Hwy 95 Trail...The first step was a success!

The meeting to adopt the 95 trail last night was a success! Thanks to all of you attending! The overwhelming support definitely made a difference. The Parks and Recreation Commission voted for this issue to pass to the General Services Committee meeting on January 7th at noon in the CDA Library Community Room. General Services is made up of 3 members of the City Council. If we can show the same amount of community support at that meeting our chances of getting the approval to go to full council will be much higher. I know noon is a difficult time, but this committee may be a tougher sale so hopefully we'll get enough people to show. Another important meeting will be held the next evening on the 8th at Hayden City Hall. The Hayden City Council will be voting to approve their portion that night and the vote could go either way....so please show up to that meeting as well. A special thank you goes out to all of you that made the drive in blustery weather from the Silver Valley. And to those of you that spoke....you each made made very compelling arguments that helped sway the vote!

Highway 95 Trail

The Idaho Transportation Department is poised to build a 16 mile bike path along Highway 95 from Highway 53 north to Granite Hill and possibly rebuild 8 miles of trail from Appleway north to Hwy 53. This would bring a trail from Coeur d’Alene to Sandpoint close to completion. ITD’s policy on building trail facilities is to build and abandon since they don’t have the resources to maintain trails. In order for ITD to build this trail they must have a commitment from the City of Coeur d’Alene, Kootenai County, and the City of Hayden to maintain the trail. This is a one-time offer and if any of the agencies turns down this offer then ITD will not build the trail and we lose 2.2 million dollars’ worth of trail facilities. Please attend the Coeur d’Alene Parks and Recreation Commission meeting at the CDA Library on Monday, December 17^th at 5:30pm in the Community Room to show your support for this trail. Without the support of the community there is a chance the commission will pass on this opportunity. Another very important meeting to attend is the Hayden City Council meeting on Tuesday, January 8^th at 5:30 at Hayden City Hall on Government Way. Please show up and let them know of your support as well.

Cyclists and Pedestrians Can End Up Spending More Each Month Than Drivers

Kelly Clifton has heard this stereotype a number of times: "Cyclists are just a bunch of kids who don’t have any money," says the professor of civil and environmental engineering at Portland State University. "They ride their bikes to a coffee shop, they sit there for four hours with their Macintoshes, they’re not really spending any money."


If you’re a shopkeeper with such suspicions, you’re probably not on board with any plan that would cut down on parking right outside your door. Cyclists are the ones with time to kill; drivers are the ones with money.
This perception is problematic in a place like Portland, where the bike-friendly city government is now looking to extend the reach of bike infrastructure – and the appeal of bikes themselves – to newer riders and neighborhoods farther afield from the urban core. "As we move out beyond those areas into more auto-oriented areas," Clifton says, "we start to see businesses say, ‘Hey, wait a minute. You’re taking away on-street parking to put in bike lanes, you’re taking away the one parking spot in front of my store to put in a bike corral. I don’t see many bikers around here. So what does this mean for me?"
Until now there hasn’t been much empirical evidence to allay such concerns. Clifton and several colleagues have attempted to fill that research gap in a project for the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (read a PDF of the draft report here). They surveyed 1,884 people walking out of area convenience stores, restaurants and bars, and another 19,653 who’d just done their supermarket shopping. Some of the results are unsurprising: Drivers still make up a plurality of customers to all of these businesses. And, with greater trunk capacity, they far outspend people who travel to the grocery store by foot, bike or transit.
Click here for the entire article