Love Your People. We are all Traffic.

Posted on May 17, 2012 by DeAnn

A friend of mine alerted me to this video which I think has so many relevant and relatable things to say. You see what happens to a culture (specifically in Brussels, Belgium), not only on a transportation level, but as a whole in its mentality when cars are prioritized. The “Bicycle” Mayor of Copenhagen (2006-2010 ) Klaus Bondam is in this film and I found what he said spot on: “Of course you have to love your cyclists, of course you have to love your pedestrians, of course you have to love the people who use public transport because they are contributing to the well being on tons of levels in the city…We really appreciate that you come here.”

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Hennepin County District 2 Candidate Questionnaires

Posted on May 16, 2012 by EthanF

Notes: This is a guest post from Coalition volunteer and Hennepin County District 2 resident Jim Skoog, who coordinated collection of candidate questionnaires. Retiring Hennepin County Commissioner Mark Stenglein will be replaced this fall. Hennepin County District 2 currently includes most of north and northeast Minneapolis in addition to several nearby suburbs (see map). We encourage District 2 residents to be informed voters and arranged for candidate questionnaires to provide information on the bicycling perspectives of prospective candidates. The Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition is a non-partisan non-profit organization and has made the questionnaire available to all declared candidates regardless of party, and will reach out to any future declared candidates and make their responses available as they come in.

HENNEPIN COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 2 ELECTION INFORMATION

CANDIDATES
Announced candidates as of May 16, 2012:
Jill Davis www.jilldavis.org
Linda Higgins www.higginsforhennepin.com
Tonia Johnson www.johnson4d2.com
Paula Pentel www.paulapentel.com
Don Samuels www.samuels4county.com
Blong Yang www.yangforcommissioner.com

DISTRICT MAP
Map of new Hennepin County Commissioner Districts approved April 24, 2012

DATES
May 20, 2012 Hennepin County DFL Endorsing Convention at Edison High School (12:00 p.m.)
*Republican, Independence, Green, and other local party units have not announced endorsing conventions as of 5/16/2012
May 22, 2012 Candidate filing period begins
June 5, 2012 Candidate filing period ends
August 14, 2012 Primary Election
November 6, 2012 General Election

SURVEY RESPONSES
To educate the public about Hennepin County Commissioner Candidates and bicycle-related issues, the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition facilitated a candidate survey. Questions for the survey were developed by the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition. All candidates were invited to submit responses to the questionnaire.
The Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition will share candidates’ responses with members and the general public. The responses from candidates are below…

Continue reading →

And It’s Time to Say Thank You!

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Susan

The Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition would like to take the opportunity to say thank you to everyone involved in increasing bike parking in the Uptown and Lyn/Lake Business Districts. The new pay stations have been installed and the new bike parking hitches will be installed in the next few weeks.

The campaign had many generous sponsors including three private contributors – Thank you to Liz, Doug and Michael for putting bike parking outside your favorite businesses. The Alt was the first business to contribute and started our campaign with a bang by purchasing four meters. The Calhoun Area Residents Action Group, Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association, Lyndale Neighborhood Association and the Uptown Business Association all offerred additional matches to make it even more attractive to businesses to purchase racks. Please take time to thank the following businesses who also sponsored racks:

The Citadel Office Building
Galactica Pizza
Herkimer Pub and Brewery
High Point Center for Print Making
Keep in Touch Massage
Lake Harriet Spirits
Muddy Waters Bar and Eatery
Roam
Schatzlein Saddle Shop
Stella’s Fish Cafe
Tatters Alternative Clothing
The Rainbow Building
Uptown Dental
Uptown Hair District
Uptown Pawn

Stay tuned – we’re moving on to other parts of the City!

First Franklin Avenue Public Meeting a Success

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Will

Over 40 individuals participated in the first public meeting for the Franklin Avenue Complete Street Project hosted by Transit for Livable Communities (TLC). The discussion was lead by Toole Design Group, the company retained to study and propose a recommendation for improved transit along Franklin Avenue.

At the Monday night meeting, Toole Design presented an overview of Franklin Avenue’s current condition for all road users. In short, the quality of service for everyone traveling along Franklin Avenue is poor. As reported at the meeting, the crash rate on Franklin is over 2.5 times the expected rate. A solution raised by Toole Design and one that gained traction among most meeting participants involves performing a 4 to 3 lane conversion along many sections of Franklin. Designating the middle lane as a left turn lane will likely dramatically reduce the crash rate. The loss of one motor vehicle lane should not have a significant impact on traffic volume and will free up space for bike lanes and motor vehicle parking. Continue reading →

Time for change on Franklin Avenue

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Lesley

Last week, I joined the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition to collect petitions in support of bike lanes on Franklin Avenue from Minnehaha to Lyndale Avenue.

Having lived in the Whittier neighborhood until just last year, I would sometimes take Franklin during my bike commute to the University of Minnesota. While this wasn’t my route of choice, I made it somewhat tolerable by taking 24th Avenue over 35W and on to 11th Avenue, and then 11th Avenue to Franklin to avoid (in my opinion) the worst parts of Franklin.

Last week’s petition meet-up was at Franklin and Nicollet Avenues, and it had been longer than a year since I had taken Franklin west of Cedar Avenue. That evening, I decided to take Franklin from Cedar west to the meet-up at Nicollet. Unfortunately, I didn’t get far and opted to bail at 11th Avenue. The following situations unnerved me enough to get as far away from Franklin as possible: Continue reading →

Time is now to start transforming Park and Portland Avenues

Posted on May 2, 2012 by EthanF

Park Avenue S and Portland Avenue S may be the two most divisive streets in Minneapolis. The one-way pairs certainly provide a fast trip–by car or bike–between downtown and points south. But they are really terrible streets for neighbors, are unattractive for the vast majority of bicyclists, have high cyclist crash rates wherever there are left turns, and the high auto speeds are a safety concern for everyone. With Hennepin County repaving the majority of both of these streets this fall, there is a big opportunity to remake these streets into something that is better for everyone.

Can this urban freeway be transformed? We think so!

Continue reading →

Bicycle Advisory Committee Resolutions-April 2012

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Lesley

Last week, the full Minneapolis Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) met and passed the following resolutions:

The BAC supports the Minneapolis portion of the Three Rivers Park District’s Intercity Regional Trail Master Plan provided that: the preferred cross-sections for Cedar Ave and 58th Street are utilized; the shared trail is increased from 10-12 feet where a separate trail and walk are not provided; a realigned entrance to Old Cedar Ave is provided to calm traffic; and where possible a buffer is provided between Old Cedar Ave and the trail from the 5-8 Club to the Bloomington Ave Bridge. For more, check out Adam’s recent blog post.

The BAC supports encroachment permits for the ZAP Twin Cities Program: The Transportation Management Organization–an agency that works with downtown employers to promote sustainable commuting options–has received grant funding to implement an innovative program called ZAP in partnership with Dero Bike Rack Company. ZAP will aids in bike counts and enable employers to provide robust incentives to employees for bicycling to work. Unfortunately, there have been some hurdles to installing 9 ZAP counters around the city. This resolution supports a permitting process that would remove these barriers.

The BAC applauds Target, Brookfield, and Lunds for the awesome bicycle facilities they are planning to install at their downtown locations.Target, for example, is planning to install 150 new indoor bike lockers.

Help Make Franklin (Bike) Friendly

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Grant

Did you know that Franklin Avenue from Minnehaha Avenue to Hennepin Avenue sees the highest volume of bicycle traffic of any road in Minneapolis that doesn’t have a bike lane or any other type of bike facility? Although this stretch of road is less than friendly for bikers, more than 500 riders a day make it a major bike route – especially for riders traveling between the University of Minnesota and Uptown. Making Franklin Avenue a safe and convenient thoroughfare is one of the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition’s key priorities for 2012.

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Intercity Regional Trail Gets the Go-Ahead from the BAC

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Adam

At the most recent Bicycle Advisory Committee- Engineering Subcommittee meeting, representatives from the Three Rivers Park District were present to discuss design aspects of the Intercity Regional Trail. Stemming from Bloomington, the 7-mile trail will go through Richfield and Minneapolis. The BAC-Engineering Subcommittee was largely impressed with the trail’s Master Plan, only with a few small changes. Bikers can expect to see a shared-use trail stemming from Fat Lorenzo’s heading south, with some variations in configurations. Here are the specifics, as well as project updates on other fronts:

Continue reading →

Can You Spell Bike Parking

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Susan

S-U-C-C-E-S-S?
Since February 2012, volunteers and MBC board members have been on a mission to increase bike parking in the Uptown and Lyn-Lake Business Districts.

Taking advantage of the conversion of meters to pay stations, Dero Bike Racks designed a “sleeve” to slip over the meter pole that accommodates two bicycles. The City of Minneapolis agreed to a 50/50 match with businesses to pay for the sleeves if the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition agreed to act as an intermediary and raise the funds . . . the race was on! To date, we have orders for 80 sleeves in the Uptown and Lyn-Lake Business districts. This increases bike parking by 160 spaces. With involvement by neighborhood associations (CARAG, LHENA, and Lyndale), we were able to significantly increase the number of racks when they offered an additional match to businesses. Watch for installation in the next months.

AND we are not done yet. We are now focusing on the West Bank, Downtown East and West, Dinky Town, and Stadium Village. The sleeves can be installed wherever pay stations exist (except Northeast where the design of the meters will not accommodate the sleeve). What can you do to help? Next week we will publish the names of all the businesses and private citizens that supported this initiative – make sure to stop in and thank them. Let them know that you ride your bike and patronize their business. Get involved with MBC by writing to volunteer@mplsbike.org

A Ton of News From the BAC Subcommittee

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Kevin

One of my outtakes from five months of attending the Encouragement Enforcement Education subcomittee (EEE) meetings is the incredible amount of bike advocacy events that are going on in Minneapolis and beyond. Seriously, make an effort to read this whole post:

Bikes and large vehicles don’t often collide, but when they do, 54 percent of the accidents result in fatalities. To help increase driver awareness of bicycles, the University of Minnesota is inviting employees and contracted commercial drivers to get trained on bicycle safety.

Photo credit: VeloBusDriver

Behind the big wheel
Part two of the training invites the public to sit in a school bus and semi-truck to get a sense of the blind spots. This will take place on Thursday April 26 at noon outside TCF Bank Stadium. Contact biking@umn.edu if you have questions.

Continue reading →

Isaiah, Age 9, Requests Advice for Bike Camping Route

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Janne

In June, my dad and I are planning to go on a long bike trip.

Isaiah and his dad on their trip in 2011

This is a guest post from my friend, Isaiah. He takes a bike camping trip with his dad every summer. I got a request for route advice this morning, and I thought he could ask for help here. He wrote this (with a little help transcribing from his dad), and added a second request, too.

In June, my dad and I are planning to go on a long bike trip. We are asking people to give money for each mile we ride. The money will go to the Minneapolis Bike Coalition because we want everyone to be able to take fun and safe bike trips, and we know they help make that possible. Knowing people are giving donations for each miles helps keep us going when we get tired!

My dad and I want to go on the bike ride because we like to bike, we like to travel, and we also like to give money to charity places. It is good for us because we like to do all those things.

The kind of bike trip we would like is:

We don’t want to be next busy highways, because it sucks the life out of me.
We want a bike path that goes through the woods.
We want a trip that is about 150 miles long. We’ll go for 3 days.
One that starts close to Minneapolis, or maybe Duluth.
A path that is mostly paved, not the dirty ones.
We would like to have a campsite near the bike path, that we could stay at.
We want our bike trip to end at Open Streets, if possible.

These are some of the things that we would like in our trip. Could you give us some ideas of bike routes that would be like this? You can put comments on this blog post.

The kind of path Isaiah likes best

We have already gone on 3 previous trips. On all of them so far we went for 2 days and we stayed at campsites for 1 night. The first trip, when I was 6, we went on 62 mile trip. When I was 7, we went 80 miles. And last year we went 105 miles and I was 8. Last year we ended out bike trip by going to Open Streets. Here are pictures from our bike trips so far.

If you want, you can donate money for every mile we ride. You can click on this form to say how much you want to donate.

We will put pictures and news about the trip on this blog. Thank you for your help!

Isaiah, age 9

Minneapolis

Next Open Streets event: Sunday, June 10th

Posted on April 22, 2012 by charris

Following the inaugural Open Streets event in June of 2011, we are pleased to announce that Minneapolis residents will have another opportunity to explore and enjoy their neighborhood streets without the presence of motorized traffic on June 10th, 2012. Open Streets events bring together families and neighbors to bike, walk, socialize, play and shop in their communities in a safe, car-free environment.

Last year Open Streets was from 10:00am – 2:00pm. We are planning on extending the hours this year so that it ends at 4:00pm or 5:00pm (this will be confirmed shortly). The location will be Lyndale Avenue South between 22nd Street and 42nd Street.

Please check the website, like the Facebook Page and/or follow the Twitter Feed for updates. We at the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition look forward to seeing you there!

Sharing

Posted on April 19, 2012 by DeAnn

Shared Lanes are popping up all over town and it’s Spring and you are riding more, or want to ride – right?! Here’s a great video from the City of Minneapolis to help explain to both cyclists and drivers what all these new lane markings mean…

Have you been using shared lanes? What works/or doesn’t for you?

Confused by all the new markings? This video ought to help you out!

Know someone who doesn’t understand (bicyclist or driver)? Please share this with them.

Lots of good things going on in this City of Ours…oh yeah….

does practice make perfect and viewing travel through bicycle eyes

Posted on April 7, 2012 by DeAnn

The Brooklyn Bridge is an awesome place to walk or ride a bicycle! (bottom left): Tourists embracing Brooklyn.

I was lucky enough to travel to Brooklyn this week for work. I knew I would not have much free time on my trip, but before I left I thought about renting a bicycle to make the most of my time. I have to admit, I found the idea a bit intimidating. Having only been to New York a few times, and never Brooklyn, I wondered about safety, parking and locking up a rental bicycle, getting around in general. I knew that New York has been making vast strides in bicycling infrastructure, and I saw that with my own eyes last August, but I wasn’t quite sure what Brooklyn would be like. It seemed complicated in my mind. I don’t know why I felt this way, probably because, well…it’s America. I’ve bicycled in Stockholm, but that must be SO much easier, right? Well, kind of, but not entirely… Continue reading →

Happy Hour Discussion: Engaging New Cyclists

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Janne

Join the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition as we continue our series of bicycle happy hours with a panel discussion!

The shop at Full Cycle (Photo credit Full Cycle)

This month’s discussion will center around the theme of engaging new cyclists – specifically cyclists who aren’t necessarily represented by traditional bicycle advocacy groups. “Engaging” is an open term, and could mean anything from helping cyclists feel comfortable and competent on a bike, to being engaged in advocacy – including identifying barriers to cycling or highlighting solutions or initiatives.

A discussion between panelists from Cycles for Change, Full Cycle and Grease Rag Ride & Wrench will be facilitated by Janne Flisrand from the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition.

Panel Discussion: Engaging New Cyclists

Tuesday, April 17th, 6:00-8:00 p.m.

The Republic, 221 Cedar Avenue Minneapolis, MN 55455

(Arrive early if you want happy hour pricing, which ends at 6.)

Panelists:
Crystal Brinkman – Full Cycle Shop Manager and Instructor
Laura Kling & Eleonore Wesserle – Grease Rag Ride & Wrench Co-organizer
Jason Tanzman – Cycles for Change Outreach and Development Coordinator

The pictures they shared are so great, that you’ll have to scroll past another couple to learn more about the organizations. It’s worth it – you’ll want to scroll to the end!

Cycles for Change Event (Photo credit Cycles for Change)

Photo credit Full Cycle

About the organizations:
Cycles for Change – Cycles for Change (formerly the Sibley Bike Depot) is an open, accessible space to educate and empower people to use bicycles as transportation, helping to build a sustainable environment and community.
cyclesforchange.org

Full Cycle – Full Cycle is a nonprofit bicycle shop in south Minneapolis that employs and trains homeless youth, teaching them bike repair and business skills.
fullcyclebikeshop.org

Grease Rag Ride & Wrench – Grease Rag is a group of women/ transgender and femme cyclists whose mission it is to encourage and empower each other in a collaborative and fun learning environment through rides, discussions, shop nights and educational seminars.
greaserag.org

Please RSVP to our Facebook event.

Cycles for Change Bike Library Member (Photo credit Cycles for Change)

Bike-friendly business districts: would you go?

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Lesley

Bike-friendly business districts

Last week, I sat in on the monthly meeting of the Minneapolis Bicycle Advisory Committee. While they covered a lot of important ground, a particularly exciting agenda item was a “show and tell” from the recent National Bike Summit held in D.C. We viewed a short clip about Long Beach’s Bike-Friendly Business Districts and were left dreaming about many “what if’s” for Minneapolis. Piloted in 2010, Long Beach Bike-Friendly Business Districts encourage customers and merchants to replace their cars with bikes, and offer many benefits. Here are some of the perks (source: www.bikelongbeach.org):

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Steady Improvement Slated for Hennepin County

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Adam

Hennepin County transit officials attended the March meeting of the BAC Engineering Subcommittee to discuss this Summer’s paving and reconstruction projects on county roadways. The majority of projects discussed were described as “relatively easy,” requiring only painting or re-striping to develop new biking facilities or reconfigure existing ones.

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Where have you been lately?

Posted on March 22, 2012 by DeAnn

Have you been enjoying this fine weather in March? I know I have! So then…what businesses have you been riding to and have you done your part in Volunteering for the MBC? Volunteering does not need to be a big commitment, it’s as easy as printing out some of these I Arrived Today by Bicycle cards, and leaving one behind. Get ready for the weekend, start printing now… Let us know where you have been volunteering or where you plan to volunteer.

The MBC appreciates your help, thank you!

Bikes in Schools? Yes!

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Kevin

Encouragement Enforcement and Education Subcommittee meeting

Members of the BAC subcommittee

But first …

The BAC subcommittee is proposing the city focuses its attention in four areas in 2012, which will be presented to the full BAC meeting on March 28:

Complete streets policy development (Rec. 3.1)
Low-volume street to greenway conversion policy (Rec. 3.5
Preserving/increasing funding for bicycle infrastructure and programming (Rec.’s 2.2 and 5.8)
Open streets event permitting (Rec. 3.9)

These four areas are from the bicycle master plan, and were chosen because the committee feels they can deliver significant outcomes in these areas by the end of 2012. Continue reading →