Twin Cities Streets for People

Minneapolis is certainly moving full speed ahead in its support for cycling. NiceRide is expanding its stations; the city is considering hiring a full-time cycling & pedestrian coordinator; bike lanes are freshly restriped in bright green (at least in Dinkytown, anyway); and last year Minneapolis surpassed Portland as the nation’s #1 biking city. As an urban enthusiast, ardent supporter of Minneapolis’ pro-cycling efforts, and downtown resident, I should be excited to be biking every day in my city. But I’m not! I walk, or drive, for all my trips. But I don’t bike.
 
Why, you ask?
 
I am afraid of being hit by cars, that’s why!
 
 
Despite all the efforts to increase awareness of bikers, and despite all the prominent restriping of bike lanes, the fact is that cars can still quite easily strike, injure, and kill cyclists. I have no intention of being one of them (the injured cyclists, that is).

I found myself ruminating on this on a recent trip to Paris. In that city--and in Montreal, as well (apparently Francophones really like bikes)--most of the bike lanes are grade-separated. There is a large curb, about 8 inches high and 18 inches wide, marked with regular 3 foot tall posts, that separates the car lanes from the bike lanes (look at a Google StreetView of Rue Cherrier, Montreal for a good example). This configuration is marvelous for promoting biking. Bikers can freely move down the road, confident that cars will not casually destroy their undercarriages by sweeping into the bike lane.

The effect was particularly pronounced when I looked at two portions of the same street in Montreal. On one side, the bike lane was grade-separated. On the other, it was not. On the grade-separated side, a fair number of bikers were happily cruising down their lane. On the non-grade-separated side, not a single biker was present. This was probably because a large number of cars had parked in the bike lane. This included, frustratingly, a cop car. Even the cops park in the bike lanes!

The only way to truly get cars to respect bikes is to make it impossible, or at least sufficiently damage-inducing, to cross into bike lanes. The Netherlands has taken this truly to heart, and even has bike-specific traffic lights for its bike lanes. Ridership in that country is astonishingly high.

Grade-separated bike lanes also prevent cars from using the shoulder to quickly make right turns, another harrowing event for cyclists. Right hooks, as they’re called, have an insidious way of making bikers’ lives unpleasant. If the configuration of the road prevents this, the road becomes safer for everyone.

Minneapolis is on a decent path, but there’s a ways to go. If--and hopefully when--the city finally understands the bikers deserve a protected lane, I’ll be happy to join in the fray.

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Public meeting on the Jefferson Avenue bike boulevard and test median... Read more >

This just came across my desk. Because of confusion about the inadequately designed 1st Avenue separated Bike Lanes, the Minneapolis City Council is considering removing them alltogether.

Here's the email I received:

We are in very real danger of losing the experimental bike lanes on 1st avenue in downtown Minneapolis and not having anything put in in their place.  Many business owners and drivers are of the opinion that since these lanes are such a hassle, they should be ripped out and nothing should be there but parking.

We must let people know that we want bicycle facilities on 1st avenue, even if we do not support the lanes in the current configuration.

Council Member Lisa Goodman in particular needs to hear the voice of cyclists on this one.  Please call or email her today or this weekend at 612-673-2207 or http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/contact/email-form-goodman.asp and let her know that you support having bike lanes on 1st avenue in downtown Minneapolis.

(The complete message, with suggestions about how to improve the bike lane design, is after the jump.) Read more >

There's a nice article in today's Star Tribune about the possibility of turning Park and Portland Avenues back into two-way streets in South Minneapolis. the piece suggests the need for a balance between "accessibility and liveability", and points out some of the history of the street. But, to my mind, it doesn't put enough on the table.

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Another Twin Cities streets fatality, as a woman was killed by the driver of a garbage truck while walking her dog near a park in downtown Saint Paul this morning. This crash continues a deadly summer trend, with an elderly woman killed by an ambulance earlier this week, a man killed by a car while waiting for the bus earlier this month, and a cyclist and pedestrian killed along Park Avenue last month. Read more >