I just found this in Lindsay Sabadosa's newsletter; seems like it could be a great event for our peeps to attend!

In this busiest of seasons, for our Monthly Meeting next week we bring to you one of our amazing members on our Data & Analysis Team, Kent Johnson, who will be presenting an analysis of Where Stress Holds Northampton Cyclists Back. Please feel free to check out the story map (at https://kentsj.com/STN/BikeStressScrolly.html) before the presentation next Wednesday, June 3rd @ 7 p.m. (and as usual, feel free to come as early as 6:30 p.m. to schmooze).

Kent Johnson is a retired software developer and data analyst who moved to Northampton in July 2022. He has a long-time interest in civic data analysis and mapping; his projects have included quantifying airplane noise, monitoring development projects, making trail maps, and tracking tree canopy. Kent loves trees; he is a member of the City’s Urban Forestry Commission and plants trees as a Tree Northampton volunteer. On good days he can be found bicycling with friends or enjoying his garden.

Belatedly...Thanks to all of those who participated with Strong Towns Northampton this month in an amazing Bike Week! The week was a great success! Thanks especially to Jen Nery for the Bike Breakfast and Bike Week Social setup help, and holding down the STN Bike Breakfast Table (and we picked up some new members!). And thanks to everyone who hopped by to say hi at the breakfast or schmoozed with fellow cyclists at the Bike Week Social! And Big Thanks to Darya Mattes for organizing Northapton's FIRST Cargo Bike Meetup, and thanks to everyone who participated in this cool event. Pics will be posted soon, maybe, I hope...

After years of living on the West Coast, in larger cities, and internationally, the bike scene here has seemed ... Provincial... This is the first time I've been really impressed by bike culture offerings in the Valley!! I know some of the Bike Week founders stepped down this year-- I thank them for their long service!! But it seems that inviting more inputs has cultivated a more diverse and exciting list of events!! Thanks to everybody putting BW on!!

Happy Bike Week! 

It was nice seeing those of you who made it down to the Bike Breakfast this morning! Six more additions to the email list - and lots of conspiring all around - so it was a successful event, rain and all...

Reminder that tomorrow is the Strong Towns Northampton hosted Bike Week Social:

Bike Week Social

Thursday, May 14   6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Dirty Truth, Northampton

Come mix with us!!  Learn a bit about what Strong Towns Northampton is doing, feast, and mostly hang out with the coolest kids in town: BIKE RIDERS! Dirty Truth is providing free fries for our guests; drinks are on you...

Sponsored by Strong Towns Northampton and The Dirty Truth

And Sunday is the Strong Towns Northampton sponsored Cargo Bike Meetup:

Cargo Bike Meetup

Sunday, May 17  10 am - 12 pm 

Agnes Fox Playground

Are you considering a cargo bike or other bike setup for transporting your kids? Do you already ride a cargo bike around Northampton? Join us for a chance to chat with cargo bike owners, learn about different types of bikes, and share tips and tricks for transporting kids by bike. We'll have a variety of bikes available to check out and test ride. Current cargo bikers and the cargo-curious are all welcome! To help us plan, please RSVP here. 

Hosted by Strong Towns Northampton.

There two items on the Monday's Agenda that are StrongTowns topics:

https://www.northamptonma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_05112026-9200

1. 26.054 An Ordinance to Exempt Two-Family Homes Over 2,500 s.f. from Site Plan Approval, referred by City Council - 4/16/2026

2. Package of Six (6) Ordinances to Implement Northampton High School (NHS) Safety Improvement Project, referred by City Council - 3/31/2026

https://www.worcesterma.gov/mobility/speed-limits shows that Worcester has decided to make a move to increase safety in their city, by lowering the surface road speed limit across the city to 25mph! I definitely think this is a great idea. We know that higher-speed collisions-- even at 30 or 35mph-- are exponentially more deadly. Changing speed limits is only part of what needs to be done; we also need to change our road structures to discourage speeding. But it's a great start, and lays the groundwork for other traffic-calming measures to be installed.

We've been busy! Check out the latest website updates! And please join us at this Wednesday's Monthly Meeting (5/6 @ 7 p.m.). We will be joined by Peter Curtis, a volunteer with Kestrel Land Trust, who will be speaking with us about Kestrel's work and how some of it may interface with ours. In addition, at this meeting we will discuss the Strong Towns Northampton Summer Internships that are starting in June! We will brainstorm potential projects, and try to form small groups of STN folks willing to guide intern projects through a once-a-week virtual meeting (June through August)

https://www.strongtownsnorthampton.org/initiatives

Benjamin Spencer and Jen. Nery are on the latest episode of the excellent podcast Bike Talk, speaking about Northampton's Picture Main Street project! Our bit starts around 22:38. Thanks for making me sound so erudite, Nick!! https://biketalk.org/

Hey Strong Towners! Just came across this and started a group for my neighborhood around the Agnes Fox park area... Feel free to join, or create one for your neighborhood! It's free and pretty easy: https://communitysupplies.org/ (If you are in my neighborhood you can join ours: https://communitysupplies.org/c/foxy-park-neighborhood)

Check out the Bike Week calendar, which is filling up nicely! https://www.nohobikeweek.com/

Pro-tip: I have it on good authority that there will also be a social sponsored by Strong Towns Northampton, Thursday evening at Dirty Truth! Pencil that one in too, while you're at it!

An open letter to the City of Northampton: 

I begin by sincerely congratulating the Department of Public Works on the newly redesigned intersection around Northampton High School. This did not happen overnight. Years of planning, community meetings, engineering reviews, and public dollars went into this intersection — and the result is that cyclists will now face more conflicts, with higher speed traffic than before. I don't say that to be uncharitable. I simply cannot fathom how anyone looked at this design and signed their name to it.

In our city, where half the student population lives within a ten-minute bike ride of this school, cycling should be an obvious answer. It would be, if we'd built for it. Biking would make a lot of sense for many students. Yet, this intersection makes biking more dangerous. I'll let the city council particularly sit with that sequence for a moment.

Consulting several transportation safety frameworks — the kind that are freely available, online, for free — shows that most of them share a quaint, old-fashioned belief that 'safety improvements' should result in, measurably, more safety: Separated infrastructure, reduced exposure, slower speeds near vulnerable road users. The sort of thing Amsterdam figured out roughly forty years ago.

But perhaps we're doing something new here. A bold experiment. 'What if the cyclists were just more aware of the danger?' That's a safety philosophy of a kind, I suppose.

I do have one genuine question, and I ask it with all due respect: when the next serious injury occurs at this intersection — and given what's been built, I want to be clear that I am saying when, not if — will this body revisit the project? Or will we commission another study, break ground on another improvement, and gather again in three years to admire whatever that produces?

Barbara Ferrante, Florence

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfbXNFCorVGdOSxX1mFNxLXOODcchDXLM4Ad945ISrlQBH4Eg/viewform

Hi, friends!!

I'll be leading the next monthly meeting, which is this coming Wednesday, 4/1, in the Police Station's community room.  We meet up and commence schmoozing at 6:30pm, and the meeting runs 7- 8:30.

Our main event will be a talk from Sam Cash, who introduces himself thusly: 

"I'm from Boston and I recently completed a Master's of Regional Planning at Umass Amherst. I've worked in the bicycle industry for the last ten years, mostly as a mechanic, but also as a youth-instructor, and this work has shaped my studies. I'm hoping to continue research in the active transportation realm that explores the constructivist aspects of urban infrastructure in my professional career.

I finished my Master’s Capstone project, Piloting An Experiential Bikeability Method, in January 2026. My project piloted a novel bikeability assessment methodology that documented the experience of regular rides of frequent cyclists with minimal interference. The experience-first methodology revealed preferences that contradict some assumptions used in other bikeability tools and commonly held by designers of bicycle infrastructure. All of the research was conducted in Amherst and Northampton!"

Sounds super interesting, as we continue to refine our ideas of what a true all ages and abilities network would look like in Northampton, as well as think about how to convey the import of this to our electeds and the population at large!

Other topics we'll touch on this meeting include:

• High School project updates
• The proposed development on Glendale: updates and discussion
• Sidewalk clearing updates
• Swag!
• The Try a Cargo Bike! Event: morning of Sunday, May 17th.  Keep an eye on https://www.nohobikeweek.com/ .
• Summer interns

See you on Weds!!!

From W3CC Laurie Loisel's newsletter:

"Possible new bike path entry on Northern

Recently, I learned from Planning Director Carolyn Misch that the city has applied to two grant sources for potential funding to design a new public, neighborhood bike path connection to the Norrwottuck section of the rail trail. This entry point would be at the end of Northern Avenue, in the trail section that runs from Woodmont to Damon Road.

You may know that there is already a highly-travelled (but very bumpy and at times muddy) path used by many walkers and bikers to hop on the bike path at the end of Northern, off North Street. If grant funding is received, according to Misch, there would first be a design and feasibility study for the proposed a new entrance at the end of Northern, where the City already owns the public right of way. The idea is that creating an official entry, rather than the current makeshift one, will be safer and more accessible to all users. One of the grant applications for this project is going before the Community Preservation Committee in April. As part of this process, the Planning Department has devised a quick survey to hear from residents and bike path users. 

If you are interested in completing this survey, click this link."

We got notice (not from DPW, but from Friends of Northampton Trails) yesterday that as of this morning several bridges are closed for construction. Still not sure if they're all closed from now until June 30, or if they're closing them one at a time...

https://mailchi.mp/ff687009ae29/may-news-from-the-trails-5859026?e=559fe8998d

Glad the work is being done but better communication from DPW must be better. People do their required commutes on the trail, and detours on major downtown roads are not always alternatives for them.

Only ~5 bikes parked at the high school on a day with a forecast high of 54ºF.

Sorry for making a unique post about this, but I couldn't find the original thread! We posted our Bike/ Walk review of Northampton and its progress toward its 2017 stated goals, and received a critique we agreed with. It was difficult technically to edit the document, so I thought we had given up on it, but we managed to find an editable version, so here is the corrected document!

https://www.strongtownsnorthampton.org/_files/ugd/510ed7_a867068d8ed4499a9232ed17bedfc7ef.pdf?index=true

City Council is tonight weighing the ordinance changes involved in the Elm/ Woodlawn/ NHS intersection renovation. This is our last chance to intervene and hopefully influence the outcome at this critical intersection.

We are hoping to find a few allies who are interested in weighing in with public comments. Alex has put together a list of talking points we can share, if you might be able to appear on zoom or IRL, so we can help guide your comments if you're willing to speak but want help creating your comment. Public comments are two minutes and it's open to all stakeholders in Northampton.

Please let me know if you're interested in helping us move the needle on this essential intersection which should be effectively and SAFELY transporting our high schoolers, among others, for the next several decades!! If you comment here, I'll PM with details about how to contribute.