Thanks to everyone who was able to make it to the second meeting! We got quite a bit done and had some great conversations. It was wonderful to see everyone again too.

Meeting notes below:

The local Strong Towns challenge:

We were challenged by a local member to do one of the three things to get the fundamentals of Strong Towns down. Your local Conversation Leader has done all three, but if you only have so much time, picking one is good. They are in order of (most info -> least info, and most time -> least time).

• Read the Strong Towns Book
• Watch the Strong Towns online course
• Watch the abbreviated Strong Towns course from Not Just Bikes

Hybrid meetings

A couple of folks were interested in making the meeting a hybrid meeting. We will consider making future meetings hybrid so remote folks can participate.

Pedestrian data

We discussed pedestrian/cyclist crash data for the city of Nashua and included a general map with statistics.

• Link to map with data here
• Link to raw data is here

Asphalt plant

The asphalt plant looking to be built on Temple Street was discussed quite a bit. For better or worse the discussion meeting was pushed back again to December 3rd rather than November 3. We’re looking forward to having everyone there to fight the construction of it on December 3.

Merrit Parkway condominium

We discussed the Merrit Parkway 44 unit condominium that was considered being put up. The condominium is already being put in a place properly zoned for it, so it should be easy to build, but there is public backlash for it.

On November 3, the planning board is discussing this. This was rescheduled for November 17.  We should consider being there to support its development (A22-0039) at 7PM:

Short and long term issues to rally around

We spent a reasonable amount of time discussing issues we want to rally around. Over the coming days we’ll work on categorizing these better and going through them one by one, pushing to get them fixed.

Ideally we will work on the quickest, easiest ones first and then go from there.

• Main st. bike racks (bigger and more)
• Rental bikes were nice, but had issues
• Northeastern Boulevard – bad for walking
• Crosswalk -> Main St. to East Dunstable (or is it main Dunstable, need to double check)
• Bike racks -> Shaws on Main St.
• Bike racks -> Southwood drive (Hitchcock)
• Speed problem (road design does not match speed): West Hollis/Kinsley St.
• Traffic calming on Main St.
• Concord Street at Courtland – a bollard died and no replacement has been posted
• Bus stop in front of Front Door Agency has a crater instead of a sidewalk
• The walk light at Main/Concord/Amherst should trigger on every cycle – pedestrians shouldn’t have to wait
• Rocks at Thornton and Amherst/101A should be removed, proper crossings provided
• Southbound Main merge onto DW Hwy puts bikes between two lanes of motor vehicle traffic
• The parking lot between Main Street and the Transit Ctr is not ADA accessible – there are nasty curbs
• Pointless sparrows (and sharrows) should be repainted on Main Street – I asked last year
• Amherst/Main to Exit 7 bridge should be 1 lane each way with wide shoulders for bikes

General slides below:

general meeting 2 - export

Slides with crash data:

Cars vs People - export