and 3) if they are aware of existing safe opportunities to walk and bike. Theresa shared last summer’s survey as an example of past survey efforts. Better Utilization of Social Media Can create content and get things out to the public through Norwalk Tomorrow. Just contact Kathy, they would need some background information to create the content. There is one article already has one article: https://tomorrow.norwalkct.org/top-tips-for-bike-pedestrian-safety/ We should also look into sharing the Commission’s Facebook content with the community pages, as well as a presence on Instagram and Twitter. Deborah is looking into linking the Facebook page to Twitter so Facebook posts will automatically appear on Twitter. We should also consider spending some money to promote some of our posts. Barbara Meyer-Mitchell said Megan Hopkins might share her video on her hit and run accident on Highland Avenue. Barbara Meyer-Mitchell suggested videos (e.g., Girl Scout Troop, pedestrian advocate). Send any new articles or resources to Deborah for posting, tag Norwalk Tomorrow and Norwalk Health Department (@NorwalkHealth). We should look into using social media to recruit new committee members. Committee Chair or Co-chairs Nancy noted that the group needs a Chair and Co-Chair. Barbara Meyer- Mitchell and she will discuss offline.