Whatcha’ doing this Friday night at 5pm? Nothing? Oh, that’s cool. Kinda. Join local urban and transportation celebrity bloggers on the 1st Annual Minneapolis Bike ‘n’ Brew Tour. The route is a simple 8 (eight) miles that start at Harriet Brewing Company at 5pm. The route will then progress up through Northeast as the night goes on. [...]

Why Do We Need Laws To Prevent Parking in Bike Lanes?
Seriously, why? Today’s Star-Tribune features an article about current legislative activity at the state Capitol oriented to banning parking in bicycle lanes. Really? Why is this even an issue? It’s already legal to park there? Why? Is it legal to park in traffic lanes? No. Is it legal to park blocking alleyways? Don’t think it [...]

Suburban Cyclists: Bridging the Gap
This post is an editorial recap of one of the Metropolitan Council bike study meetings focusing on outer ring suburbs to identify major bike routes. There are still opportunities for people to attend in their area: Plymouth: April 24, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. Plymouth Library 15700 36th Avenue N, Plymouth Chanhassen: April 25th, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. [...]

Advisory Bike Lanes on Wooddale Ave to be Removed
A couple weeks ago, the City of Edina City Council voted to revise the striping on Wooddale Avenue. The plan will remove the experimental “advisory bike lanes” that were installed in 2012 and have proven to be a controversial issue for the City. In it’s place, the new design will feature a traditional bike lane [...]

Saint Paul’s Nice Ride Failure Shows Need for Downtown Bike Lanes
I saw my first NiceRider this week, an Asian student crossing the Wasington Avenue bridge on the University of Minnesota campus. It seems that, barring massive snowstorms forcing the bright green bikes to scuttle back to their hibernation caves, the Nice Ride season is upon us. They’re even expanding again, adding 24 new stations along [...]

The Non-Motorized Bottleneck: 15th Avenue SE
After reading Prescott Morrill’s great article on the continual growth of the Minneapolis bicycling population, I was initially shocked at certain count levels in specific areas. The counts in the Bike Walk Twin Cities study were within a 2-hour time period during evening rush (4pm – 6pm), and occurred in a week timeframe in mid-September. [...]

A Glimpse of Biking Network Effects
Recently I’ve become the steward of an amazing and rich set of non-motorized transportation data through work with Bike Walk Twin Cities (BWTC), a local non-profit administering the federal Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program (NTPP), since 2007 (part of the SAFETEA_LU legislation). This $28M pilot program, awarded to 4 communities around the country and luckily our [...]

The National Bike Summit’s Legislative Record: Progress or Hype?
The National Bike Summit, sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists, is scheduled for next week — March 4-6, 2013 — in Washington DC. As happens every year, the NBS is the “most important one yet!” where attendees voices are needed to maintain the “momentum” of the bike movement. It’s the “advocacy event of the [...]

Best Practices for Traffic Control at Regional Trail Crossings
I’m short on time today, and writing from northeastern Nevada (where the big news today is that the entire county is having issues accessing the internet). So please forgive me if this post seems a bit hurried. I’ve uploaded a document called Best Practices for Traffic Control at Regional Trail Crossings. The document tries to establish some [...]

University Avenue’s Evil Twin: 4th St SE
Gather around, students and colleagues. I am going to tell you a story about a magnificent avenue called University, and its less acknowledged disgruntled twin, 4th Street. Once upon a time, these two thoroughfares happily ran side by side. 4th Street housed one of Twin City Rapid Transit’s most used streetcar lines, and University Avenue [...]
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Bikes and Businesses Must Unite
April 24, 2013
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Minnesota Vikings Stadium Needs Better Urban Design
May 14, 2013
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Why I’m proud to be “offended” by the judgemental map of Minneapolis
April 29, 2013
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Washington Avenue proposed layouts are posted
May 11, 2013
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SPUD
May 11, 2013
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No Parking and De-Signing Streets
May 20, 2013
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Podcast #35 – Twin Cities Greenways with Dacia Durham and Matthew Hendricks
May 16, 2013
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The Yard at Downtown East
May 15, 2013
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Minnesota Vikings Stadium Needs Better Urban Design
May 14, 2013
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Clarifying the Minneapolis Event Rate Meter Parking Debacle
May 13, 2013
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Alex Cecchini: Ross, you bring up a good point that as long as ou...
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Matt: My point is that if we unbundled parking from tran...
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Ross Williams: "Ross, the assumption that “the” alternative ...
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Matt: When I was working to start a car sharing organiza...
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Bill Lindeke: I like "car storage" too. They're just sitting ...
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From the network
- Bikeway Functional Class: I’ve been reading a lot of bike plans lately, and there seems to be a pretty wide variety of frameworks used by agencies to categorize bikeways. In particular, I’m intrigued by the variet...
- Riding Minnehaha Ave with Kids. Or not.: A few days ago, I was out for a ride with Isaiah's dad, Michael. You might remember Isaiah. He's the now 10-year-old who rode 150 miles in two days as a fundraiser for the Coalition. O...
- NLX Promotional Material: Just for the historical record, please find attached a scan of the 1 page / 2 sided brochure that the promoters of the Northern Lights Express distributed at the May 11, 2013 National Train Day event...
- A Call for a New Model: Building a Strong Town is a complex, long-term endeavor. Much as a successful family balances their short-term spending needs with their long-term savings and financial commitments, so too must a Stro...
- 2012 Nice Ride flows revisited: For the last two years, I’ve mapped the flows of the Nice Ride bikes. I’ve always been slightly dissatisfied with the results, since bikes were obviously shown taking routes that any san...
- What is the Constituency of a Local Land-Use Decision?: cross-posted at Streets.mn In the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis, a local entrepreneur put together a proposal to develop a surface parking lot into a 5-story condo building with retail s...
- 7 Reasons Conservatives Should Embrace Bikes: There’s a certain bar in my city that is famous for being right-wing. It’s an old family joint in a run-down corner of downtown. The people are surly but friendly, and the inside of the place is h...
- Minnesota Vikings Stadium FAIL – We need better urban design: The architecture of the Minnesota Vikings Stadium: take it or leave it? Personally, I think it looks like a cross between a laser jet printer, a drunk Frank Gehry and something out of 2001: A Space Od...
- The budget tax deal: mnpACT! Progressive Political Blog Sausage may make a fine meal, but don't watch it being made.And so it is with budget legislation. The DFL Legislature has agreed to a tax bill and...
- A Bold Vision for a Downtown Park and a More Beautiful City: The great mayor of Charleston, Joe Riley, likes to say “there is no reason to build anything that won’t add to the beauty of the city.” Inspiring words. It behooves the Mayor of Minneapolis, R.T...
- Pedestrians prohibited on streets.mn: Today on streets.mn I examine Bloomington’s latest bungle. Bloomington is the suburb I lived in the longest, it has some really nice topography for the Twin Cities that great parks like Hyland,...
- Do Local Policies Explain the Decline in Driving?: Driving is declining. Reports like this recent one by USPIRG claim that "The Driving Boom—a six decade-long period of steady increases in per-capita driving in the United States—is over.
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