At tonight’s Royal Oak City Commission meeting, city staff will recommend funding for a non-motorized transportation plan in the upcoming budget.

This is great news.

While everyone’s welcomed to provide public comment at tonight’s meeting, at this point it’s really not necessary — especially given the lengthy meeting agenda, the wintry weather, and some basketball game.

We will be sure to attend and provide an updates from the meeting.

Both the Detroit News and The Mirror have articles about tonight’s meeting.

The City of Farmington Hills is updating their master plan.  The current draft promises Farmington Hills will continue to be one of the least safe places to ride a bike in Metro Detroit.

There is no planning for bike lanes, paved shoulders,  or similar on-road facilities that would make Farmington Hills more bikeable and safer.  There is no mention of building Complete Streets or even Safe Routes to School.

The draft plan does mention bike paths, which appear to be wide sidewalks — not AASHTO compliant bicycle facilities.

Area cyclists are encouraged to contact the Farmington Hills Planning Department to let them know you want to safe bicycling facilities that follow AASHTO guidelines and best practices.

Michigan’s DNR Parks & Recreation Division is asking the public to comment on their 2009-2019 Strategic Plan draft.

This plan represents the culmination of two and one-half years of extensive outreach effort to the public and other stakeholders who helped define the goals, objectives, and actions identified in the draft plan.

The draft plan will be available for a 30-day public comment period, and comments may be submitted to DNR-RecreationFeedback@michigan.gov via e-mail, or in writing to: Paul N. Curtis, Park Management Plan Administrator, DNR-Parks and Recreation Division, P.O. Box 30257, Lansing, MI 48909-7757.

The deadline for comments is 5 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 30, 2009.

Too much too read?  The summary: The plan is quite comprehensive and includes plenty of input on trails, both on land and on water.  We reviewed and commented earlier on in the process.  The plan has been added to and improved since then.

Overall, it looks real good and should help move the DNR Parks Divsion forward.

John Gallagher of the Detroit Free Press wrote an excellent article about transforming Detroit’s current road infrastructure to the betterment of the surrounding neighborhoods.

Detroit’s main streets make good highways but lousy neighborhoods.

It’s time to change that.

The local development community is abuzz with talk of adding bicycle lanes, wider sidewalks, new landscaping and other devices to narrow Detroit’s arterial streets — Woodward, Gratiot, Jefferson and others.

Whether it’ll happen is open to question. But the goal is to recapture Detroit’s cityscape for the people who actually live here.

Gallagher also references last week’s transportation week that we wrote about earlier.

Model D also covered last week’s events with this video featuring Ian Lockwood from Glatting-Jackson.

What a busy week for bike advocacy!  There are four meetings scheduled this week.  Each meeting is an opportunity to speak up and ask for better bicycling facilities.

Tuesday: Detroit Riverwalk and Dequindre Cut

This is a public forum to discuss future programming of the East Riverfront and Dequindre Cut.  Details were posted last week.

Wednesday: Troy Trails Committee

The next Troy Trails Committee meeting is being held at 7:30pm in the City Council Chambers at City Hall.  We’ll be reviewing an upcoming presentation to City Council and get an update on the Troy’s Master Plan Request for Proposal (RFP).

Thursday: Bloomfield Hills Master Plan

A master planning public workshop is scheduled for Thursday, November 20th from 4 PM until 8 PM.  The workshop is being held at city hall, 45 East Long Lake Road.

The purpose of this public workshop is to inform local citizens of the process to update the Master Plan and gain input into areas of concern and opportunities for the future of the City to be addressed in the Master Plan.  Topics of discussion will include land use, housing density, building design, transportation systems, natural features and community facilities and services.

Improving roads for bicycling is certainly an issue within Bloomfield Hills.

Thursday: Royal Oak Downtown Development Authority

** Note that this is a date change **

We will be going before the DDA to ask that they support better biking and walking in Royal Oak, but especially in Downtown Royal Oak.  We expect to give a presentation similar to what we gave the Royal Oak City Commission.  This meeting is at 4 PM at City Hall.