April 25 2022 Update

Happy Monday, everyone.  I hope you had a nice weekend!  We enjoyed some time with grandkids and attended a very well-done school play in Spanish Fork where our granddaughter performed.  And we also got to spend part of Saturday with a grandchild who just turned 8 - watching “Dragon Prince” on Netflix, playing board games, and going to lunch for his chicken nugget fix.  These were the bright spots of the weekend.

I also found a little time to get out in the garden in between things.  It was great to get my hands dirty and check on the very tiny lettuce plants and beets, and the now not-so-tiny peas.

Saturday evening we heard the sad news about the passing of former Senator Orrin Hatch.  I had many opportunities to interact and be in meetings with Senator Hatch over the years, and I found him to be a great example of a public servant.  He had strong feelings about things to be sure, but he had a well deserved reputation for working across the aisle back when that was politically possible, he and his staff offered excellent constituent services, and he was always willing to listen.  I feel badly that his years after retiring from the Senate were cut short, but he left a legacy of service and patriotism that was truly remarkable.

UPCOMING CITY EVENTS

Make Your Own Stress Ball I April 26 7:00 pm

Teen Book Club: Books to Movies I April 28 7:00 pm

Courtyard Book Sale I April 30 11:00 am

Steel Magnolias I May 5 - May 28

Thousand Trees Initiative Kickoff I May 21 8:30 am

Steel Magnolias I May 5 - May 28

YOUR VOICE

Have any exciting news? Birthdays, babies, weddings, fur-babies, graduations? Share about it in the section on the right --> and upload pics below!

UPLOAD PICTURES HERE!

NEWS YOU CAN USE

• Senator Orrin Hatch passed away this weekend. He was the former President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate, and longest-serving Senator in Utah history.
• The State Convention took place over the weekend, and the Utah GOP overwhelmingly chooses Sen. Mike Lee as nominee, but he still faces primary. Utah Democrats backed the independent candidate Evan McMullin for U.S. Senate in a historic vote.
• A functioning mini-heart was created by researchers. This organoid will allow scientists to test experimental heart disease treatments without requiring a living organ.
• NASA recorded the two largest seismic events observed on Mars to date. The quakes were equivalent to 4.1 and 4.2 on the earthquake Richter scale.

PROVO SOCIAL MEDIA

HOT-BUTTON ITEMS IN PROVO

For about four years now, the City has worked with a group now called Superpedestrian to administer the City’s electric scooter program.  For sure, it has not been without its hiccups, but the program has serious merit for our community.  When we first entered into the program, the scooters were designed to be forerunners to a bike share program, which, up to this point, has not materialized.  But that is about to change.

Our scooter program contract is about to expire, and Tom Thorpe and the parking management team have led the effort for an RFP to award our program management contract.  Superpedestrian is one of the finalists, but we are looking at other options as well.  

Scooters and bike share are important to the community in several ways.  First, from the standpoint of reducing vehicle miles traveled (and thus reducing congestion and pollution), scooters and bikes provide good “first and last mile” access to transit options.  Solving how people get to and from their destinations when transit can’t get folks all the way to their doorsteps is a big step forward.  Our community is also quite health conscious, and bike share especially can meet a need for the occasional rider.  

Several of our potential partners coming through the RFP process are suggesting several system improvements, including scooters that have seats, which makes them more accessible to elderly and more reluctant riders.  Other possible improvements include e-bikes to make riding more feasible for those who might not otherwise want to ride a bike.  Geofencing, or being able to limit areas where bikes and scooters can go or throttling down speeds on locations like the river parkway trail, is improving constantly and becoming a lot more precise.  

We will be meeting this week with finalists in the RFP process and will likely award a contract shortly thereafter.  We think there is great value to these alternative transportation modes and to making them more readily accessible to our residents.  Making non-vehicle trips easier and cost effective for our residents will have significant benefits in terms of traffic congestion, air quality, and ease of access to transit.

FUN STUFF

Is there anything cuter than a baby busting some dance moves?  

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Oluwaseyi Olufemi (@some4real1)

---

I hope your day goes well.  Thanks for all you do!

Wayne