My University of Minnesota colleague Elizabeth Wilson lives on the quintessential neighborhood street in St. Anthony Park (St. Paul). While riding her bike to work she was sucking diesel exhaust from four different school buses running down her street; these four buses were taking kids to four different elementary schools. She thought about the transport […]
Many progressive U.S. cities, Minneapolis included, spend a bit extra to spruce up intersections, medians or sidewalks through detailed brick treatments. I am talking about ADA crosswalks that are brick-laid as opposed to a pre-formed single plastic piece. Cycling intersections that have different concrete treatments to signal an intersection. Medians or shoulders with brick landscaping […]
The 2014 EU BICI series at streets.mn featured reports, photos, and video accounts via personal observation of 13 cities within 8 different countries: Cambridge (UK), Berlin and Munich (Germany), Seville (Spain), Ferrara, Bologna and Padova (Italy), Zurich (Switzerland), Copenhagen and Odense (Denmark), Stockholm (Sweden), Houten and Delft (the Netherlands). Individual posts highlighted structural and policy peculiarities of cycling […]
<Please note: the below post is submitted as part of the sarcasm theme for posts for today and thus has more than a douse of such> More than a year ago, I went on record questioning some unintended consequences of expensive bicycle facilities. I singled out some Minneapolis treatments. While the $1.6 M per mile […]
In 2012, Hennepin County and the City of Minneapolis re-striped Park and Portland Avenues, thereby reducing automobile capacity on two thirds of the corridor (from three lanes to two). These stretches were considered to be at ‘overcapacity,’ making them low hanging fruit for repurposing. But complimented with stretches of Lyndale Avenue South and other areas around […]
Prior to a 2 month hiatus, the EU BICI series travels to (arguably) Northern Europe’s best cycling success story: Odense. Denmark and the Netherlands have the best cycling culture and infrastructure of anywhere in the world. The “big city” stars in each, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, shine bright. Outside of these high profile centers, however, exist dozens of other communities, […]
The EU BICI series travels to Denmark’s capital city–Copenhagen–the location for other perspectives presented within streets.mn. Upon arriving in Copenhagen, I was immediately struck by three observations: An intersection on the east edge of town carrying 36,000 cyclists per day. A feature spread in the daily newspaper highlighting cycle track rage—not between car drivers and cyclists—but between cyclists. Public […]
The next post of the EU BICI series stays in the Netherlands and travels to the widely acclaimed bike town of Houten. “We keep it simple: we design all bike facilities in town to be 3.5 meters wide.” -Andre Botermans, urban planner for the town of Houten (the Netherlands) talking on June 25, 2014 to a delegation […]
The 10th post of the EU BICI series benefits from the insights of co-author, Peter Furth, Professor of Civil Engineering at Northeastern University and frequent instructor of a sustainable transportation course via TU-Delft. With tulips and clogs, bikes are a signature element of the Netherlands—lots of them. Everywhere. It’s the only country in the world […]
The EU BICI series moves to Northern Europe; Stockholm this week. Previous posts include Seville (Spain), Bologna, Ferrara, Padova (Italy), Berlin , Munich (Germany), Zurich (Switzerland), and Cambridge (U.K.). The cycling environment of Stockholm—the self-proclaimed “Capital of Scandinavia”—endures incessant questions about how it cannot achieve Copenhagen-like status. Quick responses point to the barriers provided by the 14 major islands (more bridges, bottlenecks, and pinch points). Others point to how […]