Those wishing to voice their concerns about the current state of bike-pedestrian-vehicle relationships will have their opportunity Friday at the Ames Bike Summit.

A meeting will be from noon to 5 p.m. Friday at Ames Public Library for people who want to listen to various presentations and ask questions about what the city is doing to improve the current relationship pedestrians and bikers have with drivers.

Ames Bicycle Coalition Vice President Steve Libbey said he hopes people from both the biking and non-biking communities come to voice their opinions.

“It’s an opportunity to learn, and also share with people who are both involved in creating the facilities that we have, and are involved with using the facilities,” Libbey said.

“Hopefully, we’ll get a good variety of people there, because that’s going to be more helpful.”

According to Libbey, the Ames Bicycle Coalition held a summit several years ago, which he said received a good turnout.

Since then there have been several projects that have been completed, with the goal of creating a more bike and pedestrian-friendly environment, such as the Squaw Creek Bridge project, and Welch Avenue.

But Libbey said in order to find new solutions, the conversation must continue.

“There are lots of ways of getting around, and we need to figure out how to accommodate that reality,” Libbey said. “I think it’s a combination of just being more aware of things, but also doing some redesign of some of the physical infrastructure that we have.”

The event is co-sponsored by the Ames Bicycle Coalition with Healthiest Ames, and features speakers from the city, ISU, Ames Police Department, and other communities.

“The point is really just to get some people out here to talk about what they are doing in terms of developing infrastructure to make it easier and safer for people to not necessarily rely on an automobile to get around,” Libbey said.

Last year, the Ames Police Department launched the Bike, Walk, Drive SMART campaign, which encouraged pedestrians and drivers to show respect to one another, to prevent accidents.

And just this past week the Story County Attorney’s Office drafted “Emmalee’s Law” — named after the former ISU student who was struck and killed by a CyRide bus — which would clear up some of the language in state code, and provide harsher penalties for defendants in hit-and-run cases for who don’t turn themselves in.

With those recent developments, Libbey said the Ames Bicycle Coalition thought it was time to bring back the summit.

“Ideally, if you can get the infrastructure and design correct, you’ll reduce the potential for those sort of incidents to arise in the first place, and that’s really the ultimate goal here,” he said.

“There’s really a lot of way to get around, and if we can be more intelligent in the design and in some cases the retrofitting of intersections and streetways, then hopefully we can reduce to potential for that sort of incident to happen.”