In the sense of promoting more people coming downtown, it probably was a net good – one-way streets confuse people who are not near them every day and who are in for a special event (theatre on Hennepin, a Twins game, whatev).

They’ve published an evaluation of the conversion. Because this study was performed by the same agency responsible for the conversion, there is a bit of a question of impartiality, but data is at the base of most conclusions:

• Bicycle traffic is up, based on user-count metrics.

• Allegedly, there have been no bike crashes on Hennepin since conversion, whereas prior it was known as one of the worst ‘bikeways’ in the city because it violated every principle of bicycle lane planning ever created. (I’m a bit dubious that it went from apocalypse to idyllic – I’m wondering about reporting, personally.)
• The city claims people have figured out the odd parking/bike lane configuration.

When you dive into the stats, it turns out that bicycle traffic on Hennepin Avenue alone is down by about half. The increase is based on a combination of Hennepin, 1st, and Nicollet. Apparently, some people really liked the bike-lanes down the center configuration on Hennepin – a configuration that almost undoubtedly was a part of the crash statistics, and may have led to more serious crashes due to the physics of bicycle-vs-car based on lane placement and speed.

I think the parking zone/bike lane setup remains the most confusing element of the conversion. Flipping them around does put the bike lane in the door zone, but that’s a more common configuration, and motorists and cyclists typically know where they’re supposed to be in such a setup. The city have stated that they intend to paint all of the shared lanes for vehicles/bicycles green, particularly on Hennepin. Buffer zones are to be added between the bike lanes and parking zones on 1st Avenue to reduce dooring risk and facilitate use of the parking areas by handicapped vans with ramps.

Wired Magazine are ‘crowdsourcing’ reviews, asking people to try their route and see what comes out of the system. It’s a generally savvy crowd, so they aren’t assaulting Google (or their data sources) for errors.

Meanwhile, others are claiming Google is providing hazardous directions. The notable in this category is the NY Post, who found that Google’s data on NYC bike routes is not accurate. Commenters on this article are embracing the general run of bike-hater joy, discussing running bikers off the roads, how this is all a liberal conspiracy, etc. You know, the usual.

As someone who works with Google services every day (for money!), I’ll say that I come closer to the opinions of the Wired folks. It’s a beta project. The pedestrian walking routes instructions have also been notably erratic (routing people onto highways, onramps, sidewalk-free zones). There are prominent buttons to provide feedback. Garmin and other GPS instructions haven’t been 100% either.

GPS services and Google Maps are always going to be limited by their data sets. I think anyone going somewhere unfamiliar, or coming in from out-of-town, needs to view Google Maps as a guide. Talking to a good local bicycle shop, or a local bicycle club, will ever be your best bet for getting the real (and most current) poop on local bike routes, including road construction, reality of what traffic levels are like, and even if they’re scenic or not. No online data set will ever match the know-how of the local cyclists!

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.

If you want to speak out for or against various plans surrounding cycling in the Twin Cities, a few more opportunities are upcoming:

• Public Hearing for Bryant Avenue S Bicycle Boulevard (Minneapolis) – This will be happening on February 9 at Bryant Square Park in Minneapolis. The plan is to connect the Loring bike path on the north and 58th Street on the south. Some of the boulevard will be via bike lane sharrow markings.

• Public Hearing for 5th Street NE Bicycle Boulevard (Minneapolis) – This will be happening on February 10th in NE Minneapolis. The plan is to connect the University Avenue bike path on the north and the 5th Street Pedestrian Bridge over I-35W on the south. Some of the routing will be via bike lane sharrow markings.
• Feedback for Highway 96 Resurfacing Plan – Feedback is ongoing for the plan to resurface Highway 96 next summer. After recent hearings, the current plan will stripe lanes at 11′ (standard lane width is 12′) to provide additional paved shoulder width for bike and peds – but only if support can be gained from the communities of Dell, Grant, and Stillwater Township. Dellwood has formally objected at this point, so advocates are asking citizens of the three communities in favor to contact their city councils in support.

Winter is the big time for these meetings, as plans need to be solidified in time for road construction season. Cyclists should come to meetings to learn about plans and advocate for or against, depending on their feelings about each.

If you look at the configuration of the bike lane and the traffic lane at this intersection, and, in fact, all the way along Park Avenue, this tragic occurrence is not surprising. The lane configuration will regularly put a bicyclist riding straight through in the path of turning vehicles, contrary to the rules of strategic lane placement for vehicular cycling:

View Larger Map

Incidents like this are challenging, because the bike lane itself ends up being a part cause of the accident. A cyclist stopped at the light may be invisible to a vehicle stopped next to it, depending on lane width, placement, and even the height of the vehicle (like a truck). My advice to cyclists using such a lane with such engineering is to never stop AT the stop line. Be sure to be stopped in such a position that you have a clear view of the rear view mirror of the car in the adjoining lane – so the vehicle is ahead of you. Watch for turn signals. Making noise is also a good plan – sing, clap, whatever. You may look like a goof, but better a live goof than crushed by a truck.

Word on Twitter says there will be a Ride of Silence for the anonymous cyclist tonight, May 20, from Lyndale/34th, but I lack a time for this rumored event. I’m watching the MplsBikeLove forums for more detail.

Bowar’s concern is that the bike lane his wife was riding in ends abruptly, right in front of the frontage road. He said it doesn’t resume for another 30 yards down the street. Bowar would like to see some kind of indication that the bike lane continues, for both the safety of bikers and motorists.

This is certainly a reasonable request, although it is an imperfect approach to a wretched event. Fundamentally, whether striped or not, bicycles are traffic. Per Minnesota statute, bicycles are welcome on almost all roads, whether striped with bicycle lanes or not. In my opinion, the striping often gives some cyclists a false sense of security. They can also promote a notion in motorist minds that cyclists belong only in lanes, and not on all streets.

Mr. Bower also recognizes the root cause of the tragedy, however:

…he also thinks his wife’s death could have been prevented if the driver had given Heuer his full attention.

Greater intentional design – creating streets designed for use by pedestrians, transit, cyclists, and autos – coupled with education are essential components of a long-term strategy for urban livability and sustainability.

An interesting twist in this coverage is the following (from the transcript):

There are countless miles of roadway in Minnesota that pose potentially fatal risks to unwary or inexperienced bicyclists. This unsafe arrangement in St. Paul, with frontage road merging onto Summit avenue that forces vehicles to cross a bike lane, is but one example.

By the nature of what a ‘bike lane’ is there will be traffic crossing it at various points – just as cross-street traffic will cross the through-street. On the other hand, the notion of risks to inexperienced cyclists in such arrangements is a fair call. Many cyclists get a false sense of security on trails, sidepaths, and even in on-street bicycle lanes. I’ve commented before on how much of the Summit Avenue bicycle lane is poorly engineered – it rides squarely in the door zone for a good stretch, and has several places where the lane swings in so that a bicyclist may end up to the right of a right-turning car.

There’s a reason that the 5 Es of bicycle-friendliness are engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement, and evaluation/planning.

In each place where the inner service road meets the main throughway of Summit Avenue, there is a stop sign – for the service road. Summit is the ‘main’ road, and thus the only stops along Summit for a vehicle of traffic would be at the major crossings. The cyclist is almost undoubtedly not at fault in the crash described in the Strib – for all the good it does her.

Multiple sections of Minnesota Statute 169 pertain to right-of-way. Being not an officer of the law, or an expert in Minnesota laws as such, I can’t tell you which is especially applicable here. I doubt it’s 169.20, subdivision 4, a personal favorite of mine:

Subd. 4. Vehicle entering roadway. The driver of a vehicle about to enter or cross a roadway
from any place other than a roadway shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles approaching on
the roadway to be entered or crossed.

Usually this is applied to things like alleyways, not service roads.

It’s far more likely that 169.20, Subd. 3 applies:

Subd. 3. Through highway; stop sign. (a) The driver of a vehicle shall stop as required by this chapter at the entrance to a through highway and shall yield the right-of-way to other vehicles
which have entered the intersection from the through highway or which are approaching so closely
on the through highway as to constitute an immediate hazard, but the driver having so yielded may
proceed, and the drivers of all other vehicles approaching the intersection on the through highway
shall yield the right-of-way to the vehicles so proceeding into or across the through highway.
(b) The driver of a vehicle shall likewise stop in obedience to a stop sign, as required herein,
at an intersection where a stop sign is erected at one or more entrances thereto although not a
part of a through highway, and shall proceed cautiously, yielding to vehicles not so obliged to
stop which are within the intersection or approaching so closely as to constitute an immediate
hazard, but may then proceed.

Given the road configuration at the point of the crash, that St. Paul police do not seem to be at least ticketing the driver seems pretty insane. At a minimum, a ticket under the reckless driving statute (169.13) should be possible, even without witnesses. Again, totally not a legal expert, so this is speculation.

What I am, though, is a bicycle educator, and I do think this shows that education matters. Summit is a striped bikeway. There was a stop-sign for the driver, and the cyclist would have been in a legal through lane. There is no low shrubbery through there. Clearly, the SUV driver wasn’t paying attention.

Only education focused on watching for traffic on the road – including bicycle traffic – is really an answer to collisions such as this. How many motorists did you see on cell phones today? How many motorists did you see eating in their car, or putting on makeup at a light, or yelling at the kids in the back seat? None of these behaviors create safe roads for anyone.

But, mysteriously, they’re not allowing bicycles. Per the Star-Tribune:

Judy Bodway, assistant city manager for economic development, said state transportation officials decided that the bridge will reopen Saturday at 8 a.m. to passenger vehicles but not commercial trucks, pedestrians or bicycles. Also, no vehicles can be pulling trailers, even to transport boats.

This does include pickups. It would kind of have to in that area, else the reopening to traffic would be laughable. Everyone and their dog owns a pickup down there, it seems.

Because, yeah, those pedestrians and bicycles? The straw that will break the gusset plate’s back!

They do claim the continued closure to pedestrians and bicyclists is because that part of the bridge needs repair. Uh, what? This can’t just be the gusset plates, which means it probably needed it before the closure, huh?

Bodway said the bicycle and pedestrian traffic remains banned because improvements are needed on that part of the bridge.

MNDOT and Winona are looking for options for pedestrians and bicyclists, although the ferry service will end June 20. Beyond the gusset plate work, they plan to replace the sidewalks.

Which still doesn’t explain to me the bicycle ban, since sidewalks are for pedestrians. But, whatever. I don’t know what enforcement is going to be in place and plan to check it out later this month when I’m in Winona to scout WOW routes.