I attended the Platinum Committee meeting tonight and I am really happy with the direction this is taking. Thanks to everyone who helped make this possible. Here's a quick report on what happened: The BTA held a special meeting in August to review the draft proposal, and I presented their recommendations to the Committee. Jay Ferm, the co-chair, met with the Mayor earlier this week and ran through the current set of recommendations with him. The Mayor is happy with the report and generally excited about the results so far. The mayor was concerned about the recommendation to investigate rush hour parking policy and stated he would not support eliminating rush hour parking restrictions altogether. Other remedies to rush hour parking problems are still on the table. The mayor liked the proposal to create "Sunday parks", which I believe are streets closed to motor-vehicle traffic on a Sunday in May. The mayor seemed interested in making this happen in May of '08 - and if that didn't work out, by May of '09. the Mayor also likes the concept of Bike Boulevards. The Committee then went into nailing down the details for the final draft of the report. Several recommendations from the BTA review made it into the final. After some contentious discussion, the Committee approved looking into creating separate bike traffic lights at some intersections to allow bicyclists using the bike lane to safely proceed thru an intersection while traffic in other lanes would have a red. Several other amendments were made to the report. After that, Mark Shahan stopped by (from the cancelled LRTPC meeting) and urged the committee to put in place a policy to "institutionalize" the Platinum report. After a lengthy discussion, a plan was agreed upon that would create a new yearly report to be created and reviewed by the Ped-Bike-Motor Vehicle commission, and approved by the common council. Mark Shahan deserves a huge thanks for making this effort. I believe that Mark's efforts tonight more than doubled the value of the Platinum report in terms of the benefits for bicycling in Madison. But this is only the beginning! All the great recommendations in the Platinum Committee's report will never be realized without people like you scrutinizing how the City is progressing in implementation. The members of the Platinum Committee have created a great foundation for a world-class bicycling experience in Madison - what gets built upon that foundation is up to YOU!
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