Hennepin County is preparing to reconstruct a portion of Washington Avenue between Hennepin Avenue and 5th Avenue South. There has been much discussion of this project, in part because the reconstructed road may or may not include some sort of bike facilities. Today I got an email about an upcoming public meeting for the project, and I noticed [...]
Tag Archives | bike
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. [...]
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. [...]
2012 Best Trend (Hint: It’s not the Apocalypse)
I put off writing about the 2012 Streets.MN best trend until this morning in case all the raining fire and brimstone would surpass the other “best trend” candidates. But since we dodged that fate, it’s time to unveil the 2012 Best Trend results! Nice Ride Minnesota is the clear winner with 44.2% of the vote. [...]
Beyond Park and Portland
After much discussion and advocacy, Park and Portland Avenues have been restriped by Hennepin County as (mostly) two-lane streets (down from three) with a buffered bike lane. At least two streets.mn’ers advocated for this change, and public sentiment seemed to support the change. Time will tell how successful this conversion is in terms of making [...]
Traffic calming on Park and Portland: a good start in overcoming the complexities of multiple jurisdictions
Park and Portland Avenues, Minneapolis’ twin one-lane north-south STROADS, were scheduled for a “mill and overlay” next year. (For those that don’t know, a mill and overlay is when they scrape off the asphalt surface of the street and lay down a fresh coat of blacktop.) It’s a great opportunity to change the lane configuration [...]
The Limits of Pop-Up Urbanism
Over at my blog, I wrote today about some of the problems that both Minneapolis and St Paul have had in constructing bike infrastructure in over the past few years. In both cases (a cycle track and a bike boulevard), the city had drawn up a decent plan but had botched the implementation. Instead of [...]
An alternative design for Park and Portland
The Minneapolis Bike Coalition has put forward their preferred design for a redesigned Park & Portland (for background on these streets, see here and here). Full disclosure: I helped with the street rendering. From the Bike Coalition blog: Key features: Remove a traffic lane that isn’t needed. The core of this proposal is transforming one of [...]
Why urbanists (and others) should love the coming of the robot car (Part 1)
Much has already been written on the robot car, but streets.mn’s own Bill Lindeke posits that they “will not save us“, citing three problems. While I agree that we probably can’t be saved (from what exactly I can’t say, there are many options), but in my opinion Bill and other urbanists should welcome the robot [...]
Time for a change on Park and Portland
This morning I witnessed a very near miss between a cyclist and a school bus on Park Avenue South (also known as County Road 33). This “bad interaction” would be classified as a “left-hook” where the bus was slowing to turn left, and failed to yield to the cyclist in the bike lane (approaching from [...]
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Bikes and Businesses Must Unite
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Minnesota Vikings Stadium Needs Better Urban Design
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Why I’m proud to be “offended” by the judgemental map of Minneapolis
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Washington Avenue proposed layouts are posted
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No Parking and De-Signing Streets
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No Parking and De-Signing Streets
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Podcast #35 – Twin Cities Greenways with Dacia Durham and Matthew Hendricks
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The Yard at Downtown East
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Minnesota Vikings Stadium Needs Better Urban Design
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Clarifying the Minneapolis Event Rate Meter Parking Debacle
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Jeff: As far as signs go, there does seem to be a lot of...
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Ross Williams: "We have induced demand for car storage by provid...
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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...
From the network
- 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...
- 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,...
- 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...
- 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.
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
