Your opinion matters!
Your opinion matters to the BTA, County Commissioners, municipal planners, other Washington County residents. Safe and complete streets which accommodate cyclists and pedestrians are not an amenity, but rather a critical component of our transportation system. The more we talk about these issues with our friends, neighbors, city staff and elected officials, the faster we’ll achieve a transportation network in Washington County that gives people safe routes to walk and bike.
We need your support!
The BTA has been working with residents and policy makers in Washington County to support bicycling through funding and policies. But we need your help to demonstrate support and strength in numbers. Below are two ways you can get engaged and raise awareness for bicycle and pedestrian issues.
1. Take this survey and tell the County Commissioners what would encourage you to walk or bike more often.
Washington County Departments of Health and Human Services as well as Land Use and Transportation are conducting a rapid Health Impact Assessment (HIA). An HIA is used to build the capacity of public agencies to evaluate the health effects of projects and policies. This project will provide valuable information to decision-makers as the county updates its active transportation (bicycle and pedestrian) policies, develops a “toolkit” for bicycle facility design, and develops a strategy for prioritizing bicycle and pedestrian improvements.
2. Attend a Washington County open house on the Transportation System Plan (TSP) udpate. The TSP is a critical planning document that guides all County decisions on funding, policies and programs. Please attend one of three open houses and let County staff know that you walk and ride bicycles and we must have a safe and healthy transportation system in Washington County.
Community Open House: West County
Community Open House: North County
Community Open House: South County
The link to the survey is broken (it needs “http://” in front of it, otherwise it is treated as a relative URL).
The correct address is: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MDS9PRG
Thanks for the notice! It’s now fixed!
One of the reasons we moved from Washington County, though not the only one, was that we were switching from pushing the kids in a double-stroller to biking with them. We hadn’t felt that safe walking, so biking was just going to be worse. We now live in Inner Southeast where we can use bike boulevards and there are sidewalks should I choose to walk to the grocery store with the kids. We regularly walked, like many, many people, up NE 37th Ave from E Main to the MAX stop. I put reflective tape on my clothing, lights on the stroller, anything I could think of to make us more noticeable since there is no sidewalk south of Brogdan. We were told that there was funding in place for sidewalks in 2012, but have heard that the unsafe conditions still exist.
I’m not a Washington County resident now so I think that my opinion doesn’t really count to the elected decision makers, but they should know that people are leaving because of the poor infrastructure.
KYouell – thanks for the comment. I appreciate hearing your story. It is important for policy makers in Washington County to understand that people demand good bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. And if they can’t get it, some people will move. The BTA and our partners are working to improve conditions for walking and biking. We are building momentum but have much more to do. We can’t move forward without the support of our members.
If done intelligently I think that WashCo can be a model for how suburbs and rural areas can build a good bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. It’s not a lost cause, there are possibilities and things already in place that can take it from poor-mediocre-sometimes good to good-great everywhere. That said, there is much work to do because it seems that more people are riding every year.