Call please.

Councilmember Bowie.

Council President Naker.

Here.

Councilmember Joast.

Councilmember Coleman.

Here.

Council Vice President Kim.

Councilmember Yang.

Councilmember Johnson.

Seeing four present, three absent.

Councilmember Johnson is excused.

Great.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to our policy committee meeting of the week.

We have two items on our agenda.

The first one is a presentation on the bike rack permit program.

And we are pleased to welcome Jimmy Schumacher from Public Works to get that presentation.

Welcome.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Jimmy Schumacher.

I'm in the Department of Public Works.

I'm here today to talk with you about kind of formalizing something that we've been trying to formalize for quite some time that will allow kind of custom or branded bike racks in the right of way.

So I have a pretty short presentation.

Again, this is something we're will probably come to council for a new ordinance to permit these.

And so we're really just trying to formalize the program.

So I don't consider this to be very controversial at all.

It's something we get asked for, you know, with some regularity from district councils and business districts.

Hey, I want a snazzy branded bike rack in front of my my business.

And uh up to this point, it's been, like I said, a little bit muddy on how we've done this.

And so this is really just formalizing uh a program.

Um so I want to talk about the goals and outcomes of such a permit.

Uh and I'm calling it a permit, but it's almost kind of a program.

Um, and then just as kind of a refresher, maybe setting the the table about how how and where you might see bike racks in the city.

Um, and specific when it comes to the the um custom bike racks, um uh how we've done it in the past and how we'd like to do it in the future.

Um so just as a reminder, this is what I'm talking about when I'm talking about kind of a branded or custom bike rack.

Um, this is an example that currently exists at a few locations in um in Highland Park along Ford Parkway and kind of Ford Park Right, Ford Parkway in Cleveland.

Uh, but also there's some other areas.

Union Park has a few of these, uh, the North End has a few of these, but then there are also businesses that maybe uh I think if you were to drive on grand, you'd see a cat cafe.

Um, and you'd see some uh you'd see some branded or custom bike racks out in front.

So that the the goal of this program is to get more bike racks out on the street.

Um there are businesses that are asking for this, and you know, that they're for public use, it's not just for that business.

So it um uh they're they're willing to fund this and put them in the public right-of-way.

Um, and really this is permitting private installation in the public right-of-way.

So it's kind of like a Venn diagram.

Uh, we're trying to allow this, and we haven't really been able to to date.

Um, it would uh kind of having this permit or the program would allow us to track installations.

So sometimes to be honest, they've shown up on the street, and it would be nice if we could kind of track them.

Uh and then specifically, I think that uh the council might be interested in you.

You all know, of course, you you came up with and developed and funded the commercial corridor organization assistance program, C COPE.

We're working on a different name.

Okay, okay.

I struggle with it too.

C COP.

Um, and so uh what kind of the impetus for coming here is or kind of the kick in the pants to actually get this formalized is because there are new dollars that are given to commercial corridors and and business organizations, um, and a lot of them say, hey, now we have this money, I'd love to put some of these custom bike racks.

And so again, this has been something that we've we've wanted to do for a while, and this new program that you all funded is kind of giving us the encouragement to formalize it.

Again, you know all about this.

Uh, one of the eligible um criteria, one of the eligible activities or funding criteria or uh expenses, one of the eligible expenses is for beautification on corridors, um, and this is one of those things, custom branded bike racks.

So, again, I think as this program continues, we will probably see more more business organizations saying, Hey, I'd love to do this.

I really love these uh custom branded bike racks.