twin city sidewalks: June 2015

2015-06-29

Reading the Highland Villager #133

[Villagers wait for customers to park on Cleveland Avenue.]

[Basically the problem is that the best source of Saint Paul streets & sidewalks news is the Highland Villager, a very fine and historical newspaper. This wouldn't be a problem, except that its not available online. You basically have to live in or frequent Saint Paul to read it. That's why I'm reading the Highland Villager. Until this newspaper goes online, sidewalk information must be set free.]

Headline: Council postpones vote on Cleveland Avenue bike lane; Tolbert pushes for a plan that preserves business parking
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: [In yet another new chapter in the Russian novel that is building bike infrastructure in Highland] an article on the recent City Council hearing about bike lanes through the heart of Highland Village [which I blogged about here rather passionately just the other day]. After a packed public hearing, the Council voted to delay action on deciding about the issue, pending less hostile discussions between parties down the road [sic]. Article includes [fairly well balanced] quotes from both the bicycle enthusiasts and the parking enthusiasts [By the way, "parking enthusiasts" is a strange concept; the Villager typically uses the "concerned residents" euphemism.] Quote from local bicyclist: "It upsets me that Chris Tolbert is willing to make this street more dangerous." Quote from local driver [and University of Saint Thomas spokesperson???]: "I don't know how you get trucks and buses and bikes down Cleveland at the same time." [Does St Thomas have a math department? History professors? Experts in logic? I'm sure they can figure that one out. Particularly given how much energy Saint Thomas spends trying to minimize neighborhood impacts from their campus, of which parked cars are second only to drunken sophomoric bros, you'd think they'd be more understanding when it comes to accommodating and encouraging bicycling.]

Headline: Views sought on modes of transit, viable routes for River Corridor
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: Someone is going to build something non-car-oriented along the West 7th / Riverview corridor, likely soon-ish, but nobody knows what. Feel free to comment. Probably. Article includes useless map. Commuter rail has been ruled out because there is no railroad there. [Good decision!]

Headline: Randolph shop is struggling with disruptions of street work; Loyal customers still make the trek to J&S Bean, but drive-by business is down
Author: Boraan Abdulkarim [A new Villager writer? Seemingly non-white? Huzzah!]

Short short version: The road in front of the coffee shop is torn up for construction and people can't drive their cars there. People still walk there though. Best quote: "We've seen people walk across Randolph and lose their shoes in the mud." [One lesson of all this might be that catering to customers on foot or bike is a good way to increase customer loyalty.]

Headline: Downtown bike loop gaining ground; New St. Peter Street alignment is proving to be more popular
Author: Kevin Driscoll

Short short version: The city is planning (and has already funded part of) a [so-called] "bike loop" that will run through downtown Saint Paul and connect [disconnected] bike routes that all stop short. Saint Peter is the new Wabasha [which was derailed by trolls]. Quote from consultant: "St. Peter's traffic pattern is much quieter, and therefore safer and more comfortable than Wabasha's." [Well, OK.] Article includes quote from Chamber of Commerce spokesperson about how people should [relax about] study parking and test things out before building permanent routes. [I'm of mixed feeling on this topic: see "limits of pop-up urbanism." Temporary tests are great unless you just build something half-assed that pisses everyone off and pleases nobody.] Article quotes three business owners from St. Peter Street, [that in a minor miracle] none of whom say anything particularly ridiculous. [Maybe Kevin Driscoll asks questions differently than other Villager reporters?]

Headline: St. Paul restaurants, residents seek easing of liquor restrictions
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: Restaurants would like to loosen the "food-to-alcohol" ratios which restrict them. Quote from owner of restaurant: "I would love to able to serve a real Bloody Mary at the Highland Grill." [First they come for our parking spaces, then they come for or liquor restrcitions. Next thing you know, Highland Village is Frank Miller's Hell's Kitchen.] Saint Paul limits the number of full liquor licenses according to Ward [I did not know this!]: "26 in Ward 1, 41 in Ward 2, 7 in Ward 3 [OMG!], 16 in Ward 4, 18 in Ward 5, 26 in Ward 6, and 18 in Ward 7." [The rationale for this formula is quite clear.] Quote from neighborhood group person: "We have at least five restaurant owners in Highland who would jump at the chance for an on-sale liquor license." Exceptions to the liquor licenses limits can exist in special "commercial districts" [which somehow include the area around the former Amtrak station?]. The Restaurant Association would like the "60-40 rule" eliminated. Minneapolis eliminated this rule for their neighborhoods two years ago. [The place seemingly hasn't gone to pot. Fascinating article!]

Headline: Cooper's to stay open longer than expected in Sibley Plaza
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A grocery store in a strip mall will close next spring instead of this summer.

Headline: HRA helps Skyline Tower with $12.7M improvement project
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: The largest subsidized affordable housing building in the state is getting rehabbed thanks to some help by the city and other government sources.

Headline: Quest to keep Getten Credit in St. Paul hits another roadblock
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A "consumer lending company" is still struggling to find a place to relocate after it got displaced by a new bank. Zoning limits where they can go.

Headline: Kowalski's to purchase land for expansion of Grand market
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: The grocery store on Grand Avenue is getting bigger thanks to the purchase of a "city-owned right of way." [What magic strip of land is this?] The plans call for "an off-sale wine shop and a coffee house." [There goes the neighborhood.]

Headline: CIB committee frees up money for additional local projects
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: The citizen committee that prioritizes every project in the city found more money for more things by giving less large sums to fewer things and more small sums to more things. New projects to be funded [tentatively, pending the mayor] include a community center, lighting for Cleveland Avenue, a circus school expansion, and a bike trail [see below].

Headline: I-35E trail among those added to list
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A [strange] bike trail by the freeway sound wall will be made nicer, probably: "resurfacing, signage, lighting, and new crosswalks." Article includes quote from neighborhood group guy: "There hasn't been a lot done along there for 30 years." [Yup.]

Headline: Federation hopes more work goes into design of new labor building
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A local neighborhood group didn't like the designs for a new labor and trades building. [Could always be worse: compare to the godawful Teamsters building on University? For some reasons, union and labor-oriented buildings always seem to be completely dominated by parking lots.] Quote from neighbor: "It seems like a really utilitarian building." Article claims that "labor officials said significant off-street parking will be needed because of the many events that will be hosted at the building." [Saint Paul, a great place for a parking lot. Home of the National Federation of Street Pavers and Parking Attendants Local #FreeParking. Even the Amalgamated Transit Workers Union HQ has a huge parking lot, from what I have heard.]

Headline: Debate continues over proposal for liquor store at Midway SuperTarget
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: [See also this blast from the TCSidewalks past.] Target would like to sell booze, but there's already a liquor store just two strip malls over. A debate is raging over how to quantify the distance between strip malls. [How many strip-mall-liquor-store-frequenting angels can park on the head on the head of a pin? If a tortoise throws an empty vodka bottle towards a strip mall, and it travels 1/2 way to the strip mall in one instant, and 1/2 of the rest of way in the next instant, and so on forever, does it ever strike the concrete surface parking lot?]

Headline: Dowling enters phase two of creating extra special playground
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A school in [the tiny part of] Minneapolis [that the Villager ostensibly cares about three times each year] will expand its playground by adding zip lines. [Really?] The school has a long history that includes FDR and special needs children.

2015-06-22

Twin City Street Musicians #15

[Guitarists. Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis.]

[Guitarist. Stockholm, Sweden.]

[Drum circle. University Avenue, Saint Paul.]

[Guitarist. Mears Park, Saint Paul.]

[Accordionist. Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis.]

[Trumpeter. Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis.]

[Guitarist. 7th Place Mall, Saint Paul.]

2015-06-19

Reading the Highland Villager #132

[Villager stacking up in West Saint Paul.]

2015-06-16

In Saint Paul, Bikes Lanes are the New Smoking Ban

[Nice Rides are only as useful as the lanes that connect them.]

There’s a sometimes harshly worded debate going on right now in Saint Paul over the future design of Cleveland Avenue, whether or not it should have bike lanes and/or on-street parking. (The exact design depends on where you’re talking about.)

You can read some of the comments on the discussion, taking place on Open Saint Paul, on streets.mn, on this blog, and in the newspapers, emails, and voicemails of Saint Paul’s elected leaders.

Here are a few representative samples that capture, I think, the heart of the issue, i.e. how moving parking spaces will hurt business versus how creating safer streets will improve access for bicycles.

Try this one, from an article on streets.mn:

The fact that business owners are losing their minds over this is disappointing but not unexpected. Small proprietors operate on shoestring budgets usually, so any change is perceived to be potentially catastrophic. It’s not a rational response, but an understandable one.

[...] As a dad who carts his kids around sometimes by bike, but sometimes by SUV…I’m just so annoyed by the trite “think of the mom in the van” garbage.

Or this one, from a different article on streets.mn:

The owners of the building/barber shop/other stores clearly CLEARLY perceive the lose of parking as a threat to there business. If the bikes lanes were a boon to their business, they would feel the opposite no?

But the more the argument goes on, and the more histrionic it becomes, the more I’m reminded of the 2006 rhetoric surrounding the city’s smoking ban, which disallowed smoking in bars throughout the city. At the time, many small business owners (primarily bar owners) claimed that the smoking ban would kill their business. Despite the pressure, the City Council (led by CM Thune) insisted that the effects of second-hand smoke outweighed the potential economic impacts on some businesses. It was the right thing to do.

[Richard Jackson, the guy who wrote the book on public health and urban design, speaking in St. Paul a month ago.]

Cars are the New Tobacco

[Not just a metaphor.]

Just like Saint Paul is a healthier city without smoky bars, it will be a healthier city with bike-friendly streets. And what’s more, unlike the Nazi analogy, this comparison isn’t an exaggeration.

Here’s some of what I wrote on the subject back in 2013:

Now that smoking rates have declined, the new #1 public health risk in the US and UK is the automobile. [...]

But let's keep the metaphor going. If cars are the new tobacco, what would be a public health solution for the deadly automobile? What if we treated cars like we did cigarettes? What if we used all our anti-smoking tools and waged a public health campaign against cars? [...]

We would acknowledge the harms of second-hand cars. Just like with smoking, cars don't just harm those who use them. Even people who choose not to use cars, who kick their car-dependency, are forced to deal with 'second-hand cars' as they try to walk or bike around the city. Eventually, our society would recognize these harms, would try to come up with rules for limiting the danger of second-hand cars.

Last month, city leaders gathered to celebrate the idea of using urban design to solve a very real public health crisis that finds America in general, and Saint Paul in particular, suffering from a whole string of health problems. Tobacco use is no longer the #1 public problem we face as a society; lack of physical activity has taken its place as a driver [sic] of long-term health problems.

At the time, the solutions garnered headlines. But as I wrote at the end of in my piece on Minnpost, "talking about a healthy city is certainly nice, but the true test will come when road construction begins this summer."

Well, now’s when the rubber meets the road. And so far, it doesn't look good.

[The circled statement is just plain wrong.]

Seeing the Big Picture

[This guy would really like to light one up.]

I’m sure the smoking ban did hurt some businesses in Saint Paul. The giant cigarette mural on the outside wall of Costello’s Bar (one of the most vocal opponents of the ban) has been replaced by a (socially inferior, in my opinion) quasi-chain burger joint from Edina. And to this day, Mayor Coleman is not allowed inside the Gopher Bar (if he ever was), which clings on for dear life serving the city’s best coney dogs in a changing corner of downtown.

But sometimes moral issues should outweigh unknown economic impacts, and implementing the city-wide bike plan is the clearest way to actually achieve the goals that city leaders set out during their gala dinner last month.

Looking back at the smoking ban issue, it’s hard today to find people who don’t see Saint Paul as a better place now that smoking has been banished to sidewalks, alleys, and occasional patios. If we implement the bike plan, starting with Highland Park’s main street, years from now I’m confident that the vast majority of people in Saint Paul will look back and wonder what the fuss was all about. We’ll be living in a city that made it easier to get active when we’re young, stay active in our old age, and get around without exacerbating our already-stressed roads and parking lots.

I understand the reluctance of business owners to take risks. Our city's small businesses struggle to make a living in a country where the game is rigged in favor of chains and corporations. But it shouldn’t be too much to ask that businesses work to help bring a healthy city to life. And just as our leaders boldly did the right thing back in 2006, they should prioritize the big picture here too.

I'm sure that no Saint Paul City Council Member wants to take the kind of abuse that CM Thune received ten years ago. But I'm also sure that if you asked him today, he'd say that he did the right thing. And he'd make the same decision every time.

The smoking ban didn't kill small business in Saint Paul. On the contrary, bars, restaurants, and nightlife are thriving, and almost everyone is better off. Implementing the bike plan is exactly the same kind of issue, a moral question where putting health and safety first is the right thing to do.

[Three Saint Paul smoking ban protests: from Mike's Bar, Costello's Bar, and the Gopher Bar.]

Update:

Oh, I almost forgot. The public hearing is tomorrow!

As the first proposed projects since the passage of the Bike Plan, it’s important that these projects succeed. For Cleveland and Front specifically, there has been a lot of concern raised about the loss of parking. Even if you don’t live in these neighborhoods, elected officials need to hear from you.

Lexington, Cleveland, Front Public Hearing
Wednesday, June 17 at 5:30 PM
City Hall: 15 West Kellogg Blvd, 3rd Floor Council Chambers

Learn more!
Lexington: http://stpaul.gov/index.aspx?NID=5691
Cleveland: http://stpaul.gov/index.aspx?NID=5690
Front: http://stpaul.gov/index.aspx?NID=5692

2015-06-12

Saint Paul's Final Capital Budget Recommendations Chock Full of Sidewalks and Bike Lanes

[The CIB public hearing. Img. Rebecca Airmet.]

Last week I wrote about the city's CIB process in Minnpost, calling it a "budgetary sausage factory" where:

People who have experienced the process tend to have one of two reactions: either they’re mystified and frustrated, or they optimistically grit their teeth. After all, a lot of good ideas emerge, and some of them even get money.

At the time, the mayoral-appointed CIB committee rankings were dominated by three big-ticket projects: a community rec center in Frogtown, a fire station, and a police shooting range.

To many people with grassroots low-cost, high-value projects, competing with big city departments seemed unfair.

Here's what one East Side participant said:

“You have all volunteers, nominated by their neighborhood, going in and competing against people who are professionals, who are paid to be there, and have the weight of the city behind them,” [Dan] Chouma told me.

That’s how you end up with a committee choosing among a park, a crosswalk, a fire station, and a city-owned bridge that might be falling down. Both Chouma and [Jim] Ivey would like to see the city department budgets separated from the community projects, so that the process didn’t pit police facilities against rec centers, and bike lanes against street trees.

[The preliminary CIB rankings.]

Since then, all of those projects have been cut back quite a bit, freeing up all kinds of money for bottom-up community projects like sidewalk improvements, bike lanes, and tree guards, and lots of other things I mentioned in my article.

Here is the new list, with streetscape and street design improvements highlighted:

[Final CIB Committee rankings.]

Great to see! Hopefully the mayor's office doesn't throw out all the good choices here. As usual in Saint Paul, the mayor gets the final say.

[You know, for kids!]

2015-06-11

No Need to Pit Safe Streets Against Local Businesses

[Cecil's Deli interior, via the superb WASCO.]

There's a debate going on about whether or not the County should stripe bike lanes on Cleveland Avenue. These lanes would be some of the first to be constructed in the post-bike plan era, and would come at practically zero cost because the street is being re-surfaced. (Similar lanes are being proposed for Front Avenue and Lexington Parkway.)

At the same time, the city would take the opportunity to use some of the slotted "8-80" money to extend the lanes and truly connect the "Highland Village" area at Ford and Cleveland with the existing highly-trafficked bike lanes on Summit Avenue. As someone who bikes on Cleveland regularly to get to places like Cecli's Deli, Quixotic Coffee, and the Tea Source, I'm very much looking forward to seeing safer streets in this auto-oriented part of Saint Paul.

[Cleveland Avenue bike lane proposal, along with funding sources.]

[Are businesses synonymous with a parking space?]

Some Businesses' Extreme Positions

Local business owners are understandably reluctant to take risks. But we've been compromising safety on Saint Paul streets for too long. There are many ways to ensure access to businesses while fulfilling our city's vision for safe streets for everyone, of all ages, no matter how they get around.

City staff have proposed a series of specific of "parking mitigation" solutions in response to business concerns, including new 30-minute parking (replacing old ones at at least a 1:1 ratio), and expanding the restricted parking zones near Cleveland to ensure homes have access to local streets to store their cars.

The narrative that pits "saving businesses" against safer streets is a red herring. It's no coincidence that all of Saint Paul's most economically successful parts of our city (Grand Avenue, Highland Village, Downtown, Selby Avenue, etc.) are also the places where its hardest to park. Making these places easier to bike and walk will increase, not decrease, access to businesses.

If we build high quality streets, Saint Paulites will rise to the challenge of walking a block to local businesses. At the same time, safe city streets will mean more customers getting to know our amazing street corners. For too long, Saint Paul has been a place to drive through, instead of stopping to stroll. Cars don't get haircuts, sandwiches, or eat Italian food. People walking on foot get haircuts, buy sandwiches, and eat Italian food. It's much easier to stop on a dime and smell the roses if you're riding a bicycle through Saint Paul. It's about time we began living up to our ideals.

[This just happened (again). Unsafe streets are hurting business more than complex parking.]

Here's a letter I wrote on the Cleveland Avenue bike lane issue:

Dear CMs Tolbert and Stark:

I am writing to encourage you to support high quality bike lanes on Cleveland Avenue at next week’s City Council meeting. The project as proposed by city staff was supported unanimously by the Transportation Committee, which is composed of representatives from broad constituencies throughout the city, ranging from the disabled to the trucking industry. This project, like the others proposed this year by Ramsey County, offers Saint Paul a chance to follow through on the long-awaited Bike Plan at zero cost to the city. You will be setting an example for the rest of the city as we struggle to implement our shared vision of safe streets and healthy communities in Saint Paul.

As you know, now that Saint Paul is growing again, parking tensions will be a recurring problem. I believe we need to be creative about parking policy, and look for opportunities for “win-win” solutions. With parking policy, it’s impossible to please everyone. But solutions like smart pricing and policy will ensure that customers and residents have convenience, at the very least.

We should not have to choose between safe streets and supporting small businesses. On the contrary, vibrant sidewalks and local trips on safe streets will help our neighborhood nodes thrive! Please look for creative solutions for commercial parking on Cleveland, including tweaking parking rules on side streets, building parking bays, or adjusting permit zones. There are lots of ways to solve this problem without compromising the safety of people trying to lead healthy lives.

For many years, Saint Paulites have expressed the desire to walk and bike more while having safer streets running through their neighborhoods. But as I have seen in my years here, despite a great many plans, our actual streets haven’t often reflected those ideals. It’s easy to get people to complain about parking and traffic. It’s far more difficult to inspire people to follow through on lofty ambitions.

This is your chance to lead Saint Paul into a healthy, thriving future. Please support high quality bike lanes on Cleveland Avenue.

Sincerely,