Update!
Hi again everyone,
I hope you are doing well and enjoying this weather.
Here in Fort Lee, last week the FL HS Key Club Advisor and some students met with the town administrator and a few council members to discuss updating our Complete Streets policy. It seems they have committed to adopting the newer Complete and Green Streets policy AND form a pedestrian safety advisory committee, that I hope to be invited to join. Once it forms, I expect the support letter to the county to be endorsed.
On Saturday, Pat and I attended the NJ Bike and Walk Coalition Summit in Edison. If you weren’t there, it was pretty awesome. We were able to do some networking and got a lot of good tips/advice.
I went to a session presented by AARP on bike and walk audits. They have some really cool free tools… check them out:
Based on what I learned in another session, I decided to change BCCS’s approach a bit. Instead of going to town council meetings announced but uninvited, I’m going to reach out to town clerks and offer to come to their meeting to talk OR meet with a couple of council members and wait for an invitation. Even when I would email a whole council in advance, they didn’t seem to be expecting me when I showed up. Plus, it takes a lot of my time and energy for something that may be fruitless. We’ll see how it goes… I may decide to drop in on some meetings anyway if I don’t hear back from anyone. And now Pat took his big test so he should be free to join me, too. I’ll let you know if we get any invites so you can see if you are able to join us.
Also, I’m going to come up with a petition that anyone can sign to submit to the county administrator & commissioners. This way they will see that many people care about this and it’ll be an indirect way to get people to sign up for the newsletter, which people seem hesitant to do straight away for some reason. I’ll share the petition for you to print so you can collect signatures and contact info as well and you can share pics of them to me to compile and send to the county. Oh, which reminds me, I’ll be marshaling at the Ridgewood Run on Monday… I’ll definitely bring some petitions… maybe I should make a flier, too.
I was at EarthFest in Overpeck Park in Leonia with Sam DiFalco of Food and Water Watch. We picked up a few new members there (welcome!)
I’m also going to be working on our social media a bit more… I’ve been slacking in that area. Need to get more pics and updates up on Instagram and Facebook. I’ve been running more than cycling lately and I don’t really like to stop to take pictures or videos… I have an old GoPro I’m thinking of attaching to my chest while running… I think many people wouldn’t believe what it’s like running on some of our county roads let alone cycling on them.
If you know of any community groups in your area, please let me know about them… I want to reach more groups that represent a bunch of people and try to get them to endorse our letter. I tried the Bicycle Touring Club of North Jersey and had some contact with them but haven’t heard back recently. They would be awesome to get to endorse our letter. Oh, if you have not seen the letter, here the link to the Google Doc. I can’t attach a file without an account upgrade…
That’s it for now. Stay in touch!
Chris Nowell
(646) 472-4867
co-founder, Bergen County Complete Streets
IG: @bergencostreets
