At Interbike in Las Vegas, Saint Paul, Minnesota, was named to the League of American Bicyclists’ Bicycle Friendly Community list for the first time. They check in with a Bronze designation, which is an excellent first-time recognition for the city.

As a sometime Saint Paul resident, I will testify [...]]]>

Enough about Minneapolis. Let’s talk about Saint Paul, baby.

At Interbike in Las Vegas, Saint Paul, Minnesota, was named to the League of American Bicyclists’ Bicycle Friendly Community list for the first time. They check in with a Bronze designation, which is an excellent first-time recognition for the city.

As a sometime Saint Paul resident, I will testify to the city’s bikeability. While everyone knows Summit Avenue and the Gateway Trail, the city is also full of hidden gems, like the Battle Creek MTB trails, and the creek-level paved trail. The trails in Hidden Falls and Crosby Farm are often missed by cyclists who know the River Road routes. And let’s not forget the mighty climbs of the city — Ramsey Hill, Ohio, and Springside all come to mind, with the last being the steepest hill in Ramsey County. And can you bike past the House at Pooh Corner in Minneapolis? Nope. Saint Paul, bay-bee. Some of the best rest stops in the city can also be found in the capitol city.

The city’s been working on improving things for cyclists as well — everything from median tests to designating some new bikeways. The Saint Paul Bicycle Coalition has been growing more active as well.

And, in a rare statement, I’ve always been impressed with the knowledge city law enforcement has of bike laws and their enforcement.

I should also mention that La Crosse, Wisconsin, also received designation as a Silver-Level Community, and River Falls received an honorable mention. Hooray for them too. But Saint Paul is home, and I’m glad to see them finally request the recognition they deserve.

The bikes-are-toys [...]]]>

One comment common to many alternative transport advocates — including individuals like former Congressman James Oberstar — is that we need to push the idea that bicycles are transportation. One of the big challenges is to overcome perceptions that bicycles are toys or recreational. They can be, certainly — but so can cars and motorcycles.

The bikes-are-toys thought pattern is at the heart of statements like that of Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA), who believes that bicycling shouldn’t be a part of the House Transportation Committee’s work. In his own words, Hunter says, “I don’t see riding a bike the same as driving a car or flying an airplane…. I think it’s more of a recreational thing.” A panelist at a recent House Transport Committee public meeting in Indianapolis compared cyclists to hunters and fishermen.

There is a certain extent to which bike trails feed these notions of bicycles as recreational — and, in the case of many trails, there is a good and fair argument that they should not be funded from transportation programs, but rather from park and conservation funding.

The reasons are straightforward: Most bicycle trails are built with recreational intent. They aren’t designed for access to practical destinations, as would be necessary to classify them as “transportation” facilities. While there are certainly outliers that are contrary to this generality — like the Midtown Greenway and Cedar Lake Trails, which operate as bicycle expressways on a traditional hub-and-spoke model to downtown Minneapolis — the fact is that most trails operate in ways that make them more analogous to parks. Systems like the Gateway State Trail and the Hardwood Creek/Sunrise Prairie Trail can have incidental use for commuters, but it’s really not a primary use or intent.

That isn’t to say that there’s not reason to invest in bicycle trails. Far from it. Bicycles can be recreational. Many trail corridors promote tourism — the wild financial success of the Root River Trail network near Lanesboro, Minnesota, is proof of that. Urban trail systems provide recreational options close to cities and often help preserve green corridors near the urban cores. Users of trails both close to home and further afield provide economic benefits in areas the trails pass through — just go stand in line at the North Saint Paul DQ on a nice July day as proof!

Trail riding and recreational bicycle use can serve as lead-ins to more transport-oriented use of bicycles as well.

However, use of funds allocated to transport use for trails really needs to come down to context. A recreational trail system, defined by park-like structure and limited routing to functional destinations, is not a good use of transportation funds at a time when funding is an issue and likely to remain such as vehicles get better gas mileage, and legislative appetite to raise gas taxes remains low. Trails built on a transportation model, such as the Midtown Greenway, merit consideration for use of transportation enhancement funding. Via appropriate use of all funding models, both recreational and transportational bicycle development can be supported.

Here ’tis:

In all seriousness, not a lot [...]]]>

Yesterday, I posted the Chain Gang 1998 map of Minneapolis bicycle routes. The other side of this fold-up map features the equivalent for the Saint Paul side of the river. My scan accidentally cut off a wee bit of the bottom, but I assure you it’s not a cataclysmic loss.

Here ’tis:

In all seriousness, not a lot has changed. We picked up an additional bridge at I35E a few years back, which has been awesome, but most of what’s on this map remains a good option, and while there are a few streets not marked that also work, they haven’t been significantly re-engineered since 1998. Unlike the Minneapolis map, the Saint Paul map includes numerous streets without striped bike lanes.

Note that Jefferson is marked as a good bicycle route as far back as 1998. This is interesting in light of recent debate about making Jefferson a ‘bicycle boulevard’ – maps like this support my assertion that all such a move does is codify it with some parking changes and paint, but that cyclists have been using it as such for years.

To say that not much has changed is not to say that improvements haven’t occurred – see also the update to the Shepard Road path as an example. However, it’s generally been fairly easy to navigate St. Paul via streets and bicycles for some years, and arguably the arterial options haven’t needed to be changed much.

There’s a way [...]]]>

There’s a Google Maps hack designed specifically for routing bike rides and sharing the maps called Map My Ride. I fiddled with it for a short version of Great Googly Moogly (a 21-mile version I run late-season), and it’s pretty interesting. It allows for pretty easy routing and allows the addition of waypoint notes.

There’s a way to print a map with a cue sheet. They’re really literal with waypoints on the cue.

Even though Google Maps recognizes some trails (for instance, the Gateway State Trail), I’m finding this to work slightly better when you can create an all-road route, just because of the literalness of the cue.

Here’s the printer-friendly link, just to show the example: Googly! Note this will create a print prompt from your browser. Just say no, and you can see it anyway. For whatever reason, this view claims to be powered by Yahoo Maps.

Hm. I think I shall have to play with this a bit more. I’m baffled as to why the draw view is Google Maps and the print view is Yahoo Maps, and there’s some other oddities. On the other hand, it’s open-platform, unlike Delorme map softwares, which are Windows-only. As a Mac/Linux user, I have to prefer a web app.

I, myself, am looking forward to a DQ cone with sprinkles if the wind dies off a bit…

(note: to get to the Gateway Trail after the first turn on Randolph, one needs to go LEFT on Arlington. Doh.)

28 MON 10:00 AM AB/B 62/79/89+ mi. BOP TIL YOU DROP. Depart from University of St. Thomas main lot, corner of [...]]]>

I will be running a 2008 version of the Bop Til You Drop ride on May 28 with TCBC. Last year’s map is available, but be aware that I’m making changes based on updated construction conditions.

28 MON 10:00 AM AB/B 62/79/89+ mi. BOP TIL YOU DROP. Depart from University of St. Thomas main lot, corner of Cretin & Summit Avenues, St. Paul. Shorter B route of 62 miles will visit Woodbury and Lake Elmo; longer routes visit Afton and Stillwater, with the longest route entering Wisconsin. Optional extra loop (that’s the ‘plus’) for those mileage junkies who slept in. Julie Kosbab (VanMersbergen), 651.253.2493, julie-at-rideboldly.org.

This looks like a solid detour set where motorists may be more apt to use different routing than the marked bike/ped detours. The pedestrians are taking a different detour as well, although how much that occurs is going to be [...]]]>

The Department of Transportation has posted the Gateway Trail detour map for this year’s Highway 36 construction.

This looks like a solid detour set where motorists may be more apt to use different routing than the marked bike/ped detours. The pedestrians are taking a different detour as well, although how much that occurs is going to be interesting given how many bladers I see with runners, or runners with really slow bikers…

The paper — and for [...]]]>

The Star-Tribune reports that, to save time and money, MN-DOT will be closing a section of Highway 36 entirely through North Saint Paul for reconstruction. Construction is to begin in May. (See: Splitting North St. Paul in the Sunday, April 1 edition; I’m quite sure this isn’t a weird April Fool’s prank.)

The paper — and for that matter, the DNR page for the Gateway Trail — doesn’t mention if there’s going to be closure/rerouting of the Gateway Trail through there. It does mention that the Snowman gets to stay put at Margaret, so there’s a possibility that it won’t.

But I’m doubting it.

This reconstruction is great. The trail crossings that run parallel to Highway 36 between White Bear Avenue and Interstate 694 are a hazard. Because it’s a trail, cyclists and walkers and other users frequently are going counter to traffic, and drivers who don’t look both ways are prone to taking out a few trail users here or there. Highway 36 is going to an expressway format, so that can only help.

But I’m guessing that relative to the closure, it’s going to muck up the trail. A lot.

There are a lot of easy re-routes — but most of them are the same re-routes as mentioned for automotive traffic. County B is a staple road for north-side bikers, as is County C. For a lot of the recreational users of the trail, these routes aren’t appealing. Even for experienced vehicular cyclists, using these roads this summer won’t be appealing, because a lot of people on the re-routes will be frustrated with construction and having to go a different route that runs 20-30 mph SLOWER than their accustomed route — never the best people to be sharing a lane with given a choice!

Beyond that, the re-routes also are considerably less flat — another negative for many users, especially those in the pink-training-wheels set, who often are seen with parents near the MN120 crossing going to the DQ.

It will be interesting to see what kind of mayhem is created — and if the crossing up above 694 at Washington County 12 gets opened BEFORE or DURING the start of the mayhem…