At the Monday, October 13 Board of Estimates meeting - where alders asked questions of city department heads about their submitted budget request - the following tidbits came out. Please note, these are from the Mayor's proposed budget. Things can change when the Council actually deliberates and votes on the budget in November.
There will be a cut to the Traffic Engineering budget for painting and pavement marking by 11%. The Mayor believes that the program can be run tighter with no loss in actual pavement marking, but I have always heard TE complain that crosswalks look like hell and we can't have decent bike traffic markings because TE doesn't have enough money or staff for paint and painting. There will likely be no new traffic calming projects in 2009, as the capital budget cuts the budget for the program from $220,000 (projected 2009 budget included in 2008 Capital Improvements Program) to $50,000. There is also a staff position that will go unfilled that helps design the traffic calming facilities. The Pedestrian Improvements on Arterials - pedestrian stuff that doesn't fit in traffic calming because the roads are bigger - was also cut in the capital budget from $180,000 to $50,000. (Note, after the meeting, Larry Nelson came up to me and told me that Engineering has money to do projects, so it appears that TE and Engineering can't decide whether new projects will be approved or built in 2009.) The line that Matt included in an earlier email: "$30,000 to support bicycle programs. Funding is to be derived from a restructuring of the current bicycle registration and licensing program as determined by the Platinum Bicycle Committee. An increase of $30,000 associated with Bicycle Registration fees has been included in the City General Fund Revenues. The Platinum Bicycle Committee shall, by January 1, 2009, make recommendations regarding both the licensing and registration restructuring and expenditures in support of bicycle programs and infrastructure for approval by the Common Council." This is assuming that an additional $30,000 will be raised by the bike registration program - current income is about $30,000 - and then the Platinum Committee (and probably the PBMVC) will decide what to do with that money. I'm not sure how the Mayor, or TE expects to double revenues from registration. Raising registration fees would be unlikely to bring in more money, because registration is essentially a voluntary program. The only way to increase registration (as far as I can see), is by strict enforcement, either at bike shops or bicyclists. Both these actions likely would require quite a bit of city resources in the form of police, City Attorney, or more staff in the bike registration program. So it appears that it is a wash financially. Why not simply put $30,000 from the general fund into Platinum Report recommendations? That's all that was interesting in the transportation/bike area from last night. Robbie _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list Bikies@danenet.org http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
