Bicycling Debate is Rooted in a Generation Gap

[My dad and stepmom testifying against the Griggs traffic circle in 2012.]

My dad owns five cars.* Four of them actually run, and three of them are parked every day on the streets around his house in Saint Paul.

(So even though I haven’t owned a car in a decade, from a familial standpoint, I’m hardly doing my part to minimize our impact on the environment.)

You see, my dad has always loved driving. So when three years ago the city planned a fancy new bike route next to his house, he came before the City Council to testify against the project.

From his perspective, it’s understandable. Making parking more difficult, slowing down cars, spending tax dollars...  For my dad, all of these things are nuisances. I can see why he wouldn’t understand the need for a bike route next to his house. From his perspective, I get it.

Here’s how my dad ended his testimony against the bike route [about 1:10:00]:

[Lots of testimony... dramatic pause.]

And my son’s a biker. He rides a bicycle everywhere all the time, even in the winter. He would be totally in favor of that bike route. But there’s no point in the roundabout at Portland and Griggs, and not much point in the rest of it.

My Generational Perspective

[This is me. Look at that stupid rear blinky light.]

It's true. I've been living and bicycling around Saint Paul for ten years, and have devoted a great deal of my time to working on projects like the Griggs Bicycle Boulevard, so much so that I even wrote a dissertation about it.

But for me, after a decade of trying to ride in Saint Paul without getting killed, good bike routes are a big deal. After I heard that my parents testified against the bike boulevard that I’d been working on for years, I was a bit shocked. Since then, my father and I have had many (often fruitless) conversations about the project.

The bike route went ahead anyway, thanks to unique Federal funding and support by a few visionary city council members. And now, today, the traffic circle sits there at the end of my dad’s street. His driving and parking experiences aren’t impacted that much. In fact, he sometimes admits to enjoying tooling around the traffic circle.

I love my father, despite his many cars.  And as the years have gone by, I think he’s started to soften his stance against the bike route.

And every time I go to visit him, I bike there, often at night. As he watches me ride off, waving from the stoop, I know he wants me to be safe.


Bridging the Generation Gap

Even though he still doesn’t understand why the traffic circle was a good idea, I hope that I’ve talked him into trusting me when I tell him that it  makes life safer for me as I make my way around Saint Paul. In fact, with a bike route on Griggs, I'm more likely to bike past his house and stop for an afternoon visit, and I know he loves when I pass by and say hello.

If you spend any time working on bike advocacy in Saint Paul or Minneapolis, you quickly realize that much of the debate is generational. For older people who have driven their whole lives, it's almost impossible to understand the bike movement. Time after time, attending public hearings you see a row of older people get up and testify about the importance of parking, and how bicycle infrastructure will ruin their quality of life. And it makes total sense given where these folks are coming from. The Baby Boomer generation has grown up driving cars.

The automobile generation gap is particularly apparent for me and my father. He has always loved driving. When he got to take the family on road trips across the country, it was probably the happiest I’ve ever seen him. Nothing compared to the freedom of the open road, with thousands of miles of interstate driving on the calendar. He still loves large American cars, the bigger the better, and will drive across town to save a few cents on a gallon of gas.

(I.e. he once simultaneously owned two Cadillac Fleetwoods, length 225 inches, or about 2.5 Smart Cars. Hint: that equals 5 Smart Cars, i.e. a "car2go Yahtzee.")


The Next Generation

[My nephew Edgar learning how to ride a bike on Portland Avenue.]

I don’t expect car dependent boomers like my dad to understand bicycling. And I don't expect them to get out from behind the wheel and start riding bikes around town. But I do expect them to listen and respect the next generation.

For the last few years, I’ve been trying to change his mind about the bike boulevard next to his house. Even though he still doesn’t like it, I think he’s started to listen. I feel like he’s beginning to understand that having bike routes is important to me, even if he doesn’t get it.

And really, that’s all that younger people are asking. The next generation has different priorities than their parents. We don’t want to have to drive everywhere. We don’t necessarily want to own houses or two cars, and biking is a crucial factor to how we value our cities. All we’re asking from our parent’s generation, the people that are on social security and own lots of our national wealth, is that they give us a little bit of breathing room. That might involve small sacrifices on their part, maybe having to cross the street or pay a dollar to park, or to devote a little bit of tax money toward some bike-friendly concrete. But what we’re asking isn’t too much...

The other day I was over at my dad’s house. I biked there, of course, and my little nephew Edgar was visiting. He’s 6 years old and had just learned how to ride a bicycle of his own.

Edgar isn't that good yet. Basically, you still have to run alongside him while he pedals, holding his bike up so that he doesn’t wobble over. He’s all adorned in helmets, elbow and knee pads.

But it was pretty awesome to see him going down the street. I flopped along side in my sandals, trying to keep up. As he neared the bike boulevard and traffic circle at the end of the street, the very one that my dad had testified against three years prior, an SUV came speeding up. Thankfully, it slowed down and went around the circle as little Edgar pedaled away.

The streets we’re building now are going to last for decades. They’re not about my dad’s generation. They’re about my six-year-old nephew, and what kind of city he’s going to want to live in as he gets older.

I can only hope that the older generation, the people who overwhelmingly vote, pay taxes, and show up for public meetings, can give the rest of us the benefit of the doubt. You don’t have to understand everything about the new wave of city dwellers. All you have to do is listen. We need safe streets. It’s time to make it happen.

[Edgar in front of the Griggs Avenue traffic circle.]

* OK he actually owns something like 20 cars, but the vast majority of them do not run and are stored out in a farm field in Wisconsin. The (rather generous, I think) "5 car" tally is only listing the cars that actually live in Saint Paul, in and around his house in the Lex-Ham neighborhood.

Sign of the Times #103

 I am more than a 

TEST

SCORE

I'm a person

[Not a person. Seward, Minneapolis.]

LOST DOG: Macy

White, small w/ black spots

on her side. DO NOT CHASE

if sighted.

[Pole. Location forgotten.]

WE DO

LAMP REPAIRS

[Location forgotten.]

USE

CROSS

WALK

[Pole. West Bank, Minneapolis.]

Kung

Fu

[University Avenue, Saint Paul.]

Now Buying

Summer

Thangs

[Location forgotten.]

We Ride

By 

FAITH

[Wheelchair contraption. Green Line, Saint Paul.]

 Longfellow residents and to all who use our park. A developer has proposed to build a three story apartment and retail building on the corner of 34th Street and 38h Avenue. This project is not in the best interest of our park or neighborhood. Crime and traffic will increase and our property value wild drop. With all the extra traffic and people it will only be a matter of time before one of our children or your neighbors is involved in an accident, God forbid. If you believe that the city council won't allow this you are wrong. Their only concern is the tax revenue created by this project. We urge everyone against this and all future projects to attend the meeting at Longfellow parking building on Tuesday ####. Come and voice your concerns, we must try to stop this developer from destroying our park and neighborhood. HE is only after as much money as he can make on this corner lot. Our park and neighborhood is of no consequence of him YOU MUST ATTEND THIS MEETING TO STOP THE INSANITY. Thank you, neighbors!

[Pole. Longfellow, Minneapolis.]

Public Character #4: Judith, who trims the tree in the parking lot in the hopes that it won't bother anyone

The social structure of sidewalk life hangs partly on what can be called self-appointed public characters. A public character is anyone who is in frequent contact with a wide circle of people and who is sufficiently interested to make himself a public character. A public character need have no special talents or wisdom to full his function --although he often does. He just needs to be present, and there need to be enough of his counterparts. his main qualification is that he is public, that he talks to lots of different people.

-Jane Jacobs, "The Uses of Sidewalks: Contact."

[Judith trimming the mystery tree.]

If I hadn't gotten a flat tire, I wouldn't have noticed Judith working in the parking lot. But my rear tube was flat and sat down on the low concrete wall to change my tire, and as I pumped I watched her work.

She was alone, snipping away at the branches of a tree that had somehow grown to middling size on the edge of the lot.

"I'm just trying to make sure the parking lot is happy, otherwise they'll cut down this tree," Judith told me.

"This is one of the the last two trees we have," she said. "When they re-built the Union Depot we lost about eight trees. Now there are only these two," she said, referring to the two trees somehow growing out of cracks in the fence. Each was about 30' tall, and we didn't know what species either of them were.

"Is that an elm?" I asked.

"Yeah maybe but it has this weeping quality with the branches," Judith replied. "I don't know, a Chinese elm?"

Judith lives in one of the  buildings nearby, and is a neighborhood cultivator of the volunteer'd trees and shrubs that somehow grow between the alleyway cracks.

[The lot owner.]

While were were chatting I noticed that a guy in a white car had driven up, and was removing the money from the parking kiosk. This particular surface lot is notoriously unkempt, its sidewalks getting icy in the wintertime. The guy didn't seem interested in what we were doing, and I was struck by the contrast between his uncare and Judith's volunteered fervor.

"Do you want a hand with that?" I asked, after fixing my flat, referring to the giant pile of limbs that Judith had gathered on the asphalt.

"No, I think I can drag it pretty easily," she said.

And she did.

[The limbs dragged pretty easily. "Now what do I do with them," she asked herself.]

Motivational Poster #2

Inspired by this column.

Sidewalk Mailbox #6: High-speed One-ways are like Watering Your Garden with a Firehose

Here's a very lovely letter I just received:

Hi Bill,

I'm hoping you wouldn't mind helping me understand some City of Minneapolis street layouts/designs. The questions I have are regarding the bike lanes on 26th and 28th streets in Minneapolis. More info is here:
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/bicycles/projects/WCMS1P-133460

First and foremost, I want to say I support bike lanes. However, I think they're a tricky subject because most bikers do as they please on the roads and give a bad rap to all bikers. That being said, unfortunately, it only takes a few bad apples to ruin for everyone and create a stigma that bikers are a huge PITA. I fully support bike lanes but I'm fairly confident they can be implemented a lot better and make things more efficient for both bikers and vehicles.

I frequently use 26th and 28th streets because they're one ways and quick to get across town for my work - I work for a charitable gambling organization in Minneapolis whose main revenue source is pulltab sales at different bars so going from bar to bar is a big part of my time.

A few days ago, I was on one of the streets mentioned above and noticed that it is now 2 lanes instead of 3 - one full lane of traffic being devoted to a bike lane. This was during rush hour and traffic was backed up and it was backed up for at least a half mile (Hiawatha to ~Chicago). I noticed that once the road went back to 3 lanes (the original configuration), traffic suddenly flowed at a greater pace.

I'm having a hard time understanding why the city/planners/public works department takes a lane of automobile traffic away and dedicates it to bikes only. I was under the impression that streets were intended for cars. The amount of cars on a road vastly outnumbers bikes, so why are bikes taking lanes away from cars?

Consider this analogy: You have a container of water that holds 100 liters. It drains at a rate of 10 liters/minute but filling with water at a rate of 15 liters/minute. What's going to happen to in 20 minutes? The water will overflow. This is what's happening on those streets. You have streets that were meant to handle so much traffic and now there's even less room for that traffic so it backs up. Why would anyone consider this something viable?

We know the planet is warming because of CO2. Does anyone pay attention to that fact? It certainly doesn't seem that way to me. Why do bikes need to travel on 26th and 28th streets when 1 block North or South will accomplish the same thing? Are bike lanes put on busy streets so bikers don't have to stop for stop signs or cross busy streets as frequently? The amount of energy required to move a vehicle is much greater than a bike.

Adding bike lanes is complicated, but it seems that planners just put them wherever without considering all factors. Another good example is Portland and Park Avenues running from Minnehaha Creek to Downtown. Portland used to be 3 or 4 lanes and now it's only 2. And the speed limit was reduced from 35 to 30! A double whammy there!

I'm hoping you can provide a little insight into why bike lanes are added to somewhat busy streets. I really do not understand why bikes need to be on the same roads as vehicles. When bikes and vehicles collide, there's usually damage to the bike and sometimes the rider. If bike lanes were on less busy streets, would that eliminate a majority of accidents? Granted, you can't force bikers to ride on certain streets but vehicles will almost always follow the quickest route (I.E. using 26th or 28th instead of 27th or 29th).

Sincerely,

Impressionable Pulltab

Dear Impressionable,

Thanks for your thoughtful letter, particularly since it contains an analogy which I like a great deal. And first off, let me say that I'm a big fan of the actual physical pulltab industry, the ones where you pull a tab with your thumb and then stack the expired tabs into strange configurations. (It's these electronic pulltabs which are giving bars a bad name, and don't get me started on the gas station lottery.)

[My well-watered garden plot on the West Side.]

And fluid dynamics are interesting indeed! I was biking home last night with a friend and she wanted to stop by her community garden, which was on the way. At one point she asked me, "Can you go over to the hose and turn the water on?"

It took me a while to find it in the dark, but I did. and (lefty-loosey) uncranked the spigot.

"Woah, can you turn it down a bit?" She shouted back to me. So I turned the knob a bit to the right. She was holding the other end of the hose, and trying to water her flowers and beans.

"A bit more," she shouted, and I dialed it back just a bit.

"Is that OK?" I asked?

"Perfect," she said, and for the next five minutes she watered her three raised garden beds. She loves gardening, and later she said, "I feel so much better when I can come water the plants. They've perked up. Now they're all set for some great growing tomorrow."

[Stills from Arteries of New York City, 1941.]

You are certainly right about your "container of water" metaphor, as far as it goes. If our big goal as a city was to keep the most water flowing, then designing streets to maximize volume would be the obvious solution.

And in fact, that's how traffic engineers have traditionally thought of traffic, as cars circulating like blood through corporeal arteries. Just like cholesterol clogging arteries, congestion was seen as inherent vice. A lot of money, public space, and social resources were spent on unclogging our streets to maximizing the "flow" of cars.

But the problem is that cities aren't the hoses, they're the gardens. Just like you don't want to water your tomatoes with a firehose, you don't want to maximize traffic flow in a neighborhood. We need to stop focusing on the water, and start focusing on the plants. How much water do they need to grow? At what rate? Are we flooding them?

In the analogy, the garden is the city. Neighborhoods, sidewalks, streets, and even dive bars with pulltabs require more than just a stream of cars passing by their doorstep. The require public spaces for socializing. They require people to be able to easily stop, park, and cross the street. They require access to ways of getting around that aren't cars, so that after a you win at pulltabs and blow all your money on rounds of drinks for the house, you don't have to drive home drunk because you can catch the bus. And cities thrive when the flowing traffic is at a safe level, both for people in cars and for those on foot.

As I've written before, 26th and 28th have long been some of the most dangerous streets in Minneapolis. Their design dates back to the pre-freeway era, and worked well for the problem they were trying to solve. But the speedy convenience for South Minneapolis drivers comes at a high cost. For example, after a bicyclist named Jessica Hanson was killed on 28th Street, I pointed out how it was the #1 most dangerous street for bike crashes in the city. This isn't to mention the fact that the current high-speed one-way configuration is also dangerous for car drivers. (Here's a 2009 video showing the aftermath of one such accident.)

[From the 2013 Minneapolis Bike Crash Report.]

A while back, I dated a woman who lived in a first-floor apartment whose windows looked out directly onto 26th Street. Even when we were in her apartment, you could still hear (and feel) the traffic rushing by at 40 miles per hour. 26th and 28th are unpleasant places to spend time, and the feeling of danger permeates the neighborhoods on both sides of these roads.

In the big picture, the protected bike lanes are a dramatic positive change for both 26th and 28th, for people in and out of cars. In exchange for a decrease in speeds and a bit longer stacking times (noticeable mostly at rush hour), there is a much safer street with fewer accidents. As a bonus, the new design also creates a good bike route on Minneapolis' most dangerous street for bicyclists. And as one-way streets, they remain the best east-west routes through South Minneapolis, regardless of how many lanes there are.

The simple fact is that high-speed roads destroy walkable cities. It's like watering your garden with a firehose. Fixing these streets is long overdue, and I'm confident that South Minneapolis will flower.

Sincerely,
Bill

PS. I'm interested in how the pulltab business works. Maybe we can chat about that sometime!

[Today's 26th Street: a much safer design for cars and people, slightly diminished capacity.]