FABB Blog

 

FABB monthly meeting

FABB meets on the third Wednesday of each month, most recently at the Vienna Community Center. Everyone is welcome to attend. This month we had a special guest, Elaena Gardiner, president of BikeSydney, fourth from the left in the photo. Elaena is traveling throughout Europe and North America and meeting with local and regional bike advocates.

Bike Coordinator Charlie Strunk provided an update on activities in his office:

• 150 inverted U bike racks should arrive in November.
• Bike Route signage plans are being prepared for three projects in the Dranesville District: Fleetwood Road, Kurtz/Calder, and Riverbend Rd./Beech Mill Rd.
• Construction of the Wolftrap Road bike bridge will begin in November (see map). This will provide an important connection to Gallows Road
• Bike route map of Civil War sites—Work has begun on this project, which was suggested by FABB and funded by a Transportation Enhancement grant (No. 09008).
• Metrorail Station Area Bicycle and Pedestrian Improvements Study—Meetings were held to discuss bike access issues at the Vienna and Huntington Metro stations. FABB provided input at both meetings.
• County bike parking guidelines and specifications are still being developed. On November 19 it will have been two years since Supervisor Smyth requested these guidelines.

We discussed the distribution of bike lights that were purchased with funds from the Transurban and Fluor Community Grant Program for the Capital Beltway Project. Several community groups have been contacted but no locations have been established for the giveaway. We are investigating several possibly locations.

And finally we discussed development of cross county bike routes. There was much discussion of how this related to the existing bike route map and the proposed bicycle master plan, and whether FABB has the resources to complete the task. We agreed that a FABB subcommittee will work on developing the routes, with FABB members volunteering to ride proposed routes and submitting recommendations for improvements. Volunteers are welcome and should contact FABB for more info.

After the meeting a small group reconvened at a coffee shop nearby to share ideas about effective bicycle advocacy with Elaena. Later she joined us at a meeting with Bike Loudoun to discuss the upcoming Bike Advocate's Engineering Workshop that Fionnuala Quinn of FABB will conduct for BikeLoudoun. She's off to Vancouver, BC, San Francisco, and points west on her way back to Australia.

Labels: FABB

posted by Bruce Wright at 12:34 PM #

 

About FABB

We've added a page with information about various FABB members. FABB is affiliated with WABA, and as such we do not have formal membership. We encourage people on our e-newsletter list join WABA. The FABB Board meets monthly, on the third Wednesday of the month, which is tonight. We'll be meeting at the Vienna Community Center, adjacent to the W&OD Trail, starting at 7:30 p.m. This month we'll be discussing our planned bike light giveaway, the Fairfax Board of Supervisors recent support for a bike plan, and a discussion of possible cross county bike routes. All are welcome to join us.

The FABB "Board" is an informal collection of Fairfax advocates who have been meeting monthly since 2005. For the first several years bike@vienna hosted our meetings, but when we outgrew that space we moved to the community center.

The Board is a diverse group that includes several computer geeks, a couple of lawyers, a physician, a civil engineer, a bike shop owner, a photographer, and a community organizer. While mostly men, several women have been or are currently members of the board. We send a bi-monthly newsletter to over 700 cyclists in the area. We also send out occasional advocacy alerts to some of those cyclists, either broadcast to all or based on zip codes. Send us a note to join our newsletter list.

Labels: FABB

posted by Bruce Wright at 3:17 PM #