twin city sidewalks: bike boulevards

Showing posts with label bike boulevards. Show all posts

2016-06-28

Reading the Highland Villager #158

[Highland Villagers out on the town in Longfellow.]

[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. Until this newspaper goes online, sidewalk information must be set free. See also: Three Reasons Why I Re-Blog the Highland Villager.]

Headline: Getting a handle on trash collection; Small haulers draft a plan for organized collection that maintains their market share
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: In an effort to prevent the organization of city garbage hauling, a group of garbage haulers are organizing. [Yep you read that right. It's kind of like the people sitting on the North Minneapolis greenway protesting the North Minneapolis greenway, or the "bicyclists against bicycling" advocates that seem to pop up from time to time.] Not everyone though. Article includes detail about public policy studies about organized trash collection and externalities. Garbage haulers are concerned about "one national hauler" [read "Waste Management"] getting the city-wide contract. [Pretty sure nobody in Saint Paul is advocating for that. This kind of reminds me of the liquor distributors against the very popular and sensical Sunday Sales policies, out of slippery slope fears that it will lead to other changes.]

Headline: City review of Midway stadium plan begins in earnest
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A soccer stadium is planned for a vacant lot and strip mall on a key corner. The process is rushed. There was a public hearing at the Planning Commission. [I was surprised how few people testified, to be honest. Only about 5 that weren't millionaires.] Lots of people want more details. Article quotes people who have been on a [largely symbolic] committee. The neighborhood group is forming a task force, and is concerned about "open space, pedestrian safety, design and density." Neighbors are concerned about construction noise and parking. Hearing included famous anti-government former politiican [and former anti-sidewalk poetry editorialist] who [rightly] claimed that stadiums do not catalyze economic development [very much]. Article quotes strip mall owner who claimed he would not make money unless he developed the land along the lines of the proposed plan.

Headline: Game for pro soccer; City officials say expected increases in traffic with stadium are manageable
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: While city staff and stadium planning consultants are concerned about traffic parking, the study also says that traffic and parking are solvable problems, though there might be gridlock in 2035 if all goes well. [And there might not. It all depends on transportation trends which could go many different directions locally, regionally, and globally.] Article quotes city planning head saying that the study confirms "the viability of a soccer stadium." The study called the AUAR is full of details, some of which are included in the article, such as the fact that 80% of the fans would have to get to the stadium in ways that are not private cars, including by shuttle bus. [I call this the "magic bus" theory.] People might have to wait to exit the stadium site area because of crowds. Some traffic signals will need to be changed to accommodate more cars. [The basic facts are that there these streets have been designed to handle large amounts of cars already, and because of induced demand will always be congested as long as they're free-flowing... if that makes sense to you. The other fact on the ground is that there is tons of parking on the ground in this area, which will become more valuable with the increased demand from developing this site. Meanwhile the land will also become more valuable. The final fact is that there is tons of transit here, more than anywhere outside of the two downtowns and maybe the Mall of America. It will work out, though I'm sure it will become harder to park in nearby neighborhoods some of the time. That was always going to be true in this area, however, and will be a basic fact of living in a desirable and walkable part of the city, which I hope this will become. I'm more worried about the too-narrow sidewalks, and the complete lack of North-South bike access. There needs to be high quality bike connections from the stadium site North across University to Charles, Minnehaha, and Como, and South across the Freeway to Marshall and Summit. That needs to happen along with the stadium construction, or else I fear that Saint Paul's dreams of millennial revolution made clear in the latest Adele video will come to naught.]

Headline: Meeting to address next steps in preparing Ford site for new use
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: There was a meeting at a church in Highland where the Ford Motor Company released its results of the environmental study which determines how developable the land of the old factory can be. The company was conducting an intensive and long study of existing pollution on the site, which can really shape the value and use of the land. [I have heard that the meeting was "very good news." Many people were worried that it would be too polluted and that the future developer would be unable to build residential on the site. But there was only one area that was too polluted for residential, but it's on the corner by the River Road and Ford Parkway, which is where plans called for commercial development anyway. If all goes well, there will be thousands of units of residential here along with good high quality transit of the Snelling/University type. The ETA on all of this is a ways off, though. Ford is going to clean up the site itself, instead of contracting it out to someone like the Port Authority. They won't be marketing it to a developer until later in 2017 at the earliest.]

Headline: City delays vote on accessory dwellings
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: The council delayed its vote to approve ADUs for a week to let neighbors comment more and to review building codes. [I think they should loosen up requirements especially around external staircases. The idea is to make ADUs affordable enough so that some can actually be built.]

Headline: Zoning board OKs small expansion of 128 Café's parking lot
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A café on the ground floor of an older apartment by a University got a setback variance to expand its parking lot from 6 to 10 spaces. The street by the building will have bike lanes sometime later this summer or fall. The owner is concerned that people won't walk in the winter. [People will walk in the winter.] They also are seeking an on-sale liquor license. [Parking lots and liquor licenses, a match made in heaven.]

Headline: Resident-only parking in Merriam Park opened to others
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: Some areas of the city that where on-street parking is restricted to people with a sticker [but using rules which are very hard to enforce] are going to be changed to allow one-hour parking for people without a sticker [in ways that are impossible to enforce]. The street by the areas will have bike lanes sometime later this summer or fall. [The sooner the better. Let's rip off the band-aid, please!] Neighbors are concerned about traffic and parking. There was a discussion of whether Area 16 was or was not more congested than Area 17. [Hunger Games: Saint Paul.] A man with a disability will get a handicapped-parking sign.

Headline: City wrestles with ways to make Jefferson safer for pedestrians
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A neighborhood group is trying to get the city to improve safety on a [half-assed] bike boulevard in Saint Paul that runs past day care centers and schools. Ideas include painting a center line and "fog lines" [what are those?] and re-painting the sharrows. [This project, on Jefferson Avenue, is legendary for its half-assedness and political shenanigan levels, if you recall, eclipsing even the Cleveland Bike Lane situation in terms of Saint Paul craziness.] Article includes a brief history. Article quotes one resident saying :"the street isn't safe and traffic is moving way too fast." [I can confirm this from personal experience of course. Bicycle boulevards live and die by their traffic counts and speeds, and both here remain waaaaawaaaaaaay too high to make this the kind of project that it was intended to be. The only solution is to install a diverter at a key intersection like Jefferson and Hamline, like the ones they have on the Riverlake Greenway in Minneapolis at two or three key intersections. It might cost a few hundred thousands dollars but it might save lives and actually make this project start to barely live up to its initial vision. Anything less will be lipstick on a pig driving an SUV too fast next to a school.] Article mentions bright orange ["surrender"] flags According to the article, Public Works isn't interested in touching this with a ten foot pole.

Headline: CIB committee objects to selling public safety annex to developer; Says it doesn't fit longstanding plans for Pedro Park
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A committee that funds stuff got upset when city staff suggested selling a downtown building to a developer. The building had initially been slated for a public park as part of a land donation to the city. The park would cost a lot, and the building is worth a lot too. [There's a temporary park on the part of the site that was donated, a very cool public art project done at minimal budget.] The building is currently holding a "police annex." [... whatever that means. I don't know this seems like a chance for Saint Paul to be flexible, keep a cool already-half-existing park, make some money for the taxpayers, and increase density downtown. Just my reaction. People tend to really idolize open space in ways that aren't always helpful. I kind of like Flower Field as it is, though it could use a real budget to make it even better. Certainly though the decision should be made in the public eye and with some discussion.]

Headline: Norths contend liquor license delay could close curtain on Garden Theater
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A couple who are trying to restore an old theater on West 7th Street want a liquor license ASAP. Neighbors are concerned about parking and "patron problems." A bank loan vs. a 45-day waiting period is the main issue. Article quotes building owner: "I think that some of the neighbors will never be happy." [Well that's glum! Certainly true, unless you stop to think about the question "just what is happiness anyway?" Maybe some people are happiest when they're complaining about parking? So are they happy or not happy? That is the great noumenal question of parking-itself.]

Headline: For sale: Seven-room Highland school building on a 5.4-acre lot
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: The school district is selling an old school that closed in the 70s. It will likely be mixed-use.

Headline: Cooks of Croscus Hill resolves dispute with fire inspectors
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A fancy cooking item store on Grand Avenue will not have to install a "fire suppression system" over the demonstration countertop that it's been using for many years.

Headline: Ramsey County Board will get 2.5% pay hike in 2017
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: It was a 4-2 vote, Huffman and Rettman voting against. They will make $90K.

Headline: St. Paul seeks state funds to rehab historic Lilydale bridge
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: A small limestone bridge in a park by the river might get some state money to get fixed up.

Headline: Historic Randolph Ave. fire station to be for sale soon
Author: Jane McClure

Short short version: An old semi-abandoned fire station from 1885 will be for sale. It might get "some level" of historic designation. [No, it's not the same old semi-abandoned fire station as the other one.]

Bonus:

This Highland Villager re-cap written to the dulcet tones of Verdi's opera Don Carlos.

2015-11-16

Reading the Highland Villager #142

[Villagers lurking in the Lunds lobby downtown.]

2015-10-08

Misleading Misdirection from David Glass on Bike Lanes

[The Glass campaign earlier this summer.]

A joke for you.

A biker walks into a bar. He sits down and orders a beer, and then is yelled at because a City Council candidate was trolling neighbors about the "loss" of barely used parking spaces to increase safety for people riding bicycles.

OK, it's not funny, but it's what happens when David Glass is campaigning to stop bike lanes in Saint Paul.

At the time, his campaign manager was going up and down Front Avenue handing out fliers to neighbors trolling anti-bicycling sentiment, and had composed a statement about how "Imposing a suburban solution [sic] for a core city neighborhood that has had a presence of residents and businesses for the past two centuries is not well thought out [and] Front Avenue is not wide enough for bike lanes."

[Read the rest here.]

Well, it turns out that David Glass, proud owner of a giant settlement from the city when it ended the lease on his sub-par restaurant, proud recipient of 10 speeding tickets, has now released literature that proclaims him a Saint Paul bicycling supporter.

Here's a copy and a transcript:

As biking continues to be more popular, we need to plan ways to safely integrate biking into our traffic patterns. I'm a biker. Just to be clear, I support safe bike lanes. My wife, Pam and I were one of the major sponsors for the Saint Paul Bike Classic for 19 years. Another avid biker, former Minnesota State Senator Ellen Anderson knows good decision-making involves community dialogue.

A cookie cutter approach for bike lanes doesn't work. For example, we need to carefully consider safety on busy streets like Dale, Front and Rice streets.

Seattle is one of many cities shifting away from earlier thinking of applying pavement icons and bike lanes on busy streets to providing separated bike lanes as well as a network of calm back street routes. A back street can even be [obscured] with less stops, bikes can ride in the middle of the lane, there is more visibility and better reaction time.

Listening to each other, having better dialogue with our neighbors and [obscured].

The Saint Paul Bike Plan calls for a system of on-street bike lanes in addition to a network of off-street bicycle boulevards. You need to have both kinds of infrastructure to appeal to the wide variety of bicyclists that are out there. Bicyclists who want to move more quickly or patronize commercial areas need to be able to ride on main arterial roads. Bicyclists who want a calm, low-speed, low-stress experience will opt for bicycle bouelvards like the kinds that Glass alludes to. Boulevards, protected lanes, and on-street lanes work together, and support each other.

Glass's misleading flier is like when PRT advocates (a.k.a. "pod people") derail bona fide transit investments by blowing smoke about futuristic pipe dreams. And Glass's message epitomizes an increasingly prevalent pattern in Saint Paul of opposing safety improvements for safety reasons. For example, when people say that narrower travel lanes are more dangerous, it means they completely misunderstand the paradox of risk, and the role that speed plays in safe neighborhoods.

David Glass has become Saint Paul's answer to Rob Ford at this point. If he's elected, you can count more anti-bike mobs, more trolling for parking barking, and the inevitable unstriping of any progress bicyclists have made in the past few years.

2015-01-14

The Best Bike Lanes are Also the Cheapest

[A cheap bike lane on Plymouth Avenue in Minneapolis.]

After many years of delay, and a great deal of sturm und drang over relatively minor things like neighborhood traffic circles, the Saint Paul Bike Plan is finally nearing passage. The draft of the plan came out this winter, and paging reading through the document a savory pleasure for anyone who's been pushing Saint Paul into the bicycling future for some years now.

(Note that "pushing Saint Paul into the bicycling future" is kind of like going up the High Bridge on a wrongly-geared single speed.)

The plan is good, though, and full of maps showing bike infrastructure on many (but not most) of the city's most crucial streets. Plus it has an exciting plan for a "downtown loop" that tie Saint Paul together and connect downtown's many individualized attractions into a coherent network of "8-80" accessible places. The sun may finally be setting on Saint Paul's great blank wall era.

The Plan's Functional Classifications

Like most such plans, Saint Paul's bike plan offers a bunch of different solutions to providing bike infrastructure that depend both on the spatial context and the type of bike riding being accommodated.

[Part of the bike plan.]

The way the plan describes it, there are four kinds of bike infrastructure the city will design:

1) Enhanced shared lanes -- basically sharrows, but as nice as sharrows can be. To my mind, these can be useful in places with extremely low traffic volume and slow speeds. (For example, the westernmost section of Montreal Avenue.)

2) Bicycle Boulevards -- I've written about these before. The city here describes them thus:

Open and usable by motorists, and .. do not impact on-street parking. However, longer motorized trips on bicycle boulevards are discouraged, providing a lower-speed, traffic-calmed environment where longer-distance trips by bicycle are more attractive.

There are many ways to water boulevards down and make them almost purely symbolic. (See the TCSidewalks half-ass prize for design mediocrity). But generally bike boulevards are great way to create a bicycle network on neighborhood streets. Despite what the Germans would have you believe, they are an amenity to their neighborhoods because they slow traffic down, you can plant flowers on them, and if designed well, they provide comfortable safe space for people of all ages to ride around the city.

3) In-Street separated lane -- The whole gamut of bike lanes, from narrow crappy ones to buffered/separated cycletrack-style. There's a lot of room in here...

4) Off-street path -- Basically, anything that is separated completely from the road right of way. Often in Saint Paul this means a park-like sidepath (e.g. the Mississippi River Road), but could also refer to something like the Midtown Greenway or the proposed downtown bike loop.

As a whole, the future Saint Paul bicycle network will feature all of these different types of routes, which makes sense given the wide variety of bicyclists that actually exist in the city. You need some things for some people (e.g. fast bike lane-type roads for speedy commuters) and other things for other people (e.g. comfortable leisurely routes for more relaxed cruisers and/or families).

[Map of the proposed bike network.]

At Last, the Point: Some Things are Cheap

At least that's what would happen in a perfect world... In the real world of actual cities with actual overworked employees and budget shortfalls, implementing a bicycle plan involves making difficult choices. Probably the biggest limitation is money. The way the system is currently set up in Saint Paul, paying for new bicycle infrastructure usually involves taking money away from rec centers, libraries, or fire fighters.

(Of course it doesn't have to be that way; compared to road infrastructure, bicycle projects are cost effective, especially if you account for externalities like public health or local economic investment.)

When it finally begins discussing the city's fiscal realities, the implementation section of the Saint Paul Bike Plan includes a chart that outlines the rather astonishing theoretical costs of the complete plan's build out:

While the eye-popping $105 million figure seems daunting, there are a few reasons why this estimate is really an extreme exaggeration. The first is that many bike projects can be done for almost zero cost when included within already planned street projects. (For example, the Riverside Avenue bike lanes in Minneapolis or the Jackson Street leg of the downtown bike loop are both part of already existing street reconstructions.) If the city were to gradually build the bike network as part of its regular maintenance, in a just a few short decades the plan could be completed almost "for free."

(Caveat: unless you were born after 1985, you'll likely be dead. Of course, I plan to die in a horrible "accident" where I'm run over by an SUV, which may or may not be driven by Soucheray himself, by the Town and Country Golf Course next to the Marshall Avenue bridge...)

The second is what I mentioned before: investing in bicycles has economic benefits for cities like Saint Paul that offsets many bike infrastructure costs. For example, the Charles Avenue bike boulevard also dramatically improves safety in the Frogtown neighborhood, slowing traffic along 4-lane "death road"-style arterials, for example. Bicyclists are more likely to stop and spend more money at local businesses (rather than big box stores). Bicycling and walking is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to improve public health. Shifting mode share toward bicycling decreases local pollution effects such as asthma, etc. etc.

Finally, the Point

But the most interesting thing about the above chart is the disparity in costs-per-mile between bicycle infrastructure types. Look again at the chart, particularly the per-mile costs:

While off-street separated lanes (parkstyle sidepaths) are expensive, on-street separated lanes are very cheap. For example, Hennepin county's successful re-striping of Park and Portland Avenues in central south Minneapolis was a very cheap project.

It's amazing that on-street cycletrack projects, which are also the gold standard of new bicycle designs, are so inexpensive. The only thing they require is paint and political will and maybe a plastic bollard or two, and for that small sum you get many of the safety, economic, and public health benefits of bicycling for pennies on the dollar. A city like Saint Paul could implement ten times as many cycletrack-style treatments on its arterial roads for the cost of a few fancy sidepaths,

This isn't to say that we shouldn't spend money on high quality bike improvements; especially during street reconstructions, they are great investments. Rather, it's a pleasant surprise that, in an era when accountability and fiscal responsibility are buzzwords on both the left and right, the best kind of bike infrastructure is also the cheapest.

[Minneapolis' Park Avenue on the top; Chicago's Dearborn Street on the bottom.]

2014-09-08

Half-Ass Bike Prize #1: Bryant Avenue Bike Boulevard

[Picture if you will...]

Of all the prizes given out on this blog, the Half-Ass Bike Prize for Design Mediocrity (HABPDM) is the most coveted.* All across the Twin Cities metro, bike planners and Public Works departments strive to win this award. Competition is fierce.

Especially this time of year, with the (very silly) Bicycling Magazine rankings threaten to give American cities overly-large levels of confidence, we must be extra vigilant in calling out the mediocrity in our midst. And even in an ostensibly decent bicycling city like Minneapolis, there is plenty to go around.

What is the HABPDM?

The Half-Ass Bike Prize for Design Mediocrity is a bi-annual award given to bike infrastructure that phones it in. As I described in the inaugural post:

A plan is made. It's probably a decent plan, something about bike lanes or bicycle boulevards or a new extension to a bike path or even (god forbid) an unprecedented protected bike lane.

[Next] there are meetings. At these meetings, it seems like everyone complains. We can't do this! It's impossible, too much traffic. But parking! Everyone begins their sentence with "Don't get me wrong..." or "I love riding my bicycle, but..." or "Some of my best friends ride bikes..."

Next the plan gets watered down. Many important design elements become victims of compromise. This happens quietly, in small rooms or on phone calls. Sometimes political leaders inform city staff what is possible; sometimes it's the other way around.

Finally, the plan is passed and (much later) the "something for bikes" is built. Often it is half-ass, which is a metaphorical term that refers to when you don't pull your pants all the way up. You've still got the "pants on," so you can't be accused of not making an effort. But your ass is showing...

Basically, this coveted award is given out when an infrastructure is a good idea in theory, but fails in practice. This award for the gap between planning and implementation, concept and execution. This is an award for the compromisers, the slightly-below-average, the defeated shrugs that say "well we did our best" and "at least we're not as bad as Texas."

The Bryant Bike Boulevard

[Extra large sharrow!]

A few months ago, I was talking to an architect friend who lives right at Bryant and the Midtown Greenway (the ostensible hotspot of Uptown bike traffic).

Here's what he said about the Bryant Bike Boulevard:

At certain times it reaches a critical mass where there are so many bikes on the road that cars just have to yield. They either have to yield or turn onto a different street…

They were trying to add some roundabouts during the fight to make it happen. What that would do too is that, one reason bikers don’t like to use Bryant is that you have to stop every block or every two blocks. If we could get some roundabouts in there, everybody would be yielding and moving through and you wouldn’t have to stop.

In other words, sometimes when the sun is shining brightly and the stars are aligned,*** the Bryant Bike Boulevard actually functions as it is supposed to.

That's a sad commentary on the fact that, all of the other times of the day and calendar year, the Bryant Bike Boulevard fails to do what a bike boulevard is supposed to do: calm traffic to the point where bicyclists have priority on the street.

One of the reasons why bike boulevards are a tricky concept is that there isn't one standard design approach. The success of a bike boulevard depends on its context. That means that they can either be done well or poorly.

When they're done well, traffic calming and other mechanisms slow down or divert car traffic to the point where it becomes almost inconsequential. Done well, bicyclists can ride two- or three- abreast in comfort, without fear of being passed from behind by an aggressive driver. (Picture a parent and young children; isn't that nice?)

Well, unlike some of the well-executed bike boulevards in Minneapolis**, the Bryant Avenue boulevard remains a through street for cars. It's a real tragedy, because (as my architect friend says above) there is such a density of bike traffic in the area. It wouldn't take very much at all for this street to be "fixed." In a few weeks, the city could add a diverter median at Lake Street, or roundabouts at 29th or 27th Streets. That would be transformative.

Until then, however, this is easily the most half-assed bike bouelvard in Minneapolis. And that's why the Bryant Avenue Bike Boulevard should be proud to be the first official (non-emeritus) winner of the HABPDM.

Congratulations! May you someday pull your pants up.****

[Green infrastructure is not the same as green paint.]

[A typical Bryant Avenue experience is just like any other street in the city.]

* There are no other prizes given out on this blog.
** Don't even get me started on the theoretical bike boulevards in Saint Paul...
*** Note the impossibility.
**** The traditional HABPDM salutation.