As we screech to the end of January, we have posts about upcoming projects giving you a chance to get involved as well as bigger inspiration about changing the world one bicycle at a time. For the first time, the streets.mn board has sent out an invitation to all of you to volunteer to join the board. Click the link to learn more about how the board works and what we’d ask of you as a board member. As we look for new board members, we are especially interested in finding people who will help us broaden our representation of suburban and greater Minnesota; improve the board balance of racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, and sexual identities to more accurately represent Minnesota; and strengthen the relationship between the streets.mn blog and forum.
Big ideas
Adam Miller talks about Parking, Parking, Parking and bike lanes on Bloomington Avenue in Minneapolis scheduled for reconstruction this year. The City’s Bike Plan calls for buffered bike lanes, but residents want to protect on-street parking on both sides of the street. Adam provides numbers on how many cars park on this stretch of street and counters objections often raised to removing parking/adding bike lanes. The many commenters provide support, discuss bike lanes vs. riding in traffic lanes, and consider effective advocacy strategies for winning over people who wish to retain parking.
After receiving a gift of a donation to World Bicycle Relief for inspiration, Walker Angell writes World Bicycle Relief – Bicycles Are An Outsized Benefit in Africa saying “A bicycle seems simple, and it is, but the benefit is outsized. Optimistically this simple device can improve the education and future job prospects of children, reduce child pregnancy and child headed households, multiply the effectiveness of healthcare, and allow people to work who otherwise cannot get there.”
The Opportunity of a Lifetime on Rice Street is written in advance of a public meeting on February 1, 2017 at 6:00 PM at
Washington Technology Magnet School on Rice Street; Ethan Osten lays out the advantages of a road diet for Rice Street (and counters objections) saying “a 4-3 conversion on Rice Street would vastly expand the universe of possible improvements. In the first place, the conversion would be an improvement in itself: three-lane roads are inherently much safer than four-lane roads, because they eliminate the weaving between lanes that is the cause of so many crashes today. At the same time, the conversion would also free up space for the first time to add multi-modal improvements.”
Alex Tsatsoulis is Getting Serious About Winter Sidewalks: last weekend’s experience of “getting off a bus with my toddler and desperately scrambling up a snow mountain to press the pedestrian crossing button to get across Lake Street, I decided to throw a shovel in my cargo bike and clear some paths to beg buttons by myself.” He follows up with an assessment of issues and asks how Minneapolis (and other cities) can do better with the always limited resources. The commenters provide some specific challenging situations as well as some suggestions for how to do a better job.
This week, we start a new series from Max Hailperin who has embarked on “a multi-year project that will take me beyond my comfort zone, walking every block of every street in every neighborhood. Armatage just happens to be the first neighborhood in alphabetical order, which is as good an order as any.” As he walks each of Minneapolis’ 87 neighborhoods we’ll be crossposting the chronicles of his adventures from allofminneapolis.com at the pace of one or two walks per week. This week, we start at the beginning of the alphabet with A is for Armatage with Adventure Afoot and Armatage, Day Two. Max’s posts are a fine counterpart to other streets.mn posts about marathon walks and thoughtful bike rides.
Just try getting to this button with a toddler in tow.
Quick looks & listens
Links: National Links: Possible Policies of a New President from The Direct Transfer.
Look & listen: Writer Joe Totten has written an original song plus some hand drawn artwork for a short video New Karaoke Favorite – Roundabouts Explained in a Song to help those new to, or skeptical about, roundabouts learn more.
And that’s the week on streets.mn! Have a great week!