Meeting notes 4-1-09 (finally!)

I know I'm a little late with these, but here are the topics discussed at the 4/1/09 meeting of CAU

in attendance: Jim, Kay, Ryan, Will
we also welcomed 2 new people: Andy and Sue

The original topic of discussion was going to be organization of the group, we decided there weren't enough people present to have that discussion.

We dealt a little with short term improvements; since it's now spring we can begin to pursue small, short-term projects. Line painting was mentioned; both center lane and parking. *update: I have communicated this request to Katie Hatt at Peter McLaughlins office.

the conversation switched to livability of neighborhoods and the issue of road noise. One group member was kind enough to take a professional sound reading at 45th and Cedar. Here are the results:

'It looks like the significant numbers are L(eq) = 69.0; L(10) = 72.6; and L(50) = 68.1. For the most part, you're looking at the L(10). Federal Residential Criterion is L(10)=70, Minnesota Residential Criterion is L(10) = 65 Since I measured 72.6, existing noise levels exceed both Federal and MN criteria.'

More long term testing would be necessary to determine the extent to which this is a problem. But many of you that also deal with airplane noise know that these readings indicate a SERIOUS livability issue. These areas would be recipients of full noise mitigation were this an air port noise issue.

Since we had a business representative present we also discussed issues that face businesses.
-Safety and accidents, not necessarily noise are issues facing businesses
-Customer parking and pedestrian safety
-clients and customers should be able to safely get to the businesses by car, bike, bus and foot.
-keeping existing parking is key, making it safer will be the challenge
-Cedar Ave should be a destination. We have said this before, but it's worth repeating. The business space on Cedar has mountains of potential, yet somehow it's difficult to keep spaces filled.

We also brought up the idea of a CEDAR AVENUE BUSINESS ORGANIZATION, a group of business/property owners and/or representatives that would meet during the day (over lunch?) and work with CAU towards the same goal.


We also talked about a couple resources;

Streets blog:
http://www.streetsblog.org/


A collection of useful articles:
http://www.walkable.org/articles.html

A collection of VERY useful photographs:
http://www.pedbikeimages.org/

And there you have it. a productive meeting.

As more ideas and information comes in it will become increasingly useful to have more voices at the meeting. Also, as I have mentioned in previous meetings, the job of keeping all this rolling is becoming increasingly difficult with just a few people. If you are interested in our cause, please consider volunteering a tiny bit of time or some of your skills and knowledge.

Thanks all! Hope to see you all at the next meeting.

Will
4500 Cedar