Grid vs Bicycles ?

[WAngell]

2) I ride with my daughter around the cathedral hill / summit area without worry and have done so since she was little. It's a perfectly friendly area to ride a bike. Summit itself could be better but isn't bad by any means and obviously my daughter isn't a "vehicular cyclist".

How old is your daughter? Does she ride to school every day? Can she ride to meet friends at Cafe Latte on a Saturday afternoon?

[talindsay]

Call her "tween" age, and since we don't live there she isn't riding alone in that area. But it's as good asany busy urban node for kids on bikes.

[WAngell]

Call her "tween" age, and since we don't live there she isn't riding alone in that area. But it's as good as any busy urban node for kids on bikes.

I don't think so. I see about as many people riding on sidewalks around here as on the streets, particularly on Selby, Grand, and Dale. They apparently don't think it's safe to do otherwise.


I've talked to a number of local residents I've seen in Punch, Brasa, Muddy Pig, Cheeky Monkey, and other local eateries about how they got there. A few walked, others drove, and mostly these were less than 2 mile trips. Asked why they didn't ride and almost all mentioned that they don't feel it's safe.

A few informal survey's of kids riding bicycles to local schools averages 2.5 per school (Obama, Mays, Capital Hill Magnet, JJ Hill, Linwood, Central) in this area. On three days over the past two weeks Chippewa in Shoreview averaged 47. Given the densities of these two areas I'd guess that students at the St Paul schools live much closer to their schools than the students in Shoreview yet Shoreview has a much greater modal share of bicycle riders. I think this is because Shoreview has a good (far from great, but good) network of safe paths for people to ride on and parents feel that it is safe for their children to do so. This can also be seen in the number of kids in Shoreview who ride bicycles to local eateries vs how many do in other suburbs or urban areas. This is extremely unscientific, but at first glance appears possibly significant.

And all of these are dreadful compared to anywhere in northern Europe.

[Snelbian]

Call her "tween" age, and since we don't live there she isn't riding alone in that area. But it's as good as any busy urban node for kids on bikes.

I don't think so. I see about as many people riding on sidewalks around here as on the streets, particularly on Selby, Grand, and Dale. They apparently don't think it's safe to do otherwise.


I've talked to a number of local residents I've seen in Punch, Brasa, Muddy Pig, Cheeky Monkey, and other local eateries about how they got there. A few walked, others drove, and mostly these were less than 2 mile trips. Asked why they didn't ride and almost all mentioned that they don't feel it's safe.

A few informal survey's of kids riding bicycles to local schools averages 2.5 per school (Obama, Mays, Capital Hill Magnet, JJ Hill, Linwood, Central) in this area. On three days over the past two weeks Chippewa in Shoreview averaged 47. Given the densities of these two areas I'd guess that students at the St Paul schools live much closer to their schools than the students in Shoreview yet Shoreview has a much greater modal share of bicycle riders. I think this is because Shoreview has a good (far from great, but good) network of safe paths for people to ride on and parents feel that it is safe for their children to do so. This can also be seen in the number of kids in Shoreview who ride bicycles to local eateries vs how many do in other suburbs or urban areas. This is extremely unscientific, but at first glance appears possibly significant.

And all of these are dreadful compared to anywhere in northern Europe.

I'm not sure that the average St. Paul student lives closer to their school than a Shoreview student since St. Paul has open enrollment. A lot of children in St. Paul are attending schools on the other side of the city for various reasons (for instance, you named a service learning school, IB school, a magnet, Montessori elementary, and a school with an arts focus - of that list only Central lacks a big draw and even that has an IB program).

[mattaudio]

Snelbian makes a good point... one thing that is never discussed, with charters, district schools, etc is the concept of a neighborhood school. A charter opened up two blocks from my house, and they are poised to build a middle school starting this spring. Without wading into the charter debate, I was just glad to see education happening in a building that was abandoned for a decade. But I asked the Exec Dir if there's any way they can give preference to students within walking/biking distance. They can't, per state law. I'm just really frustrated that we've lost the concept of the neighborhood school.

To Walker's point, which is I guess the topic of the thread, I bet many people who drive 1-3 miles to shopping and restaurants do so primarily because we've made driving so easy in our culture, even in the city. We've set up a system where, even in places where walking and biking could and should be the norm, the norm is to have one car per adult. And the norm is to have abundant free parking, by mandate. And the norm is to engineer streets for cars first, even in districts like Grand or Selby/Dale or Highland Park.

I am obviously in complete support of improving bicycle facilities, even if we may disagree on some details. But the primary cause isn't a lack of bikeability, at least in our urban neighborhoods - it's that we still make driving too easy and too normal for such trips.

[twincitizen]

I'm with mattaudio. It's the relative ease (or lack thereof) and cost (or lack thereof) of parking that primarily drives my choice between biking and driving to a neighborhood destination. Concern for safety is not among the factors at all. If the destination is close enough (under 3 miles) that I would even consider biking there in the first place, chances are I can find a comfortable route, even if the last block or two is on a less comfortable street. The secondary considerations after parking ease/cost would be distance (e.g. more likely to bike somewhere <1mi than >2mi) and weather.

Then again, I'm an urban-minded individual that enjoys biking ~8 months/year, so that likely skews my choice more than your average urban dweller with normal parking ease/cost sensitivity. Most people never consider biking because driving is so normal. I really don't think it's infrastructure that's keeping people from biking to <2mi destinations in their urban neighborhoods...it's that they just haven't tried it yet or been coerced into it by a friend/partner.

[talindsay]

Right, if you ask people, "why didn't you ride your bike" it's a lot easier to say, "I don't think it's safe" than to explain (and apologize for) all the personal factors that tie in to why they stuffed their kids in the backseat and went instead of getting out the bikes, finding the locks, and riding to the destination. The school district actively discourages kids from biking to school so I'm not surprised you're finding few kids biking to school. How many of the families that you "surveyed" have actually demonstrated (behaviorally, not in self-report) an interest in ditching their cars and using bikes? "I don't think it's safe" is an easy response that pushes off personal responsibility for the choice and it's relatively unassailable in a culture that places kids' safety above all else. But I highly doubt it has much to do with it. Going places with kids on bikes is a relatively complex event with plenty of hassles compared to stuffing them in the back of a car - it involves empowering the kids to control the time, effort, and yes, safety, of their trip whereas the car makes them completely passive.

One further point: I sometimes choose not to bike to a destination because I "don't think it's safe" but what I mean by that is that I don't think there's a safe place for me to secure my bike while I'm in the destination, not that I don't think the experience of traveling by bike is safe. Do you know which of these applies to your self-response population? It sounds like you're assuming the latter (experience of traveling by bike) rather than the former (likelihood of bike being stolen at destination).

[LakeCharles]

I'm inclined to agree. The "difficulty" of driving is at least as responsible as the ease of biking for the high rate of biking in Northern Europe.

[RailBaronYarr]

I think it depends on the circumstances for who is making the trip. 20-somethings people driving solo in their car for 1-3 miles? Yeah, it's almost undoubtedly the ease/norm of driving and parking at your destination. I met up with a bunch of people for Tuesday night trivia at the Grand Ave Green Mill a couple times last year, and 3 of them lived within a mile of the place. They always drove, and it had nothing to do with the weather (it was summer, and never raining).

For a family with a couple kids particularly of the age that can't ride bikes (under 4? 5? I can't remember when I learned), at least not where an adult might feel comfortable finishing the journey for a couple blocks on a sub-optimal street, the choice is more about what's physically possible. I've got a 6 month old. Over the summer he was 2-5 months. It's pretty socially taboo to take kids that age on your bike, and the law seems reeeeally fuzzy (again at the very least socially taboo) on cargo bikes with baby seats strapped in. I don't even own a cargo bike (yet), and if the whole thing of bicycling is that it's cheap and requires less storage space (compared to owning a car), it's gonna be tough to convince families that owning/storing a fleet of bicycles (including a $2-3k cargo bike!) is worlds better that used mini van they saw on Craigslist for $7k.

Ok, mini-rant aside, obviously the challenges I outlined are pretty weak, and the aversion to that lifestyle (1 car + many family bikes) in favor of just having 2 cars and driving all the time, even in walkable areas like Mpls/StP, ultimately stems from how easy it is to get around by car. I get that. Plus, I'd say the majority of people and families aren't in the situation where they have dependent kids who can't legally ride their own bike or at the very least in a child seat.

[xandrex]

Time, distance, weather, and ease of parking are definitely the biggest factors for me.

I try to bike (or use transit) when I can, but often I can cut my time in half (or more) by driving to a location. That's especially enticing if the weather is at all sub-optimal and if parking is free/pretty cheap. Most of my life takes place within about a 1-3 mile radius of where I live (live in Marcy Holmes, work downtown, shop at the Quarry and stuff near me), so I could bike for a lot of things, but both geographic (the river being a big one) and social/cultural barriers make driving so much easier.

One factor I think might also affect biking in some areas: Guilt. Selby, for instance, is a pretty narrow street. If I'm biking down it and there's any traffic coming the other direction, everyone behind me is most certainly stuck. Even though I know I absolutely have the right of way, I feel bad for slowly down cars and buses because obviously I'm slowing a lot of people down from getting places (and if they're anything like me, they're cutting it close to begin with).

For families? Even if you think it's better to bike and that your kids know how to do it, you're probably going to want to keep your eye on them to make sure they aren't getting lost, that they're not veering into traffic, etc. It's so much easier to throw them in a car and get everyone there. The relatively minimal cost of parking (or free, often) is more than made up for by peace of mind.