Bicycle engineer Keith Bontrager once said about bicycle componentry: "Cheap, light, strong: pick two." When it comes to traffic calming and walk/bike/roll infrastructure in general, you might say that a similar maxim applies: "Cheap, effective, low maintenance: pick two."

In this webinar, we'll look at lower-cost infrastructure that can be used to slow car speeds and make rapid, effective improvements for walking, biking, and rolling. This will include some ideas for more rural streets and roads. We might even find one or two ideas where you get to "pick all three."

Hosted on April 18, 2024. 

View the resource document.

Bike parking is an essential, and often overlooked component of a bike infrastructure network. When done poorly, bike parking can be totally absent, leave bikes suceptible to theft and damage, and even create hazards for people and the environment. When done well, bike parking encourages more biking by ensuring that bikes are secure, that arriving at a destination by bike is convenient, and that people biking feel like they are treated with dignity.

This webinar will explore key components of good bike parking, including design of short- and long-term bike parking, accommodating cargo and electric bikes, amenities, and more. We'll also talk about bike parking retrofits, the importance of bike parking provisions in land use regulations, funding opportunities for bike parking, and what entities are responsible for ensuring adequate bike parking facilities.

View the resource document.

Hosted March 21, 2024

So your community wants better infrastructure for walking, biking, and rolling. Funding the planning, design, and construction of that infrastructure is a key challenge that you'll need to overcome. This webinar will help local advocates and practitioners understand the funding opportunities for walking, biking, and rolling infrastructure in Vermont, and what strategies are needed in order to take advantage of these funding streams. We'll also discuss key funding challenges and hopefully identify some solutions.

View the resource document.

Hosted on February 29, 2024

Walk/Bike/Roll Master Plans are essential tools to help communities envision, plan, design, fund, and construct functional and effective infrastructure networks. In this webinar, Local Motion staff will outline key elements of a good Walk/Bike Master Plan, common pitfalls, success stories, and more. We'll also discuss funding and technical assistance opportunities for this type of planning in Vermont.

Here's the resource document.

Hosted on January 11, 2024

How can people make their communities better for walking, biking, and rolling? Local Motion staff discuss key strategies, opportunities, and barriers for Vermonters working for safer streets and sustainable transportation.

View the resource document.

Hosted on December 14, 2023

What are the primary barriers to increased biking for transportation? Would people bike in the winter if there was safe, well-maintained bike infrastructure? Do residents support investing in walking, biking, and rolling infrastructure?

In this webinar, Local Motion staff presented new statistically representative survey data that provides answers to these and other questions.

View the full dataset, report, presentation slides, and more here.

Hosted on October 25, 2023

This webinar introduces the concept of Level of Traffic Stress (LTS) — an objective measurement that engineers, planners, and advocates can use to determine how comfortable a design will likely be in a given context, and the type of riders likely to use it. 

Building comfortable bike infrastructure is key to increasing ridership, especially among less-confident riders. But how do you know if a proposed bike lane, shared street, or other design will be comfortable and yield the ridership you want? Level of Traffic Stress (LTS) provides an objective measurement that engineers, planners, and advocates can use to determine how comfortable a design will be in a given context and the type of riders likely to use it.

Presented by Peter Furth, PhD Professor of Civil Engineering at Northeastern University.

More about Peter Furth: 

Peter G. Furth is a researcher and professor at Northeastern University known for his work in transit planning, traffic signals, and bicycle infrastructure. Furth is also considered an expert on Dutch cycling policy and history. He has a BS, MS and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has authored over 70 publications in the transportation research field. He was a contributing author to the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide, and has received the best paper award from the Transportation Research Board three times, most recently in 2023. He is also the recipient of ITE’s education innovation award and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycling Professionals for his work on Level of Traffic Stress.

Additional Resources: 

An edge lane road, also known as "advisory bike lanes," is a roadway design that could make Vermont roads safer and calmer for vulnerable users. These roads have a center lane with edge lanes on each side. Vulnerable users have the right-of-way in the edge lanes, and motorists can move into the edge lanes only when passing other vehicles and must yield to vulnerable users.

It's a low-cost and versatile treatment that's especially useful on streets and roads that are not wide enough for dedicated bike lanes. In fact, several Vermont communities already have edge lane roads, including Lincoln, Danville, and Burlington. Could this design work in your town? Join us for this webinar presentation and discussion to find out.

We'll hear from Michael Williams, who is considered the foremost expert and researcher on edge lane roads in the U.S. Mr. Williams is a transportation consultant with more than a decade of experience as a licensed general contractor on public works projects and he holds three engineering degrees including an MS in Civil Engineering.

Hosted on Thursday, November 18, 2021, at 1 pm

A series of webinars created in partnership with AARP, covering topics such as: skills to getting started & stopping on bike, exploring VT by bike, extending your ride, and basic bike maintenance.

Bike paths, shared-use paths, rails trails, oh my! These are all different ways to refer to walk/bike routes that are separated from roadways, wide enough for bidirectional travel, and are generally ADA accessible. We're going to refer to them all with the term "greenways."

This webinar will serve as the foundation for a series that will help Vermonters develop greenways in their communities. We'll begin with an overview of what constitutes a greenway, where and how they are usually built, and some of the tools and resources available for this work. We'll also hear from Vermonters who are closely involved with the development of the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, Missisquoi Valley Rail Trail, and Cross Vermont Trail.

Panelists include:
Dave Stanley — Chair, Northwest Vermont Rail-Trail Council
Greg Western — Executive Director, Cross Vermont Trail
Hans Huessy — Counsel for VAST and Vermont Trail Alliance
Tom Sexton — Northeast Regional Director, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
Yvonne Mwangi — Trail Development and TrailLink Coordinator, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

Hosted on Monday, June 7, 2021

Where does transportation end and recreation begin? This webinar will explore the overlap of transportation and recreation planning, highlighting examples of projects completed here in Vermont.

In many rural and resort communities, recreation IS the destination, and recreation facilities dually serve as transportation networks. Similarly, in many places in Vermont, you simply cannot build a “transportation-only” multi-use path—it will be scenic and fun no matter where you put it.

Active transportation has played an increasingly important role in communities throughout Vermont. In conjunction, there is a growing desire for recreation opportunities right out your door that don’t require driving to the trailhead. Planning for a connected regional network that encompasses both the active transportation system and more recreation-oriented trails is critical to achieving these goals, but all too often we completely bifurcate the planning processes for transportation and recreation.

We'll look at three examples of Vermont projects from Northfield, East Burke, and the Missisquoi Valley Rail Trail that served to better connect communities to and integrate with recreation and transportation.

Presenters:
Abby Long, Executive Director - Kingdom Trails
Ayden Eickhoff, Analyst + Planner - SE Group
Drew Pollak-Bruce, Senior Recreation Planner - SE Group
Sean Neely, Transportation Designer - Stantec

Hosted on Tuesday, May 13, 2021

How do you keep your employees mobile while achieving goals of sustainability, equity, health, safety, and of course, cost? This webinar will explore how electric cargo bikes can be a low-cost, sustainable, and accessible addition to vehicle fleets. We'll discuss the results of a pilot project by Saris Infrastructure and the City of Madison, Wisconsin, which integrated electric cargo bikes into its municipal vehicle fleet, and consider how e-cargo bikes can meet the needs of Vermont communities.