Our small group first met on August 21, 2023, at the Edgewater Brewery by the Riverfront Trail in Grand Junction. Among those at the meeting were leaders of GJ Bike Night and members and administrators of the Facebook-based Mesa County Bicycling Alliance (MCBA).
From the beginning, it was a merging of the new and old — younger Instagram followers meeting with the older Facebook crowd. At this first meeting, we were also joined virtually by leaders of the Montrose Area Bicycle Alliance, who explained their many successes with cycling-focused advocacy projects. Mesa County had not had such an organization for several years, and the consensus at our first meeting was that we needed one.
We continued to meet about once a month. Each meeting was full of discussion on a wide array of topics and ideas about how we could do more to promote bicycling in Mesa County.
Pete Piccolo, director of Bicycle Colorado, attended our November 2 meeting and provided considerable guidance on how we should move forward as a group. Among other suggestions, he encouraged us to step up our advocacy game and advised us to broaden our mission to include all forms of active transportation, not just bicycling. We agreed to become a formal advocacy group and appointed a committee to draft bylaws. The Bylaws Committee met a week later and drafted bylaws for the full group to consider.
At a meeting on November 30, we focused on discussing the City of Grand Junction’s proposed Transportation Engineering Design Standards (TEDS) manual, which would be the first major step in implementing the previously approved Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan. We also discussed the bylaws, agreed to call our new organization the Grand Valley Streets Alliance, and expanded our advocacy to include all forms of active transportation.
Soon after that meeting, on December 6, several GVSA and MCBA members attended a City Council meeting and spoke in support of TEDS, which had staunch and well-organized opposition from local realtors and developers. With our strong support, the City Council approved the TEDS update. This was GVSA’s first major accomplishment, and we are still celebrating!
We worked on the bylaws and ultimately approved them on February 15, 2024, including our purpose: “Promote active transportation in Mesa County, Colorado, through healthy active communities, equitable road safety, and smart, sustainable mobility.”
At the March 7 meeting, we set up a subcommittee to register GVSA as an organization with the State of Colorado. We also discussed how to build the organization, reviewed the development of our website, and started compiling a list of projects. On April 23, the subcommittee registered GVSA as an organization with the State of Colorado.
At our April 25 meeting, we continued reviewing the draft website, logo, and recruitment handout, and committees reported progress on our project list.
On May 30, we continued progress on the website and set up our Recruitment Committee. We added two new projects to our list: Review the 29 Road / I-70 interchange proposal and the city’s e-scooter program. We learned that Bicycle Colorado had thanked us for our support of recent statewide legislation for active transportation, another success story that we can be proud of.
The Recruitment Committee met on June 12 and developed an action plan for recruiting new members. The Website Committee met on June 23 and continued to make progress.
Our June 27 meeting focused on discussing the 29 Road / I-70 interchange proposal. The Recruitment Committee also reported on its planning and on actions that had already been completed. The group also decided to hold elections in July and nominated candidates for five officers and three other board members.
We elected our board of directors and officers on July 25, thus completing our final task of becoming an organized advocacy group to promote active transportation in Mesa County, Colorado. Now the work begins.
Kommentare