HI, neighbors, Last week I addressed City Council about the new Bike (+) Plan, of which the N. Euclid Neighborway is a part. Since I was limited to three minutes, I couldn’t mention all my concerns, but here is a copy of my remarks. If you prefer, you can hear me speaking these remarks to City Council on YouTube. I am about 25 minutes in during the regular Council meeting on 7/21/20. Thank you. janet jai, MLA My Comments to City Council re the Dangers of the New Bike(+) Plan janet jai, MLA I know how many very important issues you are all dealing with right now so I regret having to present you with another. I am here because I believe the new Bike(+) Plan as it is currently conceived will make city bike-path streets dangerous—rather than safer—especially for children. First, I would like you to know that I am a strong supporter of climate-change-solution efforts. Last year I was selected to do a poster presentation at the National Academy of Sciences about healing climate change. So it distresses me deeply not to be able to support the new Bike(+) Plan. Unfortunately, Pittsburgh’s plan encourages children to ride on bike-path streets not only on bikes, but on e-scooters, motorized skateboards, and more, saying that this is safe regardless of the age of the children because the traffic (cars, trucks, buses, etc.) will be going more slowly. Now it is one thing to see a lovely family group of parents and children bike riding together. It is very different to see one or more young children riding on their own in the middle of traffic. I would like you to envision living on a bike+ plan street (remember these streets will be all over the city), and pulling out of your parking area to find an 8-year-old (or younger) child on a bike in front of you and two children on e-scooters or possibly “toy” hoverboards in back of you as you attempt to drive to work or food shop or whatever. To me, this is very dangerous. Yet all of this is allowed, most of it encouraged, by Pittsburgh’s new Bike(+) Plan. Since discussions with DOMI (the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure) didn’t alleviate my concerns about the plan, I did research: 1. The Casebook of Traumatic Injury Prevention reports that: “Children in the 4th to 7th grade exhibit both high bicycle riding activity and high collision rates.” 2. Bike-friendly cities like Boulder and Portland have been postponing allowing e-scooters on their bike paths because of safety concerns. (Portland is testing them, but their first 4-month test showed an increase in e-scooter-related injuries.) 3. Most successful bike-friendly cities have done significant community engagement and safety education to make sure that bikers are aware of the rules of the road and the importance of following them. They also enforce bike laws. Pittsburgh’s Bike(+) Plan calls for safety education, but is encouraging everyone to ride on the streets NOW before it is offering the safety training, which is not required. And to the best of my knowledge there is NO enforcement of bike laws here. This new Bike(+) Plan is also being rushed forward when we are all dealing with a pandemic and major social unrest. I believe it is vital to postpone moving the Bike(+) Plan forward until at least next summer. This will give us time to (hopefully) get beyond the pandemic and to find solutions to the bike plan’s problems. I believe there are real solutions, but achieving them will take time, community engagement, and intense bike safety education. I don’t want children (or drivers or others who may have to swerve to avoid children) to be injured, possibly severely, because of a Bike(+) Plan that is deeply flawed and moving forward much too rapidly. Thank you.