It's been a long several months of slogging through the bureaucratic process, but the Tenney-Lapham Corporation board is convinced that it may yet be worth it all, if the banner and bike rack manufacturers and installers which they have selected can make good on their proposals. At this point, we may see these new amenities arrive on East Johnson Street sometime between February and April, largely depending on weather.

Over the course of negotiations with City staff in Traffic Engineering and Real Estate, we have reached an agreement that Tenney-Lapham will maintain the banners and bike racks, but will transfer ownership of them over to the City (as they will be in the City's right-of-way); and thereby the City will agree to take responsibility for insurance liability on them.

When the complexity of the "red tape" involved in this process started to make it look like we would not meet the CDBG deadline of December 31 for completion of the project, Ald. Vedder was instrumental in securing a necessary extension from the CDBG Commission.

Arthur Ross, the City Pedestrian-Bicycle Coordinator and a Tenney-Lapham resident, has put in a lot of time helping us find new types of bike racks that would suit our unique requirements and space limitations. As a result of his help--and after a carefully coordinated RFP (Request for Proposals) process--we plan to be ordering at least five new "post & ring" racks (an 18" ring centered vertically on a 36" post), to be scattered along the 800 and 900 blocks of East Johnson near businesses, as well as two new "bicycle-shaped" racks for the corner of Johnson and Paterson, alongside the Norris Court Grocery.

All the racks will be painted dark red to match the background color of the banners. There will be six banners going on the tall, gray street light poles on the north side of Johnson in the same area.

Please take good care of these new amenities and watch over them. If the maintenance costs exceed the resources of the neighborhood and business associations, they may have to be removed. Let's hope that they're with us for a good long while (along with the new lamp posts) to make our little corner of the world that much more inviting and accommodating to our friends and neighbors--and anyone else passing through!