Despite our best intentions, some planning documents seem destined to be filed away or placed on a shelf to collect dust from the moment they are published and publicly presented.
Others seem to beg to be implemented in some way, almost immediately after the ink is dry. 
Two weeks ago, the Normal Town Council received the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan from Portland, Oregon-based Alta Planning and Design. It checks in at more than 200 pages and is filled with excellent information and maps. It is chocked full of recommendations.
But most importantly, Alta clearly spent the time here needed to get a great feel for the community. They make some intuitive recommendations about how we can make Normal more pedestrian and bicycle friendly.
After spending time here walking, riding, and talking to people who do it every day, they recognized it’s next to impossible to walk or bike ride across Veteran’s Parkway.
They discovered the places where the trail crosses busy streets leaving walkers, runners, and cyclists waiting for breaks in traffic.
The consutlants detected there are intersections that ought to be much more pedestrian friendly than they are.
In his presentation, Rory Renfro said repeatedly that “Constitution Trail is the backbone of a great system” in Normal. Who would disagree with that?
While he seemed to be stating the obvious, what he was really saying is that we tend to focus completely on Constitution Trail and there are so many more places cyclists want to ride and lots of point A’s and B’s that aren’t necessarily along the trail.
Renfro explained to us why Normal needs on-street connections to get to the trail. In fact, he pointed out that Normal has the potential of developing a network of more than 70 miles of on-street bike trails. He also said that in Normal there is tremendous opportunity to work with the existing pavement to make our streets more friendly for cyclists.
There are plenty of diagrams showing what could be done. What really made sense to me was that so much could be done to improve the present conditions that don’t seem to be terribly costly.
A lot of it simply involves designating bike routes with signs and pavement markings. Instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to add new segments to Constitution Trail, in areas that are inaccessible to most of the community, we could spend considerably less to turn existing streets into bike routes.
Past citizen surveys reveal that Constitution Trail is the community’s most used and beloved public park. But there are challenges.
Some of the questions I have:
- Should the Normal Police Department conduct “stings” to ticket motorists who ignore people in crosswalks, particularly children?
- Is it time to focus resources on making streets –arterials and side streets — more amenable to bicycle traffic by posting signs to designate routes and creating bike lanes with pavement markings?
- What’s a bigger priority: more miles of Constitution Trail or making connections to the trail?
- What more can be done to make Uptown Normal more hospitable for pedestrians? Should the council ban bikes on sidewalks?
- What kind of public education is required to make Normal safer for pedestrians and cyclists?
As someone who was not expecting to be overwhelmed, I admit I was both surprised by the depth of the study and impressed with the recomendations. In the weeks following the report’s release, I have been contacted by a number of people who have expressed their expectation to see some action.
Pedestrian and Bicycle Focus Group chair Doug Oehler told the council on July 20 that the plan provides an “opportunity to change the transportation culture of the Town forever.”
No question. But before any action is taken, the council must consider the path forward in the context of available resources and against a myriad of competiing priorities.
Just About Normal 