An article in Friday’s Pioneer Press spells out various bicycle projects moving forward throughout St. Paul, including bike lanes being added this summer along John Ireland Boulevard and Johnson Parkway. Additional bike-friendly street improvements (which sometimes includes bike lanes, sometimes does not) are planned along Charles, Griggs and Jefferson in the near future, and the mayor plans to unveil a new citywide bike plan in September, complete with routes through downtown St. Paul — the big doughnut hole in the city’s bike-lane infrastructure.
Andy Singer, co-chair of the St. Paul Bicycle Coalition, is hopeful but not overly impressed. He tells the Scoop, via email:
Saint Paul has accomplished a few things for bikes in the last 13 years, including the Lexington Avenue bike bridge over the BNSF rail line, extending the Como Avenue Bike lanes and a few improvements on Marshall. We are grateful for this but these accomplishments pale in comparison to what Minneapolis has accomplished during the same time period.
Among his specific concerns, the Charles Avenue bikeway will parallel the Central Corridor line for only part of the length of University Avenue. It’s one of the few east-west streets that crosses freeway, railroad and warehouse obstacles, but Singer says it doesn’t run far enough.
Charles Avenue doesn’t go East of Park street or west of N. Aldine. Thus, particularly at the west end, cyclists will have to come back south to University to continue west to Raymond Avenue and Minneapolis. Unfortunately, there will be nothing on University Avenue for them. From North Aldine to Cleveland (and to Raymond), there are no bike lanes, no “share-the-road” signs or “Sharrow” pavement markings and the sidewalks are often extremely narrow and dangerous to bike on, as are the vehicle travel lanes, which have no shoulders and high-speed motor vehicle traffic.
Suffice it to say that in the bicycling community, feelings about what needs to happen where and when run the gamut. The St. Paul blogger JustaCoolCat offers her own two cents, via Twitter:
@justacoolcat: I feel like all St. Paul’s bike planning assumes everyone needs to get downtown. … Also no East West bike routes on the North side of the city skirting Maplewood/Roseville … All paths lead downtown or just end
Then there’s bicycling folks like Kirby Beck, a former Coon Rapids police officer and bike patrol cop, who now consults on bicycle safety for police departments and other groups. He says, via email, that more needs to be done to get everyday riders prepared for urban riding before bike lanes are painted on busy downtown streets:
I’m going to ask you to think about investigating and challenging the premise that all this government money spent on special paint and signage is really making cycling safer. As a cycling expert I can assure you that it only gives the impression it is safer, but in reality it isn’t. Bike lanes and such do more in terms of encouraging untrained people to get on bikes, but w/o training in how to use them, they are at more at risk.
Via Facebook, frugal taxpayers such as downtown resident Mary Lou Monfils have let it be known they’d like to see less action on bicycles, not more:
Mary Lou Monfils · Top Commenter
Hey, City Hall! I have no desire to pay for bike paths I will never, ever use.
Why isn’t that money being spent on sidewalks so that the handicapped in wheelchairs, scooters and even walkers and canes, can get around this city without breaking something?
When did the public get to say ‘NO”? I never saw a petition, or any funding information. I don’t want to pay for it and I’m not alone. Stop spending money on junk when quality of living issues are being ignored.
There’s also been plenty of discussion, for instance, about changes to the Gateway State Trail along I-35E as the Cayuga interchange / MnPass lanes move forward. City Hall officials would like to see bike lanes along Westminster Street. Neighborhood activists see that as a worthy project that still does not make up for the loss of a pedestrian tunnel beneath the interstate at Case Avenue and the elimination of an old railroad bridge that had been popular with Gateway trail bikers. The Minnesota Department of Transportation says at-grade pedestrian improvements are planned at Maryland Avenue, and off-street crossings and trail connections are planned at Cayuga.
Singer, of the St. Paul Bicycle Coalition, has a boatload of technical suggestions for City Hall, some of them more realistic at this point than others. Among his most controversial, he’d like to see University Avenue reduced to one travel lane in each direction, allowing on-street parking and bike lanes alongside wider sidewalks. With Central Corridor construction pretty much complete and test trains rolling out as we type, that’s unlikely to happen at this stage in the game.
Singer says a “Complete Street” configuration would have boosted businesses, satisfied parking concerns and benefited bicyclists more than the Charles Avenue bikeway:
However, they chose a street configuration designed to pump as many cars through the corridor as possible. Their focus was on getting though a space rather than on creating a space that people want to actually live in, shop in and visit. It’s not too late to change this. Saint Paul and the MET Council have the power to program the street any way they want. There was talk of doing a “two-lane” test when the LRT opens– having one travel lane in each direction, allowing on-street parking and having space for cycling (if not actually striping temporary bike lanes). We believe this “Test” should be conducted and we are proponents of a two-lane University Avenue. For more details see– http://www.saintpaulbicyclecoalition.org/projects/university/
Naturally, Singer has many more thoughts on bike amenities. Here’s a small manifesto:
As regards the other projects, we’re happy about John Ireland. This is a project to fix the medians in front of the Saint Paul Cathedral so that the Summit Avenue bike lanes connect with the existing John Ireland bike lanes (east of Kellogg) that go to the state Capitol. Closing this gap is long overdue. We wish, however, that the city would put some focus into linking those heavily used bike lanes and other neighborhood lanes and trails to downtown Saint Paul.
Except for two blocks of Jackson that don’t connect to anything, there are no bike lanes in downtown and no bike lanes that connect to downtown. This makes it difficult for less experienced bike riders to easily and safely enter and exit the center of our city. If the Mayor wants people to use Nice Ride bikes in downtown or at the state Capitol, he should consider putting safe bicycle accommodations on Cedar (between the Capitol and downtown) and on Kellogg (between John Ireland and downtown), so that less experienced riders can safely bike from the Capitol or the Summit Avenue bike lanes into downtown.
Or he should consider doing a 5-lane to 4-lane conversion of Wabasha from Plato to Filmore so the west side’s Caesar Chavez bike lanes can be extended across the bridge and into downtown. Wabasha carries just 12,000 vehicles per day on this stretch. 4 lanes is more than enough to carry the load. (By contrast, Cretin and Cleveland Avenues carry almost the same amount of cars with just 2 lanes). The Mayor should also consider a 4-3 conversion on the 3rd/Kellogg Bridge (from the East Side) and on parts of Jackson so that bike lanes on it can be connected across I-94 and down to the Mississippi River.
Now that’s a mouthful… So what are your suggestions for City Hall? What bike lanes would you like to see prioritized, and where? Feel free to sound off below…