Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you about street festivals in Morgantown. I assume members of this group and Morgantown bike enthusiasts in general would be very keen to see this happen. So, I am reaching out to see what I can do to help make it a reality.

There are obvious hurdles such as permits for street closures not just at the city but also state for High St for example. Also, safety considerations and budget for marketing and so on. I am also in touch with board members with city of Morgantown and Mainstreet Morgantown, and have also seen the RFP for pedestrian and bike transportation on the MMMPO website.

On the former, we may be able to leverage marketing through Mainstreet and the latter I believe something like these street festivals would bolster the economy downtown and also draw attention to pedestrian safety. Those two items would probably be of great interest long term for the MMMPO.

I am also open to volunteering my own time to spearhead these initiatives with the necessary parties and providing pro bono professional services for web and marketing. Even if we are able to manage a smaller event on the rail trail this calendar year, I am sure that would be a measure of success.

I’m grateful for your message and this opportunity and look forward to hearing more about July 12 soon. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Jesse

On Wed, Jul 4, 2018 at 5:03 PM Drew Gatlin <johngatlin@gmail.com> wrote:

Howdy Board,

Happy 4th - as the subject states, our typical first Thursday meeting is postponed until July 12th. Please excuse any inconvenience! Our meeting will still be held in the Public Safety Building but we might need to swap rooms. I'll double check tomorrow and report back when I issue the agenda.

Current potential agenda items:
- Presentation of an updated historical crash analysis by F. Gmeindl
- MPO combined bike/ped plan RFP
- Existing construction project updates (Mon Blvd, Van Voorhis, 2018 Municipal Paving)
- People for Bikes Fall Grant Cycle
- Updates on search for new board membership & leadership
- Events planning
- OpenStreets style festival proposal

In the meantime, perhaps I'll see you all downtown in the next hour to ride in the July 4th parade?

Or perhaps on Friday morning at 11am to participate in the ribbon-cutting of the new Decker's Creek pedestrian bridge?

Cheers!
Drew

--
J.D. Gatlin
Graduate Research Assistant
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
653 Engineering Sciences Building
West Virginia University
Chair, Morgantown Municipal Bicycle Board
Morgantown, WV 26505