ORDER-2019-34 : Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances to add Chapter 222, Article IV: Shared Mobility Vehicles

Transcript (~14 min @ 38:18)

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▶ 38:13 Francis X. Wright Jr.: three orders on tonight's agenda order 2019-34 amending Melrose revised ordinances to add chapter 222 article 4 shared mode I'm sorry shared mobility

▶ 38:33 Monica C. Medeiros: vehicles although Medeiros thank you thank you very much chairman Rita I am the maker of this order this has as you recall was submitted at the end of November for our first December meeting we discussed it briefly back in February and then this is the first time it's come up since then at the time when I first submitted this order it was somewhat after the line bikes had first kind of been massively deployed throughout the city and I think as you can see in the ordinance here in our IQM to the photos of the way some of the bicycles were deployed by the company I received you know many constituents

▶ 39:24 Monica C. Medeiros: complaints that this was enforced you can see for instance one of the pictures of the bicycles right across the sidewalk walk right in front of the hospital an area where you know many people who may have their own mobility issues on the way to the bus stop there it wasn't the best thing so i've found that you know we sh

▶ 39:47 Monica C. Medeiros: we license and this is a very common sense thing we license every other entity that uses our public roadway you know we license we allow vehicles to come and go we have regulations for things like taxicabs we license taxicabs we license livery truck livery car drivers people like uber for instance the individual licensees we license by bus companies who use our roadways and it seems to me that if we have all of a sudden you know corporations coming in and trying to use our public roadways that we should have some regulations in place later did I learn that the mayor had signed a statement of work with the MAPC and with this company to do business on our streets but I don't see without any kind of regulations anything that would prohibit many companies from using our public roadways and I think it's really important that we have clear standards in front of us so what we have in this ordinance is a set of definitions i again i reviewed many ordinances from all across the country to find in as close as arlington and as far across the country as california to find something that would cover all of the different options and most notably the key provisions here that it would provide some kind of licensing for the company for the company it would require that in the business areas in which mobility for pedestrians is really of the utmost importance that it would provide that the city designate designated station areas where the bicycles would be kept in the business areas so this ordinance serves to make sure the roadways are and the sidewalks in particular are kept clear of bicycles or other shared mobility vehicles and to make sure that we're sort of you know maintaining our desirability aesthetically just bicycles not a strewn everywhere but in the downtown area that they have

▶ 42:13 Monica C. Medeiros: a place where they belong this would not in any way prohibit people from using line bike or unless of course we license a different company instead of line bike it would not prohibit anybody from using a shared mobility vehicle it would not prohibit anyone from driving the bicycle to their home it just says if you leave it unattended for more than 72 hours the company has to pick it up and rebalance it and bring it back to one of the designated station areas I think it's very reasonable you'll see that there are provisions in here for allowing if bicycles were left say for instance blocking a handicap ramp the police could actually ticket the company for the bicycle doing so just like they would ticket the vehicle's owner if it was a rental vehicle and you know that may not be the case it may be easy for somebody to just move a bicycle I've been around and have encountered the bikes on the sidewalk I've done my best to move them but sometimes there are people who are unable to physically move a bicycle they don't have that physical capacity they may be just weaker they may be in a wheelchair or with a walker they may be you know have their hands with a young child and need to get their stroller down the street and I think it's important that we have some standards for how our roadways are used so for that matter I had suggested this we had requested members of the Planning Department to appear here today and to give us an update as to some ride data

▶ 44:19 Monica C. Medeiros: the last that I had showed that maximum we had when we were back in February the maximum number of vehicles in use at any one time was 40 and I know we had members of the bike and pedestrian committee here tonight who gave different numbers the planning department was unable to come and I have not received any additional information Thank You Alderman Bewtra

▶ 44:48 Manisha Bewtra: Thank you. First, I just wanted to acknowledge that I really appreciate Alderman Medeiros work on this. I can see that you did research many different ordinances and put a lot of thought into it. I also really appreciate both at our February 4th legal and legislative meeting as well as tonight the Melrose pedestrian and bike committees diligence on reviewing the proposed ordinance and comments on ridership and experiences from transportation planning perspective back in February the office planning and community development provided a really informative presentation on the initial lime bike pilot including a lot of ridership statistics and some of the things that i was impressed by were one there was a representative of lime at that meeting and they were extremely responsive to our questions as were the planning office and we learned that the planning office does get have access to a dashboard that provides that ridership information i believe on a monthly basis um i think the the big update tonight is that we have been now provided with the memorandum of understanding with the metropolitan area planning council and 16 metro boston cities and towns as well as the statement of work between the city and lime and i think those documents really helped to fill in the gaps in information we had back in February I do appreciate that this order as well as the order filed by alderman Mortimer 2019-32 back in February created an impetus for a presentation from the Planning Department and I think if there is a lesson here it's just that you know we have that we could have communicated proactively and going forward I would to see us communicate proactively on new programs such as line bike early and often ultimately i'm opposed to this order i believe that the mou and statement of work sufficiently address coordination with line bike and additionally melrose ford our community's vision and comprehensive plan which i helped to create when i was a project manager at mapc includes a goal to promote active transportation including walking and biking increasing facilities for bicycles and pedestrians through exploration of a bike share program is among the action steps listed in the plan and I'm really pleased to see we've made progress on this recommendation my main concern with the dockless bike share system has been when people park their bikes as you mentioned alderman Medeiros in the pedestrian right away making our sidewalks inaccessible and I confirmed with the city that these bikes should be parked off the sidewalk on the curbside either on the grass next to the curb or in the street furniture area and commercial districts and I think it's incumbent on us as the city and as residents of the community to really model that behavior if we see a bike in the road to move it to the curbside to help out our neighbors who may not be physically able to move them out of the but I don't think that that's on on the system those rules and regulations are very much addressed in the statement of work already this didn't come up tonight but I I've heard some chatter in the community too about a docked system versus dockless and ultimately docked by bike systems are only effective in really densely populated areas so that's not really a proper solution for us I i think we should be doing everything we can to to uh incentivize ridership rather than than depressing it and i think in a largely residential community like ours something like a docked system would be too costly and impractical i think that dockless bike share and other shared mobility vehicles are in a great step in the right direction and another thing we hear a lot about is complaints about traffic congestion these programs get cars off the road provide an active transportation option that allows users to get more exercise and provide a public health benefit and cut greenhouse gas emissions because a lot of the trips taken would otherwise have been in a car if we say we care about our environment we should be supporting innovative and responsibly implemented programs like

▶ 49:42 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: this one and not stifling them thank you president thank you mr. chairman given that it's 750 we have a full board meeting scheduled for 745 after this one and I anticipate we'll have lots of discussion on each of these orders I actually don't believe that I can make a motion but would recommend that we recess to the full board so that we have our 8 p.m. hearing on time and dispose of that and then could come back to committee if that's the will of the

▶ 50:14 Peter D. Mortimer: board to recess second on discussion I would I was in queue and I would like to just have perhaps two minutes before we recess if that would be allowable before kind of the continuity of this is broken if if I could only because we do have

▶ 50:28 Francis X. Wright Jr.: the public hearing and I was looking for an opportunity to break. You're in queue, President Lemmerman in queue, Alderman Forbes is in queue, both before you, so I think we need to, what I would like to let all those present know is that under our rules, if we have another meeting scheduled on the same evening and we reach the time which that meeting is supposed to start, we have to start that meeting within a half an hour we can open it and then we can recess it and we can return to the meeting we're originally in in this case we do have a public hearing scheduled to begin at 8 so we need to also consider that but we will open the meeting of the full Board of Aldermen and once we get through the initial phase of that we will return to this meeting so if you could bear with us for several minutes while we do that we'd appreciate it thank you thank you

▶ 51:36 Francis X. Wright Jr.: and we have before us a motion to recess this this meeting of the legal and

▶ 52:07 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: legislative committee all in favor hi good evening the hour being 7 53 on August 19th 2019 I call to order this meeting of the full board of the Melrose