DIY Bike Infrastucture: A User's Guide

Q: Hey. Do you live in a city that has crappy bike infrastructure?

A: Of course you do! That’s life in the USA! (Portland not included.) Don’t take it personally. It happens everywhere, even in Minneapolis, #1 bike city.

So. What can you do to get around with some semblance of dignity? How can you ride a bike with some semblance of efficiency? Where can you turn when your government, public works department, and DOT are making it all but impossible to get around the city on a bicycle without feeling like some guy in an Escalade on his phone is going to run you over in the Lyndale Avenue freeway onramp?

No, friend. If the city isn’t going to build it, do it yourself. Here are four ways that you can ride around the city to make common-sense bike infrastructure out of the auto-oriented muck that surround us like 14th century filth.

[A well-designed bike boulevard in Portland.]

#1 DIY Bike Boulevard

What is it? Bike boulevards are streets designed to encourage bicycling and to give bicyclists priority over cars. They’re almost always located in slow-speed residential neighborhoods with low traffic streets. They prioritize bikes over through-traffic cars. In theory (i.e not in St Paul), people on bikes can proceed without having to ‘get out of the way’ of automobiles. In theory, people on bikes can ride down quiet residential streets with a minimum of stops, while all but the local traffic is diverted onto more busy streets intended for cars. These streets calm traffic and raise property values in residential neighborhoods, improving quality of life for pedestrians, dog walkers, kids playing in the street, and people sitting on their porches, &c.

How to make one: On quiet residential streets, treat most stop signs as ‘yield: slow down and look for cars and pedestrians’ signs. Treat many stop lights as ‘stop, look both ways, and yield to any traffic' signs. Ride in the middle of the road on quiet residential streets. If a car comes up behind you, don’t immediately veer off to the side of the road. (If there’s plenty of room, you can do that, and give them space to pass.) Doing this is better because nobody should be driving on Bryant or Lincoln or Case or whatever to get where they’re going really fast anyway. Narrow residential streets aren't meant for speeding cars!

Caution! Always watch for cross traffic! Yield to car traffic on cross streets. If you piss someone off in a car behind you, pull over and stop and look at them with disapproval like a strict schoolmarm. It's not your fault that they're they’re not hip to the future. Go ahead and feel sorry for them, but do get out of their way.


#2 DIY Bike Lane

[A well-designed bike lane in Portland.]

What is it? Everyone knows what a bike lane is. In Portland, they have a default policy that streets being re-striped or resurfaced will include a bike lane. In most places (including the Twin Cities), getting a bike lane striped on a main commercial road more politically challenging. Many (2+2) four-lane roads in the Twin Cities don’t include bike lanes because it would remove a lane of traffic or some street parking. (For example, Lake Street, Lyndale Avenue, Franklin Avenue, Broadway Avenue, Central Avenue, Maryland Avenue, Hamline Avenue, West 7th Street… The list goes on and on.)

How to make one: You simply bike in the middle of the right hand lane, unless there are no cars parked along the right side. This means that cars coming up behind you are going to have to pass you like they would any slow moving vehicle. This works particularly well in the winter time, when snow, ice, or whatever that black crap is that’s built up after months of snow and ice make the lanes narrower than normal anyway. People can see you and you stay out of the door zone and the dangerous gutter-bits of roadway off to the side. Really, there should be a bike lane here anyway.

Caution! Some car drivers get pissed when you do this. Ignore them at your peril.

[A well-designed bike box in Portland.]

#3 DIY Bike Box

What is it? Bike boxes are little spaces at intersections along streets with bike lanes that put the bicycles waiting for the light to change out in front of the cars waiting for the light to change. They’re a good idea because intersections are where most accidents happen. Often they’re painted green. They allow cyclists to safely turn left at intersections, and be very visible for people coming from all different directions. In Minneapolis, there are only about two of them, and even those are usually ignored.

How to make one: It’s a sad fact that most intersections in the Twin Cities are devoid of pedestrians. I'd like to live in a world where that wasn’t true. But since it is, you might as well use that crosswalk space up in front of the cars as a de facto bike box. When you reach an intersection where traffic is stopped, carefully make your way out in front of the traffic, and park yourself in the crosswalk in front of the cars. Now it’s a bike box! It’s better because you’re out in front, visible, and can turn left without conflicting with automobiles in the intersection.

Caution! Always defer to pedestrians. They are the most vulnerable people on the streets, and you should always give them the right of way and make sure you’re not threatening them with your larger size and momentum potential.


#4 DIY Bicycle Signal

What is it? A bicycle (or scramble) signal is a special stoplight function in cities and areas that have a lot of bicycle and pedestrian traffic. It’s a separate phase of ‘green’ for pedestrians and/or bicycles, so that you can cross the street or make turns on your own without sharing the space with car traffic. It’s safer because (similar to the bike boxes) you’re very visible out in front of traffic, and making turns and proceeding through the intersection before the cars can come along and run you over. (Another very similar concept is the “leading pedestrian interval”, where people begin crossing the street before car traffic gets a green light.)

How to make one: When you get to an intersection, don’t wait for the light to turn green. Begin your way through the intersection just before it turns green, so that you’re in the middle of the intersection when the light changes. This way you get out ahead of the automobile traffic, and are very visible as you go through the intersection box.  It’s better because you’re visible. Everyone can see you.

Caution! Obviously, this could be very dangerous if you weren’t paying attention. Watch for cars speeding up to get through the yellow light. Don’t take any chances!

[A well-designed bicycle signal in Portland.]

Final Caveats

While these rules describe how many people actually ride in the Twin Cities, and in my opinion are safe ways to travel, in some cases you’re bending the rules.

In my book, the first rule of safe bicycle riding is to always be paying attention. If you’re out in traffic and riding on the street, don’t zone out. Don’t listen to your headphones. Don’t carry anything in your hands. Be attentive all the time!

The second rule is to always ride defensively. Basically, you have to assume that every person in every car around you is about to make a colossally stupid decision. You have to act as if all drivers are talking on a smartphone phones while messing with the radio. (Honestly, about half of them are!) Assume they haven’t seen you and be prepared to hit the brakes, especially at intersections.

If you do those things, you can ride all over town creating your own bike infrastructure. Someday, when our streets actually have bike lanes and bike boulevards and bike boxes and scramble signals, life will become a lot easier. Until then, do it yourself.

TCS: How To Contest Your Bicycle Citation in Hennepin County Court in Three Easy Steps

[Blimey! It's the fuzz!]

Step 1: Contesting the Ticket

So, you got pulled over for riding a bicycle. Bummer! That totally sucks!

Maybe you didn’t completely stop at a stop sign. Maybe you did. Maybe you just biked down the wrong part of the U of MN campus. Who cares? I don’t care. I doubt you endangered anyone’s life (other you’re your own, maybe, if you’re an idiot). But whatever. Let’s move on.

Holy crap, what? you have this little piece of paper that says you owe some exorbitant amount of money? WTF? that’s bullshit! i agree.

OK. What do we do now?

Well, we contest the ticket. See that little phone number on the bottom of the ticket? Down by the address in the finey print? Yeah, go ahead and call that number. You’ll be put on hold, but eventually someone somewhere in Hennepin County will pick up. Say to them that “You got an unwarranted bicycle violation and you want to contest it.” They’ll be really bored and they’ll spend a minute punching buttons on some computer in Plymouth, and then they’ll give you a future date somewhere in the six-week range. That’s your appointment for a hearing.

Congratulations! You don’t owe any money for a while!



Step 2: Having a Hearing

A month or so goes by. What? Damn. I have this hearing on my calendar, you say. Good thing I remembered about it, you say. Good thing I’m someone with a lot of spare time on my hands, you think. What do I do now? you wonder to yourself.

Have no fears, friend. Head down to the Hennepin county government center. It’s in downtown Minneapolis by the “government center” stop of the LRT, between second and third streets and fourth and fifth avenues. (I think? Or is it the other way around? Stupid Minneapolis.) PROTIP: It’s the huge building that’s shaped like a giant ‘H’ with skyways in the middle. Try and get there on time.

Ok, go inside. There’s a weird escalator, but go up it! Instead, take a right and find the [Oops. I forgot the name!] window. Announce your name to the secretary behind the plexiglass, and make sure you say pompously, “I have an appointment.”

CAVEAT: If you’re not a n00b, you might know that you secretly don’t need to get an appointment. You can actually skip Step #1 entirely, and just go up to the ‘walk-in’ window, though you’ll have to wait there all day.

When they call your name, try not to look excited, so that you don’t embarrass the people in the waiting room without appointments. Instead, calmly and professionally proceed through the door and down the beige hallway to meet Officer M, a boring man or woman who will usher you into his or her unadorned cubicle.

Go ahead, sit down in the chair. You might want to pull out your ticket or other documentation. You might want to gaze for three seconds at the plaque on the shelf in the right hand corner that says “Hearing Officer of the Month Award, Hillsboro County Florida 2006.” It’s shiny.

At this point, your hearing officer will unassumedly ask, “So. What is it you are after?”

Here you are given a choice. The hearing officer will say, “Either we can give you a break on this citation, or you will go to court and go to trial.” (He will sound 8% like a mob boss in one of those movies where they make you an offer you can’t refuse.)

Ideally for the hearing officer, you would say, “I am upset by this hardly warranted ticket and am seeking a reduction in my fine.” At which point the hearing officer would reduce your fine to something like forty dollars and you would all leave happily ever after, never to set foot in the Hennepin county court system again.

Instead, you will say, “I want to contest this ticket.” You will not blink. You will not budge. you will say, “I would like a court date. This ticket is unjust. I am but a simple bicyclist, and I am going to fight it in a court of law in accordance with my rights guaranteed to me by the United State Constitution.”

Actually, you don’t need to say any of this stuff. Just make him or her give you a court date.

The hearing officer will shrug and in that bureaucratic way that is neither happy nor sad, neither perturbed nor unperturbed, fill out some triplicate paperwork and hand you the yellow copy. The hearing officer will circle the date of your appointment, probably about a month into the future. She or he will tell you to make sure to look at the hearing court screen on the skyway level, and send you out the door with a quizzical look.

Leave the government center and proceed with your day.

[Departures on the left, arrivals on the right.]

Step 3: Going to Court

A month or so passes and lo and behold, it’s your court date. Congratulations! Today is your moment in the bright sun of justice.

Head down to the Hennepin County Government Center. This time you know where it is. This time, when faced with the strange escalator, go up it. Now you’re part of the skyway system, Minneapolis’s equivalent of the Egyptian pyramids!

Find the courtroom part of the building, on the left on the skyway level. In this large nook, you’ll find a series of blue screens that look like the TVs in airports that tell you about all the gates. Somewhere on there is your name, followed by a series of letters and numbers that correspond to one of the many 11th floor courtrooms. (The Hennepin County Government Center is like an airport for justice.)

Proceed down the hall and go through Hennepin County Justice Airport security. Take the elevator up to the 11th floor. You’ll be sharing it with a mustachio’d and friendly security policeman. Find your courtroom. Go inside!

Wow. You’re in a courtroom. A real courtroom. It’s large and beige and strange. There are lots of empty seats and it’s unclear what to do. Sit down and spend a few minutes or hours watching the proceedings. It’s still unclear what to do. There’s a bench in the far corner, way up high, but nobody is sitting at it. A bit lower and closer is another bench, and there are two people sitting there, only their heads sticking up from behind the beige wood paneling. In front of that bench there’s a railing and a table stacked with books. One woman sits there in a nice suit while another suited woman walks back and forth from the railing to a gray-beige cubicle over in the corner. Amongst these benches and suited people wander less well-dressed consternated people, many of whom are engaged in heated conversation with the two suited women. This goes on for some time. In the ‘audience’ sit many folks wearing various degrees of formal attire, people from “all walks of life”, a real cross-section of Minneapolis. Most look nervous. Some of them look eerily relaxed.

When you’re ready, walk up, take a pen, and put your name on the clipboard sitting on top of the railing, in the very center of the room.

Once they call your name, stand and wave quickly and go talk to the Hennepin County Prosecutor.

Try one of the TCSidewalks-approved bicycle defenses! Hope that it works.

If it works, congratulations! You’re free. You don’t owe any money!

If it doesn’t quite work, don’t give up. Ask for a Continuance Without a Plea (C-WOP). They give this to people without long records of criminal behavior. That means you don’t have to pay any money, as long as you promise not to do it again.

If that doesn’t work, wow, you must have done something terrible in a past life. Ask for a real court date with a judge and everything. You’re on your own, buster. Good luck.

[This is how a courtroom looks, kinda like my parent's basement.]

Possible Defenses for Challenging a Red Light Bicycle Ticket

The ‘Good Will Hunting’ Defense

What It Is: like in the movie good will hunting, where Matt Damon is arrested for punching someone or whatever and then defends himself in the courtroom using his genius knowledge, citing all sorts of precedents from all the law books he keeps in his apartment he doesn’t let Ben Affleck into, saying all kinds of crazy shit really fast. This defense would be like that only you’d cite research on bicycling. You basically thrown a whole bunch of peer-reviewed articles at the court and hope that it sticks.

What You Say: [Speak as quickly as possible] “Your honor, this ticket is unjust and I want to go on the record as contesting it. Numerous studies show that compliance for bicycling laws rises dramatically if laws are changed so that they make sense. Wall's 2003 study shows how redesigning intersections to give cyclists "bike box" priority makes it safer and improves compliance. Wolfe's 2006 groundbreaking study of traffic compliance at an intersection in Portland shows that bicycle and automobile compliance rises dramatically if you install scramble signals that make the intersection start to work for bicyclists. After these signals were installed, red light running decreased to under 5% of cyclists. The problem isn't the bicycles, it's the street design. Many streets in Europe have a bicycle only signal phase, as Korve and Niemeier's 2002 report shows. Or look at the green wave street design, meant to encourage cycling by timing signals to the speed of the bike. If we started to change the system a bit so that they made more sense for people on bicycles, you’d have the majority of people on bikes starting to comply with the rules. That’s the kind of change that would make a difference. I’m only one of a thousand people just like me who are caught in a system where everyone is illegal. This ticket is clearly arbitrary and capricious.”

% Chance That It Works: 15% [Nobody likes a smartass. Matt Damon had the book thrown at him.]





The Pleading Ignorance Defense

What It Is: Playing dumb, like: “What? What’s going on? Who me?”

What You Say: [Speak as slowly as possible.] “Yurhonor, I had no idea. I didn’t know bicycles had to stop and wait at red lights. Since when? Nobody I know ever does this ever. If I’d known I was doing something wrong,  I woulda waited! But i thought it was OK. Nobody tole me it wasn't. How am i supposed to know that i have to wait here? I’m innocent, innocent I tell ya!”

% Chance That It Works: 4% [Ignorance of the law is no excuse, though in this case, I suppose it should be.]

[Sorry, I was on the phone.]

The ‘Red Light Law’ Defense

What It Is: In 2010, the legislature passed a red light law for bicyclists and motorcycles to accommodate them on stoplights that don't change unless there’s a car there. Though this law is intended only for particular cases where the stoplight is on a trigger, you can us this uncertainty to your advantage by invoking it. It’s basically a variation on the ‘playing dumb’ law combined with a Matt Damon-like level of knowledge of local bicycle ordinances.

What You Say: “Your honor, forgive me but wasn't there was a law on the books that said that if you come to a stop at a red light and look both ways with care and attention you can proceed safely through the intersection? Wasn't it Minnesota Statute 169.06 subdivision 9, or something like that? I thought I'd read somewhere that it was OK, and that you could do this. Am I wrong?”

% Chance That It Works: 89.5% [This is the kinda thing that lawyers really dig.]

[A possibly unchanging lamppost stoplight.]

The “I Did It For Science” Defense

What It Is: First, to use this defense you have to be writing a PhD dissertation about bicycling in the twin cities. [Disclaimer: I am writing a PhD dissertation about bicycling in the Twin Cities.]

What You Say: [Spoken with wavering voice.] “Your honor. I am just a researcher attempting to understand how people ride bicycles everyday in our city. I don’t know your ways. Look, everyone agrees that bicycling is a really good thing: the county, the city, the nation, the world. We all just want to figure out how to get more people to ride bicycles through our cities as part of their everyday lives. This is a really important! I’m just a lowly researcher, and I have to bike the way everyone else does, the way that my target audience, the regular people, are riding their bikes. I'm just trying to understand how normal ride bicycles. I have to bike like they do. It's part of my project, I can't not do it. I am compelled. Please take pity on me. I'm a just a poor graduate student. Oh god." [Sobs.]

% Chance That It Works: 26% [Hail mary.]

The ‘Whole System Is Wrong’ Defense

What It Is: An impassioned diatribe about the moral turpitude of American automobile-dependency and the hegemonic system that supports it.

What You Say: [With fire in the belly.] “Your honor. ever since Henry Ford first declared his love for Adolph Hitler, the automobile has been out to erode the very fabric of democracy. Ever since Firestone, Goodyear, and General Motors conspired to destroy the transit systems that used to be everywhere in our cities, the automobile has been the #1 scourge of the environment. Ever since greedy electric utilities used the automobile to increase energy consumption, ever since Robert Moses used the automobile to displace thousands of our poorest citizens, ever since entire cities were razed to the ground in service of this steel plague, the America that I know and love has been under seige. We need to stand up now to this polluting insatiable solipsistic death machine and say, No! Not today, not on my corner, not in my city!"

% Chance That It Works: 0.5% [Not a chance in hell.]

[Evil automobile executives shaking hands while the soul of the Twin Cities burns.]

The ‘It Was Windy’ Defense

What It Is: A blatant appeal to meteorology. 

What You Say: [Simply.] “Your honor, in my defense, it was very windy that day. A gust came up from behind me and just blew me through the intersection. There was nothing I could do. Honest!"
 
% Chance That It Works: 40% [I don't know, it might.]

[Kitebike.]

Welcome to Bicycle Freedom Week

Well, it took a while. After years of riding a bicycle around this city, I finally got a ticket from the Minneapolis Police Department for running a red light / stop sign. One morning a few months back, I was bicycling to work down SE Como  Avenue. I was a bit zoned out from my long bike trip the day before (to the far side of Lake Minnetonka and back), and do be honest, I’d forgotten that people even enforced laws about stoplights at sparsely populated intersections. And I certainly didn’t notice the police car sitting right in front of me at the intersection.

I proceeded as I normally do on a when trying to ride a bicycle to get from place to place. I came to a stop at a red light at a calm untrafficked intersection, looked to see if there was any traffic coming on the cross street (there wasn’t). And I went slowly through the intersection.

A flash of lights and a quick breeeep from the siren. Uttering the words "you have to stop just like everyone else," a police officer gave me a $120 white piece of thin paper.

A lot was running through my head. First I cursed. I thought about how stupid it was that this cop was giving me a ticket for something that endangered precisely zero people. Didn't he have anything better to do? I felt myself wanting to get upset, but I said nothing. The only thing I did was to take this photograph.

[Nothing says "USA #1" like a flag license plate on a police car giving a ticket to a bicyclist.]

A lot of people have reacted to this story with schadenfreude. “Well, you got what you deserve,” or “That’s what you get for bicycling like that.”

I guess that’s one opinion. I don't want to start a fight. And I really don't want to starting an endless asinine “cars vs. bikes: who are bigger scofflaws” argument. That’s a discussion for another day, and for the Pioneer Press comment section. 

What I want to do is declare this week to be the inaugural Bicycle Freedom Week.

In case you're not familiar with it, Bicycle Freedom Week is an age-old celebration of the freedom of being on a bicycle.  This week, more than all other weeks, we celebrate the freedoms that come with riding a bicycle. This week we will ride bicycles through crowds of cars stuck in traffic to attend fireworks displays. This week we will ride bicycles to the beach. This week (just like all other weeks) we will not stop at every stop sign. This week we will ponder the inevitable civil disobedience that comes with riding bicycles in cities that don’t have them in mind.

(Civil disobedience?! Are you declaring the velo-revolution? Are you a bicycle anarchist?)

Thankfully no. What I mean by civil disobedience isn’t precisely the sort of resistance to government that Thoreau intended while getting pissed about the Mexican-American War. Rather, it’s the idea that the architecture of our public spaces – the streets, lines, laws, regulations, etc. – aren’t set up for bicycles. They’re overwhelmingly intended to support and maintain the movement of cars. This system makes it very difficult to efficiently and comfortably ride a bicycle from place to place.  Until it changes, most cyclists find themselves continually making personal choices about which sorts of rules to accept and which sorts of rules to reject.

These "rules of the bicycling road" differ depending on the individual and the situation. For example, the % of cyclists who actually come to a complete stop at every stop sign must be asymptotically close to zero. (Some, yes; others, no; many are in between.)

On the other hand, the percent of cyclists who would proceed without stopping through an intersection like the Lyndale-Hennepin bottleneck is similarly microscopic. (This is a good example of a self-fulfilling prophecy, as doing so would be suicidal.) Though precious few will admit it, some degree of civil disobedience is an inevitable part of riding a bicycle through the city.

[Suffrage activists on bicycles, c. 1915.]

Bicycles have long been a tool of liberation. They’re a way for people to break free from spatial constraints. Whether you're a little kid just learning to balance, a teenager traveling the city without the yoke of parents, a 19th century woman moving unescorted through the city for the first time, or someone who has lost 320 lbs through the joy of bicycling, bicycles can set you free. They free up all sorts of capabilities that many of us never thought we had. They free your mind from worry and let you feel the city in a new way. They free your senses from claustrophobia and let you smell the air, hear the birds, and get that good feeling in your legs when you really get them moving. They free you from being a selfish individualist and the tyranny of parking tickets and traffic jams and gas pumps.

Happy Bicycle Freedom Week!


Forthcoming posts:

Potential Defenses for Challenging a Red Light Ticket Bicycle Ticket
How to Contest Your Bicycle Citation in Hennepin County Court in Three Easy Steps
DIY Bicycle Infrastructure: A User's Guide

Stay tuned. This time (unlike my future Trader Joe’s series) I’m actually going to follow through.