Ride Boldly! || Bicycle Safety, Advocacy & Events in Minnesota

April 5, 2012
by julie
1 Comment

St. Paul Approves Jefferson Avenue Bikeway (Finally)

After another fine round of hand-wringing, the St. Paul City Council approved the Jefferson Avenue bike boulevard.

This has been a victory for… well, let’s be honest here. Absolutely no one. It took four years, hundreds of traffic engineer hours, a whole bunch of city and community council meeting hours, and thousands of advocacy hours both for and against the plan to approve making an already bike-friendly street a bit friendlier.

A Minneapolis bike boulevard.

The very same city that brought us the ultra-shenanigans of Ayd Mill Road — a road originally designed in a trench to connect two interstates, but which was thwarted — has now brought us its equal and opposite. Where Ayd Mill Road was not residential at all, nearby neighbors screeched to make it a linear park, not a reliver roadway to get cars of the surface streets. Meanwhile, Jefferson is very residential, not especially high speed, and the neighbors screeched that the city might add some traffic circles and make it even more residential and happy. Oh noes.

The final approved “bikeway” will have three traffic circles, down from five; one of the three was added last minute after three were removed from the original plan. And one of that pair won’t be built until 2017.

It’s like St. Paul has embraced being a lesser Minneapolis — the larger Twin having done several bike boulevards “right.” They’ve ~~wasted~~ taken exponentially more timeÂ to create a watered-down result on what should have been a slam-dunk, easily approved project.

Meh.

March 31, 2012
by julie
1 Comment

Update on Safe Routes to Schools in Blaine: No Go

On March 15, the Blaine City Council voted 5-2 against a design, bid and build project to build sidewalks on 91st Avenue and Jackson Street near Westwood Middle School in Blaine. The project would have been paid for 100% by a Safe Routes to School grant previously discussed.

The application was the third application made by city staff to obtain SRTS funding for sidewalks in the neighborhood. Once awarded, the city council became involved. As expected, in the open meeting hijinks were abundant:

While an open house to explain the project was held October 10, 2011, that meeting was sparsely attended. More than 30 residents attended the city council meeting. One councilmember has suggested that city staff hold public hearings before applying for any future grants.
The principal of Westwood Intermediate School spoke in favor of the project, as did one neighbor whose property would be impacted. The principal of the school pointed out that a number of students/parents are dropped off because of the road, and that with 200 staff members and 36 buses coming in every morning and leaving every evening, the sidewalk would enable at least 200 more students to walk or bike to school.
Another resident said that when his daughters attended the school, they walked. They didn’t need a sidewalk! He also pointed out that “We don’t see that many kids walking back and forth to school.” Which… yeah. Maybe because there’s not a sidewalk?
Additional residents were concerned about sidewalk maintenance, as predicted by Reuben. One resident suggested that other areas in Blaine would be better choices to use the federal grant money — which is actually impossible, as SRTS grants are earmarked to specific projects.

The residents presented a 19-name petition of opposition to the project. An enterprising Westwood sixth grader presented a petition of 84 names in favor. And at the end of the vote, only 2 councilmembers voted for the project to 5 against.

I have to hope that these kind of shenanigans are held against future applications for Safe Routes grants from municipalities, because while I don’t want to sound vindictive, requests are made for more than 3 times the money than is available for grants. If a municipality exhibits this kind of process in response to scoring a coveted grant, I don’t know that they should be coddled and given additional funds.

March 27, 2012
by julie
Comments Off on Taco Tuesday! Or, Crockpot Carnitas for Cyclists

Taco Tuesday! Or, Crockpot Carnitas for Cyclists

Taco Making Robot is a myth. Crockpots are fact.

So, you and your friends want to do a 6 hour ride, but you don’t want to starve when you get home. And you’ve just discovered that the Taco Making Robot is a myth.

Whatever to do?

The crockpot is friend to many, not the least of whom is the noble cyclist. You can dump raw food in it, leave for a pleasant ride of several hours, and return to hot tasty food. Truly, it is a miracle of science.

The below recipe is my well-loved recipe for crockpot carnitas. I am not a nutritionist and I’m not espousing this as any kind of training chow or anything else. I am saying “this is how you leave your house for a 6 hour ride and return to tacos.”

Crock Pot Carnitas

Take 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander and 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Rub into one 2-3 pound boneless pork loin roast. Dump into crock pot, fatty side up. Add to crock pot 1 cup liquid — this can be a yellow beer, chicken broth, or water. (If using chicken broth, skip the salt in the rub.) Add 1 tablespoon lime juice. Throw in 1 tablespoon fresh minced garlic and 1 bay leaf.

Cover. Set crock pot to low heat.

Wash your hands, because you were just fondling raw pork, and you don’t want to get that gunk on your bike gloves.

Get your stuff together and ride your bike for 4-6 hours. When you get home, send your buddy to buy more beer. Meanwhile, use a fork to scrape off the main part of the fat layer and remove from crock. Fish out the bay leaf. Shred the heck out of that meat.

Make up some rice or beans while you wait for the return of the beer-runners.

Pile into taco shells of choice (hard, soft, corn, whatever) with whatever you like on tacos (cilantro? salsa? cheese? lettuce? guac? yeah, go for it, you just rode 4-6 hours, right?). Crack a beer and eat tacos until you are full of taco-y goodness.

Note: Finished shredded pork can be frozen single-serve in sandwich baggies for quick defrosting after future rides. The spice mix also mixes up well in bulk to keep around. If you prefer to use garlic powder, put about 1 teaspoon garlic powder into the mix, or more if you fear vampires. But this really is better with fresh garlic, you cretin.

March 26, 2012
by julie
Comments Off on Traffic Calming = Life Calming

Traffic Calming = Life Calming

The other day I referenced the sheer amount of street traffic that comes into play from parents driving their kids to school. There are similar figures available for how much filth the school pickup carline emits (right next to the school!).

little dude on a tagalong Getting at least SOME of these trips done via biking or walking is huge for traffic calming and making the air on the school playground tastier.

But there’s more beyond that in terms of messaging. I have never seen an argument for biking/walking your kids to school as a form of life calming.

If you consider that most kids are in school about 36 weeks a year, that means there are approximately 252 Wednesdays from the time a child starts kindergarten to the time they start 7th grade. I’m choosing Wednesday arbitrarily; 7th grade is chosen because that’s right around the age a kid would rather die than be seen in public with mom or dad. (I’m pretty sure this can be statistically proven.)

If a parent takes one day a week in that K-6 time period to bike or walk to school, they get more time watching their kid grow up. Instead of having a kid in the backseat of the car, they can be two abreast and talk. They can be accessible as a parent to hear about what is going on with their kid in a more relaxed environment than the cross-examination at the dinner table.

It is a quieter time, at a slower pace, that helps arrest the quick passage of time as a child grows. This is time that cannot be reclaimed by parent or child later. It also calms traffic and reduces air pollution and fuel use. Bicycling and walking create less wear and tear on roadways, as well.

Similar arguments can be applied to other trips under 2 miles. I rode with my kids to the library the other day, total round trip of 5.5 miles. Sure, it took a little longer, but from birth to age 18, I have approximately 936 Saturdays to spend with my kids. As they grow, they will be less interested in spending that time with me versus other things (activities, dates, part-time employment, drum corps, whatever). So it took a little longer to get there and back. That was part of the point.

In a world dedicated to speed, it is good to remind people of the value of slowing down. And if we can get parents of the world to slow down a bit, we reach a pretty large population and can make a pretty good difference. The math is compelling.

March 23, 2012
by julie
2 Comments

Women & Children on Bikes: Perspective

The little dude abides.

After the Women’s Cycling Forum on Wednesday, I posted about how some of the messaging made me rantier and more cranky than usual. There have been posts from people who attended who summarize some of the positive stuff said there, most specifically this post by new mom Tanya Snyder of StreetsBlog DC.

Because she’s a new mom, she refers to the issues of biking with a baby. I’ve certainly posted my share about biking with babies, because I have two kids under age four. As ever, some people bring up rigging a carseat into a trailer and other mayhem — something that makes carseat experts wince in horror, for the record. And it got me thinking.

Seriously: The only people who want to bike with infants are the already-converted. You are not going to address the “more women on bikes!” problem by focusing on the problem of biking with infants. The only people who ponder such shenanigans are people who bike regularly already, with a healthy side dose (from the ladies) of worrying about the recovery of both the abdominal muscles and the lady bits. (Both take a beating in pregnancy.) Yes, I know ladies (and gents) in Copenhagen and Amsterdam take very young children on bikes. These fine places are constantly cited for cycling bliss. But these places also have full cultural acceptance and infrastructure. We do not. Let’s stop pretending this is apples-to-apples.

If we want to talk about reasons more women aren’t riding, we should skip over the whole infancy stage of child care. Let’s skip straight to “kid is big enough to walk, use a sippy cup, and learn naughty words from drivers screaming at the bikers.” Why?

Babies are fragile. One of the reasons for conservative advice on when to put a kid in a helmet and trailer is because kids are born with flexible skulls. Most natural-childbirth kids have coneheads for the first week, and the skull doesn’t just go round then harden up BOOM. It actually takes a while. It also takes a while for the neck and spine to really be able to support the head. Parental instinct is to protect small humans, because small humans are pretty useless at doing anything but eating, sleeping, and pooping.
Ladies with very young children also tend to be fragile. I don’t care what celebrity ladies in gossip magazines are able to do to regain their figures after childbirth; they have personal trainers and nannies. Real women who have just output something the size of a large melon via their ladyparts have healing to do — their ladyparts need some recovery time, and their abdominal muscles have to re-merge — they kind of separate during pregnancy. And let’s not mention if the nice lady had to have two c-sections, okay?
Equipment and prep for going with a kid tends to cost less. After a certain point, for short rides, the kid may even be self-propelled and not on a tagalong or in a trailer.
As kids get bigger, there are more practical, trips-under-2-miles, applications of putting caregiver woman on a bike with the kid — sport practices, to and from school, off to playdates, etc.

Given that women are known to be more risk averse in general when it comes to biking, pushing cycling with an infant (her infant!) is simply not a productive approach for a woman already hesitant to ride. It’s not a good use of energy directed at what’s a real gender divide. Tackle the ladies who have bigger kids with energy to kill. These women take the majority of car trips under 2 miles, often with kids in tow. Estimates say that 10-14% of morning traffic in many residential areas are parents getting kids to school. Get them to do even some neighborhood trips by bike, and you have a huge increase in bike activity — and tons of traffic calming. It’s a goal that can be made realistic for the audience. Biking with a baby? Probably less realistic, and lower overall impact.

Let’s reframe the discussion. Let’s look at Safe Routes to Schools educational packages as not about parents letting their kids bike solo, but trying to get the parents — who are generally moms, let’s be honest — to ride WITH the kids. Let’s recruit the children of non-biking mothers as active partners in getting ladies on bikes. The resources already exist for all this. Seize ’em. And roll.