Word on the Streets

like magic

Sometimes when I come across the installation of new bicycle friendly features on the road, it feels like magic. It is as if someone waved their magic wand over night while I was sleeping and made the world I dream of existing in, a reality ~ at least for a block, or two. :)

Last year it was the amazing transformation of the Franklin Avenue Bridge from car friendly to bicycle friendly.

This year, much to my surprise, two paths I travel frequently are all now shiny and new with bicycle friendly stripes.

I often head east on Como Avenue at the intersection of 18th Avenue SE and Como. Last year I was pleasantly surprised by the bicycle lanes that started after the train tracks at 22nd Avenue SE and Como, and then the lanes that went in East of there, including up the hill to Saint Anthony Park. But now, new bicycle lanes complete the continuous flow all the way down Como from when you turn right onto Como from 15th Avenue SE heading North from the UofM until I turn right on the UofM Transit Way, and beyond. This was an exciting day.

As if that wasn't enough, on my way home, I circle back through the U and about fell off my bicycle seat at the sight of this. This has always been a bit of a tricky transition from the bicycle lane to go straight on 15th Avenue at Rollins. I have no illusion that a green stripe will make that all go away, but it certainly feels better and can only help. Question is, do a lot of the drivers in this area know what a green stripe on the road means? I've seen a lot of bad driving over here, some having to do with sobriety issues, some having to do with pure cluelessness, but I remain optimistic that a green stripe can only be good and I am excited about it.

I am on the board of the MBC, I am not naive enough to think this is all magic. Things like this happen through the hard work of a lot of people. But I prefer to believe in the magic, it makes my bicycle rides all that more fun.

What exciting changes have you seen where you ride this Summer?

posted by | August 21, 2011

Bicycle Friendly Businesses: the Birchwood Cafe

This is the first in what I hope is an ongoing series on bicycle friendly businesses in Minneapolis. Some businesses go out of their way to make themselves open, welcoming places for bicyclists. They deserve our praise - and our business.

First up: the Birchwood Cafe.

In addition to serving local, sustainable and very tasty food, the Birchwood has embraced bicycling like few non-bike-related businesses I've seen. There's a Birchwood Bike Team. And where too many businesses treat bicycle parking as an afterthought, bike racks are right out front at the Birchwood. And when they outgrew the racks they had installed in the boulevard, they pushed for the city's first-ever on-street bicycle parking.

What was once a parking space for one solitary car now holds more than a dozen bikes. And not only did the Birchwood have to pay for this installation - and pay to have it removed every winter, so that it isn't destroyed by snow plows - they had to fight pretty tenaciously to convince the City to allow it.

Now that this has been tried somewhere in the city, it will be much easier for the next business that wants to surrender an auto parking space to create new spaces for bikes. That sort of trailblazing is absolutely essential - someone has to volunteer to work out those first-time kinks.

As if that wasn't enough, the Birchwood sought - and helped pay for - a Nice Ride kiosk, also on-street.

This spot wasn't on Nice Ride's list of locations for the first year. This kiosk is only here because the Birchwood made it happen. As someone who lives around here, I can tell you that this isn't just an amenity for the Birchwood, and its staff and customers. When I take transit to work because it's raining in the morning, I know that I can hop a Nice Ride to get within easy walking distance of my house, all thanks to a certain bike friendly neighborhood business.

So - what about you? Any bike friendly businesses is your neighborhood?

posted by | August 20, 2011

Observations From A Recent Visit to San Francisco

I recently spent 4 days in San Francisco where I had not been for the past 5 years. While others in my group admired the architecture and other amenities of the city, I was looking for bicyclists, bicycle lanes, and how bicycles were interacting with cars.

I immediately noticed an explosion of bicyclists from my last visit. On the Saturday afternoon I was there, I would characterize the bicycle activity as rush hour Midtown Greenway density spread out into the city streets in most of the flat and moderately hilly neighborhoods. I noticed a number of regular stripe and green stripe bike lanes, sharrows, bike boxes, and even sharrows and bike lanes on the same block. The percentage of helmet wearers appeared higher than Minneapolis but the use of night time lights was substantially less.

The bicycle controversy at the time was a police campaign to ticket bicyclists who run red lights. Apparently, there had been a recent spate of pedestrians struck by bicyclists and there had been at least one incident where a pedestrian was struck and killed by a cyclist running a red light.

I was able to visit the offices of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. They were very busy and I was not able to spend a lot of time with them. They are in raw commercial space on the 10th floor of an old downtown office building. Right off the elevators were vertical wall bike racks where the staff and volunteers store their bikes. There were a number of 4 foot by 6 foot maps, graphs and artist renditions on the walls. SFBC has 4 paid staff and a number of volunteers and interns. Their goals are similar to those of the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition: to make the city a safe and comfortable place for bicyclists of all ages and abilities.

The city is half way through its bike plan and it looks like the advocates are well on their way to making San Francisco a first class bicycling city comparable to many European venues.

Bill D

posted by | August 19, 2011