They both have a point, and miss one, in my opinion.

It’s a very good point that most of the info disseminated by bicycle advocates about cycling in the snow really orients [...]]]>

The excellent Copehnagenize has an excellent post on how most posts on cycling in winter complicate the issue and emphasize subculture instead of mainstreaming the notion.

They both have a point, and miss one, in my opinion.

It’s a very good point that most of the info disseminated by bicycle advocates about cycling in the snow really orients to lifestyle cyclists and not people who ride bikes. At the same time, even somewhere like Minneapolis, riding in the snow isn’t yet considered normal, and all the gung-ho promotion of it as normal is not going to win over most people. In addition, even when you deal with a bikeway like the Midtown Greenway, which is plowed regularly, the relative normalcy of cycling in winter is also influenced by how a city approaches snow/ice removal in general, and how a city’s drivers approach cyclists in general.

In winter, in Minneapolis, drivers are less likely to look for and expect cyclists than they are normally. This is just a truth.

In winter, snow removal practices influence cycling possibilities more than usual. Snow removal focuses on major routes first, which are often not ideal bike routes, especially in snow. The artery streets that get priority are often faster, with limited shoulder/bike facility, and even if plowed to the curb, end up a little narrower than usual.

I try to avoid the cyclist elitist approach, but there are places that there is reason to emphasize certain approaches. Yes, they’re right that if “dressing in layers” is news to you, you’re likely to be dead before the end of your first Minnesota winter. But issues like how to handle in snow, how black ice mucks with bike handling, why maybe the bike you have in your garage ISN’T a good idea in some conditions (the idea of riding my Giant OCR1 on ice? Oh dear god no!), how route selection may need to vary in snow… all real. All legitimate in cities that don’t take cyclists for granted, and whose infrastructure is a hodge-podge of accommodation and suitability at the BEST of times, let alone when said streets and accommodations need to be plowed and salted.

The subculture can promote winter cycling in ways that don’t stink of subculture. But right now, cycling in winter remains subcultural. And we’d all be lying if we said that riding in winter was just like riding at any other time, or that the behaviors of June translate on a 1-to-1 basis to the behaviors of  January after 3-5″, a clear, a partial melt, and another 2″ fall. Because we’d be lying heinously in ways that if anyone were dumb enough to believe us could cause injury, confusion, and delay.

Should winter cycling be a circle-jerk? No. Does it require some extra thought processes? Hell yeah.

Wikipedia offers a good working definition of bicycle boulevard:

A bicycle boulevard is a low speed street which has been optimized for bicycle traffic. Bicycle boulevards discourage cut-through motor vehicle traffic, but typically allow local [...]]]>

I attended the RiverLake Greenway grand opening last Saturday, helping with an activity site and checking out the new route.

First: What is a Bicycle Boulevard?

Wikipedia offers a good working definition of bicycle boulevard:

A bicycle boulevard is a low speed street which has been optimized for bicycle traffic. Bicycle boulevards discourage cut-through motor vehicle traffic, but typically allow local motor vehicle traffic.

A boulevard can include formal bike lane striping, sharrows, or just traffic-calming to discourage through traffic. The new RiverLake Greenway offers all of the above.

The Route

One thing to know about this Greenway is that the whole route has not been subject to traffic calming. From West River Parkway to Nokomis Avenue, the Greenway follows 42nd Street. This route has long been a popular bike route, with some caveats. Sharrows have been painted along the way, with a few sections of striped bike lane. However, 42nd Street is what it has always been: A residential through-street where trucks are allowed. The street is a major truck route, and the traffic along the way reflects this.

Some snappy new signs have been added along 42nd, including signs at Minnehaha directing cyclists to Minnehaha Falls and Park, as well as the Midtown Greenway — which is a protected bikeway.

Past Nokomis Avenue, the route jogs over to 40th Street, where many more traffic calming measures can be seen.

New concrete barriers direct local traffic off 40th Street onto cross-streets, and eliminate the use of 40th as a through street:

Paint markings on the street, as well as signs, indicate the street’s status as a part of the bicycle boulevard:

Where concrete barriers exist for vehicles, curb cuts allow bicycles to use 40th as a through street. Pedestrians are also accommodated, with the concrete sections allowing refuge when crossing busier streets, like Chicago, Nicollet and Portland.

The Greenway goes through to Kings Highway, where it connects to the Minneapolis Lakes Area paths and bike routes. Users can also turn onto the Portland and Park Avenue bike lanes if those routes are desirable for their final destination.

Via the RiverLake Greenway, many connections can be made to neighborhood businesses, schools, churches and parks.

Community Impact of a Bicycle Boulevard

Some of the neighbors are delighted by the traffic-calming impact on the street. One group decorated their home and set up out front to celebrate the grand opening. I spoke to them for a bit, and they said that the impact on the street was nearly magical — no more drag racing, no more people trying to use 40th as a through street at higher speeds. The boulevard is calming their neighborhood.

Regular riders of the Greenway have seen the states of disrepair of many of the Greenway underpasses. A mobile operation will blast loose concrete off underpasses between Hennepin Avenue and Cedar, [...]]]>

The City of Minneapolis has started various bridge projects that will impact the Midtown Greenway for the immediate future and last through approximately mid-summer, weather permitting.

Regular riders of the Greenway have seen the states of disrepair of many of the Greenway underpasses. A mobile operation will blast loose concrete off underpasses between Hennepin Avenue and Cedar, enhancing safety and cleanliness — in some locations, concrete has been crumbling onto the trail. The bridge work will impact approximately 25-30 bridges. City workers will be working on these bridges during the week, usually during core hours of 7:30-3:30. Closures will be clearly marked and offer reasonable detours for trail users.

Additional bridge rehab work is planned near the Lakes — specifically, on the bridges over the Lake Calhoun-Lake of the Isles Channel, Lake Calhoun Parkway, and Dean Parkway. Work on these bridges will help widen the Greenway and extend the life of these bridges. Trail closures are not expected during this work.

In both cases, cyclists are asked to respect workers and posted closures and detours. In situations where the trail is narrowed but remains open, cyclists are asked to show respect to other trail users in lane placement and travel speed.

More information is available from the Midtown Greenway Coalition.

Pre-registration is essential, but [...]]]>

The Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota is serious about delivering bicycle education. So serious, in fact, that they are putting on a free half-day of Confident Cycling this Saturday, April 2, from 9:30am – 1:30 pm at the Midtown Bicycle Center. Local LCI (and sometime Ride Boldly! commenter) Hokan will be leading the course.

Pre-registration is essential, but you can do that via the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota. Once again: This is FREE, it is awesome, it is this Saturday. Go and register.

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.

Obviously, fixing is a far superior choice to having raw sewage [...]]]>

This coming summer – and possibly in following years – the Midtown Greenway will have some reroutes and access point closures near Lake Calhoun. The reason? Minneapolis can either proactively replace a decaying sewer line, or face reroutes as a result of raw sewage getting free.

Obviously, fixing is a far superior choice to having raw sewage in parks, backyards, and the lakes.

Per the Southwest Journal:

Greenway users will not, for two months this summer, be able to enter and exit the trail onto Dean Parkway. Crews will need to dig around the ramp there to properly bury the pipe. Gordon said he is asking the Hennepin County Regional Rail Authority about making a temporary entrance one block east at Thomas Avenue.

Without the Dean Parkway ramp, bicyclists will have to go west to Whole Foods or east to the Lagoon to get on or off the trail.

In a few places, the repair work will require digging under the Greenway. Route-arounds will be constructed to allow traffic to get through. I expect that those spots will demand some etiquette from cyclists and pedestrians alike, as such re-routes tend to be narrower.

Still, beats cleaning up raw sewage.

Photo by Micah Taylor, via Flickr

This project, like many others in the Twin Cities, is being supported via a grant from the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Program.

The new [...]]]>

The University of Minnesota is embracing the concept of reuse-recycle to encourage students to use bicycles to access campus by repurposing an old bus center in the Oak Street Ramp to become a bicycle center.

This project, like many others in the Twin Cities, is being supported via a grant from the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Program.

The new center will feature secure bike parking, showers, and other amenities, much as is offered by the popular Midtown Bike Center on the Greenway, which has proven popular with Minneapolis bicycle commuters.

Use of the facility to park will incur fees – but the annual fee will be much less than even the monthly cost to park in similar university facilities. Bicycles already account for more than 10% of campus trips, and such facilities will help encourage students, faculty and staff to increase this number and reduce traffic congestion in what is a very busy area.

Image by Steven Vance, via Flickr