On Monday February 17, the final draft of the plan document for the Portage County Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning Project will be presented and discussed.
In December, a preliminary draft document became available and was reviewed by the project committees. In addition, an open house was held to solicit further comment from the public.
Based on this feedback, the final draft is now available. At Monday’s meeting, project consultant Tom Huber of Toole Design will lead a presentation and discussion on the content of this final draft. The Portage County Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Committee will be present along with the three project committees which have spent the past year guiding the bike/ped planning process: the Urban and Rural Steering Committees and the Technical Committee. This meeting is open to the public.
The meeting will take place on February 17 from 5-6:30 PM in Conference Rooms 1 and 2 of the Portage County Annex Building (1462 Strongs Ave).
According to project staff, comments from the public will be taken for at least 10 days after this meeting. This will be followed by a final open house to solicit more feedback. Then the three bike/ped plan committees will meet to vote on approving the final plan.
After this, the final plan will be brought before the March meeting of the Portage County P&Z Committee for approval. Following that, the final plan will be voted on by the Portage County Board of Supervisors, probably at their April meeting.
Approval by the county board would make this bike/ped plan an official planning document for the county. The county could then start working to implement recommendations from the plan.
Monday’s meeting is an excellent opportunity for Poky Pedalers to learn about the plan recommendations which address conditions in the urban and rural areas throughout the county. It also marks the beginning of the final opportunity to tell project staff about the bicycling and walking improvements you want to see mentioned in the final plan document.
The meeting agenda and plan documents are available in a post on the official Portage County Bike/Ped Plan project website. Links to these documents also appear below. (Note that the maps file is large – 44 MB – and the Safe Routes to School appendix is very large – 140 MB.)
- Agenda documents
- Bike/Ped Plan final draft documents
- Text of bike/ped plan final draft (PDF, 9 MB, about 200 pages)
- Maps from bike/ped plan final draft (PDF, 44 MB, 14 maps)
- Safe Routes to School appendix from bike/ped plan final draft – not included in the above (PDF, 140 MB, 188 pages)
- Other documents
- List of comments made about the preliminary draft and how each was addressed for the final draft
- Bicycle and pedestrian facility design toolkit (it appears this is the same as Appendix C of the text document)
One other topic on the agenda for Monday’s meeting is to have a discussion about continuing a bike/ped committee beyond the adoption of this plan. A standing county committee focusing on bike/ped issues could facilitate the effort to implement plan recommendations. If any Poky Pedalers have interest in serving on such a committee, the meeting Monday would be an excellent opportunity to communicate that interest to project staff.
We are entering the final stretch on the bike/ped plan effort. Monday’s meeting should be enlightening with a great deal of stimulating discussion. I hope you can join us there.
Disclosure: Bob Fisch, Chief Bike Fun Officer of Poky Pedaling Stevens Point, is a member of the Urban Steering Committee for the Portage County Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning Project. Posts about this project appearing on the PPSP website are part of a broader PPSP effort to keep readers informed of bikey news in our area. Nothing posted on the PPSP website should be considered to be official communication from the Portage County Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning Project. The official website for this project can be accessed at http://portagecobikepedplan.wordpress.com.
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Poky Pedaling Stevens Point 