Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Nashville Parks Board Meeting 3/1/22 from Carey Rogers

The Parks Board met today to consider the recommendation from the Greenways Commission about a request from BCycle that was made last July. That’s more than six months. I don’t believe the word “Bcycle” was mentioned once during the meeting. It is unclear if any of them understand the reason this all started.  I am not impressed with the Parks staff, as you probably know, but this was a horrible example of how a public board should make decisions. I don’t blame the board members.

If someone wants to watch the meeting and explain what happened please do so.  I think they approved a request to allow class 1 e-bikes, which they have no authority to ban in the first place.  It was clear they understood that fact based on the discussion. I don’t think there will be any effort for a broad ban on e-bikes in the immediate future. The fact that the BCycle request to operate wasn’t even considered leaves room for more mischief from the parks staff.

They have also voted to recommend another study about greenways. They did a really great job on the last one. I think allowing parks to conduct and control another study is a waste of public resources regardless of what you think about e-bikes.

I’m not sure what our strategy should be but there was some discussion about “safety” and what they could decide to do after a study was completed. Harrison suggested using capital funding and that it could take a year! I think we should consider pushing for a study with a broader objective than just greenways and it should definitely have different leadership. Perhaps council could create a special committee to consider the issue and direction to take. It would be nice if the Cooper administration would show some leadership.

Carey

The agenda item was as follows:

02-22-06 Staff requests that the Metro Park Board make a recommendation to Metro Council regarding policy for ebike usage on Metro Greenways based a study conducted by The Greenways and Open Space Commission, NDOT and the Metro Legal Department regarding ebike usage on Metro Greenways, and in consideration of a recommendation from the Greenways and Open Space Commission regarding a request for rule a change to allow Class 1 E-bikes on Metro Greenways.

You can watch the discussion here: https://youtu.be/5ldJJdzSecA?t=276

The final report is here:

https://www.nashville.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/Greenways-Commission-Ebike-Study-Final.pdf?ct=1645642787&fbclid=IwAR0qn4GmHNBsIk_tg5uZMQGVjjWgWRdAU842tjWZhDIS7MSyvtqX5hR7CJc

They published every written comment made on the survey.  Cyclists and dogs get a lot of attention. The anti-homeless comments pop up as well.

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