Bikeways Posts

The City of Minneapolis released its Transportation Action Plan draft last week. This plan is an addendum to the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan that will guide transportation projects in Minneapolis for the next ten years.

We are thrilled to announce the creation of the Streets for People Work Group. This volunteer work group is a combination of the Downtown Bikeways and Pedestrian Work Groups. This change enables volunteers to discuss street space holistically and more efficiently advocate for streets that deliver safety, justice, and equity regardless of a person’s identity and lived experience.

The Downtown Bikeways Work Group came together in January for their first meeting of the year and had a packed agenda. We kicked off the meeting by talking about fun things we did over the holidays. Group members are energized after the break and excited to get back into advocacy.

There’s a lot happening in the City that we’re engaging in. Folks talked about advocacy efforts including influencing Hennepin County transportation decision-making at the Franklin Avenue Open House, and the Lyndale Avenue S Community Forum organized by Commissioner Marion Greene.

From welcoming a new Executive Director to celebrating our 10th anniversary, 2019 has been a huge year for us. At Our Streets Minneapolis we are grateful for your continued support as we work for a city where biking, walking, and rolling are easy and comfortable for everyone. With only six staff this year, we depended on our local community to make this all happen. Thank you for working toward our shared vision of a city that puts people first!

Join us as we look back on all we accomplished together this year and look ahead to what we have planned for 2020. Plus, be sure to read to the end of this post for an update on our financial situation.

As Our Streets Minneapolis celebrates our 10th anniversary, we’re taking a look back at some of the volunteers and groups that helped us get where we are today. As a community driven organization, we depend on local folks lending their skills and time to our movement. 

LaTrisha Vetaw joined the Board of Directors of what was then the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition in 2015, and went on to serve as the Board Chair in 2016 and 2017. LaTrisha played a critical role in the organization’s expansion to include walking and rolling in our core mission. She currently serves as an At Large Commissioner for the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board.

Another summer of Open Streets Minneapolis festivities has come and gone, and during all the fun, the Downtown Bikeways Work Group collected some valuable data about people’s bike lane preferences. We set up a poster with images of the different types of bike lanes you can find in Minneapolis, and asked Open Streets Minneapolis attendees to place a sticker next to the bike infrastructure on which they feel most comfortable riding. Over the course of the summer, we received a whopping 1,742 responses to this question, and I’m here to report the final tallies. 

Pedestrian Work Group

The Pedestrian Work Group hosted a Walk & Talk on Lyndale Ave S in September. Folks can watch and read news coverage of the walk on the City Pages website. 

Our September meeting was on a soggy night, but we had a solid turnout, with nine folks braving the downpour to join us. Ash kicked off the meeting by recapping some of our successes from this summer: Park & Portland being repainted to have their buffers again, stopping the Federal Reserve parking garage from being built in the North Loop, and getting 26th St to be protected again with plastic bollards.

The Downtown Protected Bikeways work group would like to thank the City of Minneapolis Public Works employees that recently restored the bollards to 26th Street!

Up until a week ago, there were only thirteen plastic bollards designating the bike lane on 26th Street between Blaisdell and Lyndale as protected. On the eight block stretch of 26th Street between Lyndale and Hennepin, there was just a single bollard. Most of the missing bollards were accidentally taken out by last winter’s snowplowing, and had been missing since February. Many of our work group members had stopped riding on 26th Street as a result - 26th Street just didn’t feel protected at all any more.

Come celebrate with us next month! 

Last month we decided to meet in July even though many attendees would be out of town for the July 4th holiday. We decided that we didn’t want to lose our recent momentum - and we didn’t! We have lots of exciting projects that we are working on, some of which we’ll share at a later date.

We started the meeting with introductions, welcoming one new member, and welcoming back one member from a previous era of the Downtown Bikeways work group! We shared some of our favorite biking related memories as an ice breaker.