Articles / Bicycling in Minneapolis: Saving Money and Improving the City

A recumbent cycle on Martin Olav Sabo Bridge Credit: Livewombat/Flickr

During the recent bicycle tour of Minneapolis, Mayor R.T. Rybak stressed that in these lean economic times, cities across the country need to be creative about how they spend transportation dollars. Big-ticket road engineering projects to move ever more cars must give way to more efficient projects that move people by a variety of means—including foot, bike, and transit. "We need to get more use from all the streets we already have," Rybak said. "It really is the idea that bikes belong."

Bike projects in the Twin Cities are not limited to Minneapolis. St. Paul and many suburbs are also making it easier for people to travel on two wheels and two feet. Steve Elkins, Transportation Chair of the Metropolitan Council, a government body that guides development throughout the region, highlighted his efforts as city council member in suburban Bloomington (home of the Mall of America) to push the idea of Complete Streets—meaning that roadways should serve walkers and bikers as well as cars.

He extolled the virtue of road diets, conversion of four-way streets into three-way configurations with alternating center turn lanes—which create opportunities to add bike lanes or widen sidewalks without diminishing capacity for cars. "When done in the course of regular road repair projects, they cost nothing more than what it takes for a community outreach campaign," he noted.

Road diets have become common throughout the Twin Cities. "The biggest obstacle to Complete Streets right now are traffic engineers who don't want to reduce the width of traffic lanes, but we are beginning to wear them down," Elkins laughed. "There's nothing in the literature that suggests wider lanes are safer; indeed, if there's any evidence, it's that narrow streets are safer."

One theme recurring through the entire tour was that better bike facilities benefit not just bicyclists, but everyone. Bike lanes improve safety for motorists too, by slowing the speed of traffic Mayor Rybak explained. "We've found they're the best traffic-calming device around." Joan Pasiuk, Program Director for Bike Walk Twin Cities, distributed materials documenting how new bike facilities get bicyclist off the sidewalks, a major breakthrough for pedestrians' safety and peace of mind.

Winter Wonderland on Two Wheels

"We're colder than Montreal or Moscow," Steve Clark, Program Manager of Bike Walk Twin Cities, confessed to the Pittsburgh and Columbus visitors, "but that doesn't stop people from riding their bikes in even the coldest, snowiest, darkest conditions." Former bicycle/pedestrian coordinator of Boulder, Colorado, Clark pointed to research his group conducted finding that one in three summertime bike commuters will also ride on warmer, sunny winter days. One in four rides at least once a week November to March. And one in five will be out on their bikes through snowstorms and temperatures below zero.

City workers clear snow from the off-road bikeways just the same as streets, sometimes doing them first. Studded snow tires and breakthroughs in cold-weather clothing makes year-round biking easier than it looks, Clark said. And while Minnesotans are reluctant to dispel the notion they are hardier than anyone else, he revealed that even in the depths of winter many days here are above 20 degrees with streets free of snow and ice.

A few tips for would-be winter bikers: install fenders, ride slower, lower your seat so you can use your boots as an emergency brake and enjoy the Christmas-card scenery.

Clark emphasizes the importance of doing bike counts throughout the coldest months. "Actual data legitimizes winter biking as transportation, and debunks the idea that bike projects are frivolous because they are used only in the summer."

Gary Sjoquist, Bike Belong's Government Affairs Director who lives in suburban Minneapolis, added that gathering data is essential to promote bicycling. "We now understand that if there aren't stats to show how many people actually bike, then nothing happens." Bike Walk Twin Cities pioneered new methodology for bike counts in its role as the local administrator for the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Project.

A Proud Tradition of Civic Involvement

Dorian Grilley, Executive Director of the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota, credited a "150-year tradition of civic involvement" as a major reason for Minneapolis's emergence as a bike capital. In the late 19th Century, city fathers wisely preserved land along lakes, creeks and the Mississippi for the public use. These became popular places to bike in the 1890s and again, eighty years later, when the second bike boom hit town. The Cedar Lake Trail and Midtown Greenway were initiated by grassroots groups, which convinced political leaders to take the bold step of developing abandoned rail lines as bike trails rather than as condos or industrial zones. That marked a major step for transforming transportation in the community.

Minneapolis Was Not Always a Good Place to Bike. What Changed?

It just so happens that I live and bike in Minneapolis, although I was on the tour in my capacity as a writer and editor for Bikes Belong not as a local expert. But I offered some background to out-of-town visitors on the first day of the tour.

I told them that local bicyclists would have howled at the idea of Minneapolis being named America's best city 30 years ago. It was a frustrating and dangerous place to bike, crisscrossed by freeways and arterial streets that felt like freeways. Drivers were openly hostile to bike riders, some of them going the extra step to scare the daylights out of us as they roared past. Bike lanes were practically non-existent at that time. What changed in Minneapolis was that local bike riders patiently lobbied for better conditions, slowly winning over elected officials and city staff. Also, as the number of bike riders steadily rose, motorists became accustomed to sharing the streets with us.

Other factors that boosted Minneapolis as a bike town include:

*A large number of students at the University of Minnesota and smaller local colleges.

* Minneapolis was originally laid out for streetcars—like most cities outside the Sun Belt—which is a scale that works very well for bike riders.

*The high number of recreational bike riders here eventually translates into bike commuters. Fifty one percent of all Minnesotans rode a bike last year, and the numbers for the Twin Cities are much higher than that. Even folks who will never ride their bikes anywhere except around a lake can still identify with a person on two wheels, which reminds them to drive more respectfully.

*As a Mid-American city far from the glamour capitals of the coasts, biking has become part of our positive self-image. Even people who haven't rode a bike in years cheered when Minneapolis was named America's #1 biking city. It's become part of our "brand."