Notes from Energy Team "Town Meeting"

The rising cost of fuel oil, gasoline, (and other fossil fuels) has the attention of quite a few people. The Montpelier Energy Team hosted a "town meeting" on May 29, 2008. While many of the sessions focused on home heating and weatherization, we had two sessions focused on bicycling.

We got a quick demo of the FreeRide / Community Bike -- a utilitarian re-used bicycle with bright yellow fenders and a shopping basket on the front. Several people volunteered for bicycle counts and bicycle rack inventory.

We also had a good discussion on potential bicycle-friendly improvements to our city streets.

• Our bicycling mayor, Mary Hooper, rolled out an idea about making Elm St. and Main St. one way to accommodate bike lanes. Everyone thought that was an interesting idea worth pursuing.
• We discussed the potential use of a "Sharrow" design to indicate bicyclists' rights to ride in the middle of a shared lane. Share + arrow = Sharrow (check out the link for photos!) As part of this discussion, we noted that 70% of Vermont drivers don't know that bicyclists have a legal right to be on the road.
• There was interest in improving the eventual path crossing of Barre St. and other path connections. The group noted that the Central Vermont Regional Path is now slated for construction in 2010. This construction date continues to be two-years out; path projects take a long time.