Biking & Walking in Minnesota – 2011 Bike Summit (PDF)

The fact sheet emphasizes three key areas: Federal investment in Minnesota, [...]]]>

As part of last week’s National Bike Summit, hosted by the League of American Bicyclists, America Bikes put together state-by-state fact sheets about biking and walking for use by advocates in their meetings with members of Congress.

Biking & Walking in Minnesota – 2011 Bike Summit (PDF)

The fact sheet emphasizes three key areas: Federal investment in Minnesota, the business impact of biking in Minnesota, and support at the local level for bicycling as indicated by state-level legislation.

Perhaps the most striking numbers are the business impact figures — while the federal investment funds are certainly significant, to budget hawks the spending may still seem like an earmark or other form of funding that can be eliminated in pursuit of budget cuts. However, by establishing the multi-million dollar economic impact of cycling in the state, and the more than 300 bicycle retail stores in Minnesota that represent small business, jobs, and employment, a powerful economic message can be sent.

Regrettably, the figures on the fact sheet don’t line up in a head-slappingly obvious way. The gross revenue of Minnesota bicycle stores is for a single year, whereas federal investment funds are over the period 1992-2009 for Transportation Enhancement Funds, and 2005-2009 for Safe Routes to Schools (basically, since each program’s inception). However, the total investment from 1992-present from these two programs is equal to less than one year’s gross revenues of state bicycle retail stores — which is to say, not including other purchases from other shops or incidental purchases of people on bikes (coffee shop stops, ice cream, etc.). It’s a pretty powerful set of numbers.

States other than Minnesota can also be found at the America Bikes web site.

At lunch and in the afternoon at the 2011 Minnesota Bicycle Summit, the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota and more than 175 attendees were excited to welcome several additional speakers on the subject of cycling in Minnesota, including Rochester Mayor Ardell Brede, and former US Representative [...]]]>

From the Minnesota Bicycle Summit 2011

• Morning Session
• Legislative Agenda
• Lunch & Capitol Rotunda Sessions

At lunch and in the afternoon at the 2011 Minnesota Bicycle Summit, the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota and more than 175 attendees were excited to welcome several additional speakers on the subject of cycling in Minnesota, including Rochester Mayor Ardell Brede, and former US Representative and former Chair of the House Transportation Committee James Oberstar.

Rochester Mayor Ardell Brede

Rochester, Minnesota is one of two Bicycle Friendly Communities in Minnesota, and is the 3rd largest city in the state. Mayor Ardell Brede came to discuss how Rochester has created such momentum for cycling in their city.

Rochester was the first community in Minnesota to pass Complete Streets legislation, and has 92 miles of trails, bike paths and bike lanes, with an additional 237 planned in the next 25 years. The system is being organized around rivers and streams, with the intention of linking parks, neighborhoods and the central business district.

Rochester has four League Certified Instructors, including two from the law enforcement community. Rochester also has strong community partners, including the Mayo Clinic, and IBM — one of Minnesota’s 21 Bicycle Friendly Businesses.

Mayor Brede also says that the support of the city’s public works department has been vital.

He was quite enthusiastic about the work of local advocates and the Rochester Bicycle-Pedestrian Advisory Committee.

By creating public-private partnerships backed with strong government support, Rochester has been building an excellent local bicycle network, and serves as a case study for other small cities and even counties and suburbs how to proceed to achieve similar result.

Former Congressman James Oberstar

Former Congressman James Oberstar, in his more than 30 years in Congress, was responsible for considerable progress for cycling as a mode of transportation. In past interviews, he has expressed his pride in such programs as Safe Routes to Schools, the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Program, and the many ways in which alternative transportation projects can be funded. He spoke both at lunch and later in the Capitol Rotunda, stressing many of the same themes in each speech.

Congressman Oberstar said that when he started in Congress, the bicycle caucus could have met in a phone booth. Forty-two years ago, a man was able to land on the moon, changing transportation history, but that same man would have been unsafe trying to ride his bike to work. This was a big shift from the end of the 19th century, when the League of American Wheelmen started a petition drive to create paved roads for horseless carriages, which were creating ruts in the roads used by bicyclists. So in 1991, he worked to introduce measures to encourage cycling in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA). It helped allocate a small part of the highway trust fund to alternate projects. Since ISTEA was first passed, more than $40 billion has been used to build bicycle and pedestrian access projects.

One of the long-term impacts of ISTEA is that bicycling facilities are no longer an afterthought in roadway planning. The AASHTO have formal standards for bike lanes and bikeways in their planning standards.

Congressman Oberstar notes that investment in cycling can drive economic activity. Comparing Minneapolis and Atlanta, he notes that there are seven times the bicycle sales in Minneapolis than in Atlanta, chiefly because of the ease of access via bicycle. Bicycling is good for America, good for Minnesota, and good for the quality of life.

One statistic he offered was very interesting: One mile of 12′ paved bicycle trail costs approximately $128,000. One mile of urban freeway, by comparison, costs $47-100 million. The ROI for the bicycle projects can have large impact for lower investment.

Like Gary Sjoquist earlier, Congressman Oberstar emphasized that bicycling is under fire. He says that cycling must be treated as a mode of transportation, and not as a nice-to-have element in planning. Cycling investments are not a reason for other infrastructure crumbling, and we need to reassess our infrastructure in general to address dependency on foreign oil and community health.

In both speaking opportunities, Congressman Oberstar got a warm standing ovation of thanks for his past work for cyclists, and for the strong words he offered to advocates.

Capitol Hill

Additional programming was offered in the Capitol Rotunda during the afternoon. There was an expo of Minnesota companies and tourism, as well as several speakers. These speakers included:

• Bernard J. Arsenault, Deputy Commissioner of Transportation — Deputy Commissioner Arsenault shared MnDOT’s vision for Complete Streets. He explained that it is revenue neutral, and may even lead to cost savings, because it encourages a different way to delivering projects. Planning is done on the front end to account for all users of a project. Complete Streets allows planners to create integrated solutions and improve quality of life.

  He also mentioned an intention to extend the Share the Road Minnesota program. To date, it has chiefly spoken to adults, and they believe they need to better address younger road users as well.

• Steve Flagg, Quality Bicycle Products — Steve Flagg of QBP spoke of the impact bicycling has on the state economy. Bicycling creates jobs in Minnesota as investment is made to allow people to choose cycling in the face of rising gas prices. More than 5,000 jobs in Minnesota come from the cycling industry. Cycling investments also generate local and regional tourism dollars.
• State Senator Tony Lourey (DFL – District 8) — Senator Lourey discussed Complete Streets. He said that more than 58 groups signed on to the bill, representing business, health and the environment. Complete Streets is about process: considering the local context of road projects before the streets are built. By considering all users of a project, good decisions can be made at the front end of the project. He encouraged attendees to “ride Minnesota into the future” and to continue to show up and be a part of the local context.
• State Senator Mike Jungbauer (R – District 48) — Senator Jungbauer also discussed Complete Streets and what it means. He stressed that Complete Streets is nonpartisan and is really about offering appropriate access to everyone. It can be very simple, from just widening lanes or shifting lanes to better allow for cyclists and pedestrians to take advantage of a roadway. He believes Complete Streets encourages better engineering.

  He believes that motorists today are less tolerant of cyclists on the road than they used to be, and that there is a different mindset among motorists today than there was 20 and 30 years ago. He believes Complete Streets is a way to help address this and reintegrate the roadways.

The afternoon program closed with the presentation of an award from the Minnesota Complete Streets Coalition to Rochester’s Ardell Brede and others in the Rochester delegation, recognizing them for being the first Minnesota community to pass a Complete Streets bill.

Many attendees at the Summit then went to visit with their State Representatives and Senators, or to drop off literature concerning the Bicycle Alliance legislative agenda.

Edited March 14, 2011 to correct facts about Rochester — it is the 3rd largest city in Minnesota, not the 6th, and the bicycle plan is over a 25-year period. Thanks to Charlie Quigg for corrections.

Peter Birch, Product Manager for Google Earth, was present to introduce the new features. Google Maps for Bicycling has routes and information for 150 US cities, including on-street routes and bicycle trails. Shannon Guyman, another Googler, [...]]]>

Today, at the National Bicycle Summit, Google was on-hand for the opening session to launch their newest Maps enhancement: Bike routes!

Peter Birch, Product Manager for Google Earth, was present to introduce the new features. Google Maps for Bicycling has routes and information for 150 US cities, including on-street routes and bicycle trails. Shannon Guyman, another Googler, was on-hand to provide a live demo. Each said that this enhancement is part of Google’s commitment to provide maps for people – not just ‘cars.’

We got a nice live demo, but as always, Google created a nice video demo for the rest of you:

Like other Google Maps options – cars, transit, and walking routes – the biking layer is routable. To provide directions between two places, the algorithm looks for routing info in the following order:

• Bike paths/trails

• Dedicated bicycle resources (bike lanes, sharrows, other bicycle facilities)
• Roadways that have been designated as bicycle-friendly by some data source, often signed routes

The Maps team have also adjusted estimated trip times based on average cycling speeds.

Trails and on-road facilities are marked on the bicycle layer, and okay roads feature a dotted blue line. Minneapolis’ downtown is below (clicky to enlarge):

You can either just look at an area, or route between two points. When routing between two points, you can drag the route to change it. To see a local area map, click the ‘More’ button and select ‘Bicycling’ to see suggested routes.

Google is also doing a Twitter content to give away a bike worth up to $2500 of the winner’s choosing. Deets on that are at http://maps.google.com/biking.

I also spoke to the Product Manager after the presentation. Right now, the Bicycle layer is not showing anything more specific in terms of businesses or landmarks than is shown normally. We discussed the possibility of using the Local Business Center data of businesses, many of which are tagged by business type, to potential preference showing bicycle businesses on the map, and adding ‘Bicycle Parking’ as an option for business owners to indicate on their Business Center listings. These are both long-term potential upgrades, which would make for some sweet marketing potential for bicycle-friendly businesses like ice cream shops, cookie parlours, and bike shops.

I know that relative to Minnesota, we have the excellent cycle-route wiki Cyclopath, so some of the locals may not be impressed. However, in a broader sense, this is a good development in the sense that this covers 150 cities and may assist local visitors to various towns – not just MSP. Unlike Cyclopath, this isn’t a user-contributed system, so it may not always provide the best routes. In cases where routes offered are a bit bunk, Google have asked that users provide feedback to improve the system.

With that comes a deluge of people asking: “What bike should I buy?” I end up answering that a lot for friends, relatives, random co-workers who see the picture of me and my husband on bikes I have in my office and who have heard rumors that I’m [...]]]>

Spring is here. High gas prices are here, too.

With that comes a deluge of people asking: “What bike should I buy?” I end up answering that a lot for friends, relatives, random co-workers who see the picture of me and my husband on bikes I have in my office and who have heard rumors that I’m some sort of biker person.

I think my answers frustrate some, because they want me to tell them to go to a specific place, and buy a specific brand and model. Of course, it’s not that easy. Questions need to be answered.

What kind of riding do you intend to do? Be honest with yourself.

• Are you looking to do short bike commutes to work?
• Paved street and trail riding?
• Charity events?
• Off-road and unpaved journeys?
• Do you want to be able to haul a Burley? A trail-a-bike?

Figuring out HOW you plan to use the bike is key. A few years ago, I helped a friend find a bike. He saw the sort of riding my club did, and wanted to join in. He liked the idea of a fitness activity that wasn’t murder on the knees. So we found him a good road bike, suitable for group rides, with the best possible frame that would fit him, and components worth using… but easily upgraded. Six years later, he’s still riding that frame, and has rebuilt most of the bike several times.

A lot of people get hung up on brand. Brand is irrelevant. If the frame doesn’t fit, the brand won’t matter. Every brand has its own merits and geometry. Pick one that fits your body and budget.

As a rule of thumb, the frame is going to be what makes or breaks the whole bicycle purchase experience. if you buy a frame that sucks or doesn’t fit, you won’t ride the bike. Period. Getting good components is a nice plus, but on most bikes, you can upgrade them later. If you use the bike enough, they’ll need replacement someday anyway – parts wear out on bikes, just like they do on cars.

Depending on your intended use, you’ll need different features of the frame and components. The second biggest mistake I see people make, after getting a frame that doesn’t fit, is getting the wrong wheels/tires. Most people are using their bikes on paved streets and trails. They will want a smoother tire. However, many get big knobby mountain-style tires thinking they’ll be better. Actually, on pavement, they slow you down a lot. Other people get sleek race-style wheels because they ‘look cool,’ but may be meaning to use their bike much more casually, and have little experience in wheel maintenance. Low-spoke, sleek race wheels require more care and maintenance than many are going to want to put in or learn.

Another thing I see is people messing up seat choice. The seat on a bike at purchase is always negotiable. However, it’s not always true that the biggest, plushest seat will be the most comfortable. Seat choice is going to depend a lot on your riding position (upright? traditional road?) and your actual tuckus. Many people are awfully surprised when they find that something without massive padding makes their butt happiest. (And early on, ANY seat is going to create a bit of post-ride ow – you have to break in both your butt and your seat!)

Under the bill, it would be illegal to sell bicycles with quick release wheels unless they met performance specifications that are not commercially available. Assembly bill A2686, which was introduced in February 2006, passed [...]]]>

New Jersey has passed legislation that will effectively ban the sale of every commercially-made bike of reasonable quality, according to Bicycle Retailer magazine:

Under the bill, it would be illegal to sell bicycles with quick release wheels unless they met performance specifications that are not commercially available. Assembly bill A2686, which was introduced in February 2006, passed in the assembly with a vote of 77-3 and is now headed to the Senate Commerce Committee.

It is to be hoped the Commerce Committee shows some sense. Quick release levers aren’t dangerous. All it takes is a brief pre-ride safety check to ensure that they’re closed and tight every time. I suspect that even if the Committee continue down the path of dumb, this can be overturned via lawsuit quickly.