Bicycle Infrastructure

[froggie]

I'm pretty sure that utility cycling maxes out at 15, averages maybe 10, and rarely exceeds 15. It's actually not easy to go that fast when loaded down with groceries, laptop, etc.

Depends. If you're conditioned enough, and you catch a string of green lights, you can certainly push your speed higher. When I bike commuted to the Norfolk Navy Base, I'd routinely get close to a 15 MPH average on my way home...and this was with a backpack and panniers-full-of-uniforms-and-shower-gear. No noticeable elevation change, either....highest point in Norfolk is 30ft above sea level.

Therein lies the problem. Unless it's over 85 degrees and humid, why should you be a hot and sweaty mess if you're biking 5 miles?

I'm in the same boat as xandrex and mulad...there are people that have body types that just naturally sweat heavily. I'll sweat a bit just riding 2 miles in 60 degree weather, even if I take it easy.

[the other scott]

Count me in among the excessively sweaty.

I really think people are hung up on feeling sweaty and smelly after biking/exercise when in fact they probably don't smell at all. If you shower before your bike commute, you'll probably be ok for the rest of the day. I've been biking (and sweating) to work year round for nearly 7 years. I do take a change of clothes with me since my biking clothes are damp at best when I get to work. No complaints yet, so I figure after this long either I don't smell or I've worked with exceedingly polite (or timid)people all these years.

[fehler]

Strib article about the trail connecting the 9 bridge to downtown, opening the 35W Bridge tunnel: http://www.startribune.com/local/minnea ... 74571.html

So, did I miss when this got funded/approved/planned? Any trail maps?

[FISHMANPET]

I don't wanna be "that guy" but what is the point of this? You can already get to downtown from Bridge #9. There's a path that connects the end of the bridge to the W river parkway bikepath already. This is a little shorter, and you don't have to cross the street (which is dubious claim, because this trail is going to dump you into the middle of the street, so one way or another you're interacting with traffic).

[LakeCharles]

I'm with you FMP. I'm all for spending money on bike infrastructure, but there is no way this is the best use of $3 million, is it?

[Silophant]

Well, I think the idea is that this is a more direct route, without as much meandering down by the river.

I think the bigger driver, though, is that the most expensive part of the project, the culvert under 35W, was paid for by the city back when the bridge was being built, so it's more finishing the project they've already spent several million on, rather than letting it go to waste.

[Didier]

I had no idea this was happening either, but this should be a valuable connection. Right now the river trail comes to an abrupt stop at the train yard, cutting off the university and St. Anthony Main.

The fact that you can already get downtown through the #9 bridge kind of misses the point. This bridge is about more than providing a link to downtown; it fills in a major missing link in the center of the network.

[FISHMANPET]

It sounds like $841,500 was the price for the culvert, so there's still $2.2 million of new money being put in to this project right now. By my math/Google mapping, the existing path from the end of the bridge to the point on 13th Ave where the trail connects is 528 yards, and this article says the trail being built is 400 yards. So we're spending $2.2 million right now to shave of 128 yards (and, I'll grant you, a slight but long elevation change).

There's gotta be a place to get better bang for our buck on bike trails than this.

[FISHMANPET]

The end of the bridge is kind of dumpy right now, and could use some improvement, but the connection already exists, it just needs to be beautified, It doesn't need $2.2 million in new investment.

And I guess I don't understand what point I'm missing Didier. We're spending 2.2 million to slightly improve a link that already exists. The missing link is already there.

I don't bike downtown much beyond this particular existing trail. If I were to want to bike further into the core, what's the best route for that? My instinct would be to use the trail on W river parkway, making this connection save even less distance, but I don't know where bikers are going downtown.

[PhilmerPhil]

I wish this conversation could be less about "Why are we spending our scarce bike dollars on this project?" and more about "Why are our bike dollars so scarce?"

[ProspectPete]

How about a bare bones bike bridge over 35E for the soon to be neutered gateway trail?

[FISHMANPET]

In an ideal world we would have an infinite amount of funny money to do whatever we want, but we don't have infinite money. It's not about money being "scarce" either. If the bicycle budget was $5 million a year or $500 million a year, I'd still ask the question, is this the most bang for the buck for $2.2 million? Maybe if we spent $500 million a year on bikes in this city a project like this would be the best bang for the buck. I don't know what our actual annual spending is on bike infrastructure is, but whatever it is, we have to be able to ask the question of whether or not this is the best place to spend this money. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but the conversation needs to happen.

[mulad]

The turns needed on the exsting route are pretty sharp, and I've found it to be a pain to negotiate for space with others getting through there. The existing path is also pretty narrow, from what I remember.

I think it's also important to look at that change in the context of other planned improvements on the opposite side of the river -- soon, we should be able to go straight down a stairway from Dinkytown and zip across to near the Guthrie, rather than doing the annoying zig-zag of East River Parkway to the service road that leads to the bridge.

I am curious how it is supposed to connect to things on the west side of I-35W, though -- there might still be annoying sharp turns to negotiate, but at least folks won't have to go down and up the hills as much.

[PhilmerPhil]

Fishman, I agree that we need to use our resources wisely, wether they are scarce or abundant. My main annoyance was how the article was framed. Steve Brandt at the Strib has a consistent record of writing troll-y articles for the bike hating commenters.

[RailBaronYarr]

In another part of the city, Minneapolis is proposing a $190k protected cycle track (which FMP would probably count under his "better bang for buck" category). I wrote a few recommendations on streets.mn:

https://streets.mn/2014/05/16/recommenda ... t-bikeway/

[talindsay]

I had no idea this was happening either, but this should be a valuable connection. Right now the river trail comes to an abrupt stop at the train yard, cutting off the university and St. Anthony Main.

The fact that you can already get downtown through the #9 bridge kind of misses the point. This bridge is about more than providing a link to downtown; it fills in a major missing link in the center of the network.

Okay, so there are two parts to this project then? It's connecting the #9 bridge under 35W on *both* sides of the River? Because the only evidence I've seen (and I cross the #9 bridge and other bridges in the area about 20 times a week on foot) is that they're making the connection on the west end of the #9 into the Mill District. I know they built the expensive tunnel / underpass as part of the 35W bridge construction but I don't see that end of it as adding much value - it completely duplicates the existing River Road connection to the #9 and provides a better connection at the #9 bridge but a worse connection at the other end.

But if this project will also eventually make official (and legal) the connection at the east side of the Bridge underneath the 10th and 35W bridges to the Stone Arch Bridge, trails, and the Saint Anthony Main area, then it's a huge improvement. Currently, using the road / path that's there involves running past lots of signs saying you shouldn't be there; I keep my UMN ID on me whenever I'm there since my understanding is that the U has permission to use that path, but I've been just as glad that I've never been stopped there anyway. Hopefully that connection really will be made and alleviate the lingering fear of an incident with a BNSF "police officer" (they have no peace officer authority in MN but I'd still rather not have to make that point) like the ones I occasionally used to have along what's now the Dinkytown Greenway.

[Didier]

Maybe I didn't read the article close enough. My understanding was that this addition was to finally make a connection from the river road to the St. Anthony Main area, but apparently not?

[Didier]

Now that I read the story closer, the reason this didn't initially click to me is because it appears illogical.

[beauss]

Infrastructure costs money. Lets not forget that this section goes under a piece of automobile infrastructure that cost something like $600M per mile and that the city managed fine without.

[tab]

I'd love to see the Strib apply the same basic troll-bait algorithm to some stories about other kinds of infrastructure. The City spent $45 million on a 1000-space parking ramp across from the Guthrie, and it's now 50% full on a good day, so the City spent $90,000 per occupied parking space, in the best-case scenario!!! The State spent $250,000,000 rearranging the 35W/Crosstown Hwy interchange, adding exactly 0 miles to our highway network, at a cost of INFINITY dollars per mile!!! And it will take years for the improvements to off-set the inconvenience and confusion during construction, even if the project had been free! The Bluff Street Trail connection will help link 2nd St (which is a convenient and direct route through most of downtown - still needs some work near Hennepin Avenue where a stairway blocks the route) more directly to the U of M campus and the newly-built Dinkytown Greenway, which basically connects to the transitway trail over to the St. Paul campus. Bridges, tunnels, and otherwise challenging sections of any route are never going to look good in a 'bang for buck' analysis, regardless of what mode of transit is involved. No matter, apply the 'holy crap someone spent money on biking' frame to the story, and here we go...