Greetings, Matthew Cross of the Morgantown Pedestrian Safety Board here.  Thank you Jesse for volunteering towards this effort.  With attempts in the past the biggest hurdle is WVDOH control of the primary downtown streets.  They have been reluctant to close off vehicular traffic.  But we can come up with another attempt or different plans entirely as we have some great creative minds to work with.  I have a flexible schedule so just let me know of any meeting plans.  The Ped Board could also host you at one of our meetings to get things started.
From: Jesse Heady <jesse@heady.name>
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2018 10:16 AM
To: traci.knabenshue@mail.wvu.edu; Vicki.Hoover@mail.wvu.edu; clement.solomon@mail.wvu.edu; mwiles@boparc.org; ella@montrails.org; kellyrwilliams@msn.com; jessicaharmening@gmail.com; cabildso@yahoo.com; Stanley.Cohen@mail.wvu.edu; frn@unitedwaympc.org; daniel.shook@hsc.wvu.edu; crossnyc@hotmail.com; billregernash@gmail.com; wellwvu@mail.wvu.edu; barb@downtownmorgantown.com
Cc: Jonathan Rosenbaum; Drew Gatlin; J.D. Gatlin; rwallace@morgantownwv.gov; Bill; Bicycle Board
Subject: Help bring Open Streets festivals to Morgantown
 
Hello,

I’ve recently met with the Morgantown Bicycle Board at their July 12 meeting regarding promotion and advocacy for Open Streets style of events in and around the Morgantown area. We had a very positive discussion about the potential we have in Morgantown for recurring events focused on bicycle and other pedestrian traffic in downtown and surrounding neighborhood streets. We also covered a number of previous discussions and individuals who have been instrumental to bringing this topic up in the past and understand this is not a new concept, and would like to work together to build a broader coalition.

I've been collaborating with Jonathan Rosenbaum of Positive Spin in the interim and your name or your group has come up as a potential partner and advocate for a broader coalition in the Morgantown area. We need your help to build support and organize a formal working group to bring an Open Streets event series to Morgantown and surrounding neighborhoods.

We have a very vibrant, strong, and growing community in Morgantown. Open street style events have the potential be great attractions for local and regional participants of every age group and interest for all pedestrian traffic on open streets. They also reinforce other working group efforts to bring unity between communities through arts, small business, and community collaboration while highlighting individual neighborhoods and commerce downtown. 

These points are the focus for discussion with you and/or your group at your next regular meeting, or a time where we can all meet to discuss as a group:

  • Develop a plan for community-based, organized and executed bicycle and foot traffic public events mirroring larger city events like Atlanta Streets Alive and Open Streets Pittsburgh to include:
    • Daytime, multi-part community rotating street festival that encourages pedestrian foot traffic, bicycling, and skating with vendors and businesses on city streets and neighborhoods
    • Evening time pedestrian course with emphasis on community interaction, connection of neighborhoods, artistic expression and movement, and light-based decoration of bicycles and other creative lanterns or devices -- rail trail is an obvious and non-intrusive option
    • Examples of inspiration: Atlanta Streets Alive, Atlanta Moon Ride, and OpenStreetsPGH
    • Project framework: Open Streets Project 
  • Develop strategies to over come challenges in permitting/budget and other area, align to existing events and working groups, sponsorships through leading entities in our region, promotion and advocacy partnerships, and understand how and what is possible to achieve these events on a regular cadence
In the examples linked above, these types of events are proven to draw crowds and attention, and bring interconnected communities closer together. Now is the time for Morgantown to adopt more of these events, to compliment and expand upon the success of events such as Kids Day downtown. Events like these also reinforce the positive message of being green through cycling, reinforcing pedestrian traffic in high volume vehicle areas, and highlight the need for pedestrian safety in a positive and interactive setting. This last point is especially important given deadly accidents involving pedestrians in the last couple of years in Morgantown. 

We are working to carry the same message to other board meeting(s), groups, and leaders to solicit a broader coalition of stakeholders. I'm offering my time as a volunteer citizen interested in reinforcing positive and deliberate progress for this and other initiatives in Morgantown through organization, advocacy, writing, web development, and any other way I can be of service. I hope we can count on your own passion and advocacy to join our initiative to make this vision a reality for Morgantown.

I also ask that you please freely share this message with your colleagues as we work to further expand education, understanding, and support for this initiative. There may be individuals or groups that were missed in this initial phase of communication; this was not intentional and we want to ensure every group who wants to contribute, or who may be an invaluable partner, to know they are welcome and encouraged to participate.

Thank you! I very much appreciate your time and attention to these items in this unsolicited and lengthy email, and I very much look forward to your feedback, and meeting with you to organize and bring this shared vision to a reality. Our next steps are scheduling time to meet and discuss the items above in more detail. Thank you in advance for your reply with your availability to meet.


Sincerely,

Jesse Heady

jesse@heady.name
(404) 314-9787