urbanMSP

List of Bike / Ped projects in the Bonding Bill:

$1740 Blazing Star State Trail
$1000 Camp Ripley / Veterans State Trail
$2000 Heartlands State Trail
$2000 Itasca State Park to Heartland Trail Connections
$3000 Safe Routes to School
$1500 Hastings MN 316 Bike Trail
$2200 Rogers Ped and Bike Bridge (this will be a bit west of MN 101
$2000 Shakopee US 169 Ped overpass (between CSAH 21 and Mystic Lake Drive
$500 Rice Creek North Regional Trail
$3600 White Bear Trails

Are those numbers supposed to be in units of thousands? (like $3M for Safe Routes to School?)

Yes, units of thousands. Also:

$2000 Winona Riverfront Trail

Last night, while procrastinating writing something for work, I hopped on to the Franklin West Reconstruction call. In 2022, the city is rebuilding a small but important stretch of Franklin Avenue between Hennepin and Lyndale (west of Lyndale, Franklin is City-owned, east of Lyndale, it's County-owned).

This is a stretch of road that actually has far AADT (6,400) than you'd think. But in the future, it could become absolutely essential to bicyclists. The City is working on a plan for reconstructing Bryant Avenue, which I hope will bring a protected bike lane all the way from 50th to Lake. That would certainly put pressure in the future to extend that facility to Franklin. Either way, at present the route is a popular bike boulevard. The City is also working on their reconstruction plan for Hennepin, which I hope will also include protected bike lanes from Lake to Franklin. The confluence of these two major bicycle routes would be this small stretch of Franklin, where bicyclists would cross to reach the Loring Greenway and go into downtown.



The good news is, the plan that's been developed looks excellent. They've recognized the low AADT in this section makes the current four lane design redundant, so they've added in new bicycle paths protected by the curb and greenspace. At the critical crossing at Bryant, there will be a (mountable for emergency vehicles) median with cut-throughs for bicyclists and refuges for pedestrians. There would also be continental striping. The plan will also add new bus shelters.

It's a really good plan for a small but mighty piece of street. I also learned that Franklin to the west of Hennepin will be repaved next year, and I hope that when the striping for that stretch is decided, the City will paint bike lanes that will provide a future connection to the 21st St LRT station.

You forgot to mention that Hennepin is also studying changes to their section of Franklin that would mirror this: https://www.hennepin.us/franklincorridor

I drove over to Chanhassen to see progress on the Highway 101 reconstruction. The new trail bridge for the Minnesota River Bluffs LRT Regional Trail is complete, and from what I read on the Three Rivers Park website the trail is now reopen between 101 and Pioneer Trail after being closed since 2014 due to a mudslide.

The County is replacing the bridges on W, Broadway between Mpls and Robbinsdale. This includes redoing the local and Grand Rounds trails and intersection beneath the bridges. I am very thankful they got rid of those ramp/ turn lanes that are separate from the intersection with only a yield sign. Cars don't see my here often when I'm running.

https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepi ... ements.pdf

Do you suppose they left enough space between those paired Broadway bridges for center running LRT?

From the rethinking I-94 resolution posted by the city of Minneapols

Be It Further Resolved that the Rethinking I-94 Project must provide continuous bicycle/walking
connections over the freeway from Ayd Mill Road in Saint Paul to a future Prospect Park Trail to 27th
Avenue Southeast, improving the pedestrian bridge at Seymour Place as part of the All Ages and Abilities
Network, an improved pedestrian bridge near 22nd Avenue South and a future extension of the Midtown
Greenway in Minneapolis.

A little propaganda for the day.

"Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26G ... =emb_title

Just saw the video myself and was about to post it.
Interesting how the trails in the Finnish city seemed to be packed down a little kind of like cross country ski trails and the fact that they project trail markings onto the snow is actually kinda cool.

That's wonderful news, but the fact that it wasn't included in the stimulus bill makes me not super optimistic that anything will come of it. If we see filibuster reform, or if it gets rolled into a big infrastructure bill with a pulse in the Senate, things will suddenly get a lot more interesting.

I hope it fails, it's a waste of money and our national debt is too high. The costs of these bicycles is decreasing anyhow. So why should taxpayers borrow money to subsidize something people are going to use anyhow? I don't know that demand for these bicycles is elastic enough and that the benefits of increased E-bike ownership are beneficial enough. If I buy one it would be to haul my kid and groceries and stuff and would be instead of buying a car. Most people use them as techno toys

We already subsidize private car transportation plenty. We can give a little to bikes, and I very much hope this passes. I use my e-bike for commuting and getting groceries among the usual recreational trips that have allowed me to bike much farther distances with less energy. However, considering how terrible this region is at clearing bike lanes and sidewalks in the winter I've wanted to purchase a fat-tire e-tricycle so I have much better stability and control on snowy and icy pavements.

We might as well subsidize e-bikes. We sure won't be hearing about the national debt the next time Republicans take power and dump untold trillions into another foreign quagmire so I'm not going to handcuff myself to that as an excuse to never try anything.

It's a waste to subsidize something which doesn't need subsidies. Bicycle infrastructure in locations which don't have everything we have would be a much more effective use of tax dollars. Does the e-bike industry even have any excess capacity?

Given that electric cars currently receive a $7500 tax credit; I think a (significantly cheaper) program to put ebikes on a similar footing is entirely reasonable.

We can argue in circles about whether electric cars should be so heavily subsidized; personally I'd rather see the expensive incentives dropped, and disincentives (taxes, regulations, outright bans) instituted to make polluting cars less attractive than the alternatives. But that's not the political reality at all right now--American politicians will never vote to make something more expensive, only to make its replacement cheaper. So as long as the tool we have available is electric vehicle subsidies, I don't see any reason why cars should be included but bikes excluded.

Given that electric cars currently receive a $7500 tax credit; I think a (significantly cheaper) program to put ebikes on a similar footing is entirely reasonable.

We can argue in circles about whether electric cars should be so heavily subsidized; personally I'd rather see the expensive incentives dropped, and disincentives (taxes, regulations, outright bans) instituted to make polluting cars less attractive than the alternatives. But that's not the political reality at all right now--American politicians will never vote to make something more expensive, only to make its replacement cheaper. So as long as the tool we have available is electric vehicle subsidies, I don't see any reason why cars should be included but bikes excluded.

This! But also for electric scooters and non electric bikes.

This! But also for electric scooters and non electric bikes.

One of the reasons why (in a perfect world) I would prefer making the polluting things more expensive, rather than making the cleaner options cheaper, is that there are lots of cleaner alternatives to gas cars--electric cars, electric motorcycles, bikes, e-bikes, scooters, electric skateboards, walking, a transit pass, etc--and it feels silly to limit incentives just to one or two of them. It also discourages the development of new options that don't conform to the conditions attached to current subsidies.

But, again, it's not a perfect world, so maybe the best option would be to try and convince the bill authors (and various state/federal agencies) to adopt an extremely broad definition of "bicycle" that would include basically anything that carries a human, weighs <50 lbs, maxes out at <25mph, and is powered by either a human or electricity or both.

On the topic of e-bikes, the NYTimes Columnist Jamelle Bouie recently was on The War on Cars podcast to talk about his conversion into an e-bike evangelist. It's a good talk with someone who didn't come at the topic from any specific urban transportation expertise.

Link