Bicycle Advisory Committee

For the first time ever this morning, the Council has directly appointed a group of residents to the Bicycle Advisory Committee (or BAC). They also appointed me to be the Council staff member of the group. I appreciate this opportunity; I've been a regular participant on the BAC since 2006, and look forward to being part of its work as a formal member. The City's work on bicycling has long been an interest and focus of mine, and I take this new responsibility very seriously.

The new BAC met in early February as an informal body, and I'm excited about the incredible people who make up the new committee. We've got much better age, race, gender, geographical, and rider-type diversity than the old group had. The group includes folks who ride in all weather and folks who just ride when it's warm, a bike-related business, long-term BAC participants and new perspectives. I'm impressed with how well-balanced the new group is, and by the caliber of all of the folks around the table.

I think everyone was surprised by the outpouring of interest in this committee. More than 90 people applied for the 16 resident seats on the committee, a larger number of applications than any we've seen recently, if not ever. It's clear that people are excited about biking, and about the City's work to make Minneapolis as bike-friendly as it can be. Council Members and the Park Board deserve a lot of credit for considering all of these applicants - each of whom would have been great additions to the BAC - and picking such a good group:

Ward 1: Hope Johnson
Ward 2: Bob Hain
Ward 3: Georgianna Yantos
Ward 4: Jim Skoog
Ward 5: Billy Binder
Ward 6: Ethan Fawley
Ward 7: Richard Anderson
Ward 8: Timothy Larson
Ward 9: Hokan
Ward 10: Lisa Peterson Bender
Ward 11: Paul Frenz
Ward 12: Nick Mason
Ward 13: Bill Dooley
At Large: Janice Gepner, Matthew Hendricks and Joshua Houdek

The new BAC has decided that we'll meet as a formal committee for the first time on the last Wednesday of this month, when we'll adopt our first bylaws, choose a chair, vice chair and secretary, and likely adopt a work plan for 2011. I look forward to getting started.