- Pedicab quandary in St. Paul: Basically, pedicabs aren’t regulated in St. Paul, and there’s a question of if adding regulation would protect operators. It probably would, if St. Paul were capable of sensible regulation – something that can be debated.
There are some classic St. Paul-isms in this article that point to that very concept:
The woman and seven officers convened on the scene, where they talked for two hours before reaching a decision to ticket him.
Uh, two hours? Awesome.
- Edina Bike Trail Controversy: Edina want to build a bike trail via the Nine Mile Creek watershed/wetland. A bunch of neighbors are opposed. Those opposed to the opposed neighbors are making it out to be NIMBYism. The opposed claim it’s about suitability because of the wetland nature of much of the route. Various groups are building websites and Facebook groups around their positions.
I’m not familiar with the entire run of the trail, but I suspect a middle ground is pretty accurate. The public land is pretty narrow and tends to mud, high water during spring thaw that creates trail erosion and maintenance issues and, of course, skeeters. (It’s a creek!)
There are a couple of quotes around facilities issues in the Strib piece that stick out:
“Just like you don’t put a playground in a parking lot, I wouldn’t put a bike trail on a roadway unless there is completely no other way.”
That’s because when you build it on-street, it’s definitionally not a trail. Depending on construction protocol, there are lots of terms for on-street bikeways. Bicycle facilities encompass a lot more than happy little trails.
For me, it also comes down to a question of purpose. It appears the approach is as a recreational trail. A roadway route has greater merit in connecting bicycles to destinations and driving greater multi-mode adoption. Many end-to-end recreational trails, particularly smaller ones in neighborhoods, don’t actually have a lot of community impact on mode shift. As such, I’d rather see them working on on-street facilities that help connect users to community destinations, rather than happy views of the creek.
- Legal Roadblocks to Greenway Extension: A judge has ruled in favor of the Canadian Pacific in a right-of-way dispute over the Ayd Mill railway corridor, a target for those who wish to extend the Midtown Greenway to downtown St. Paul. There is a meeting about ongoing vision and next steps for Greenway extension planning on July 28.
July 23, 2010 at 10:36 am
I’m really hoping for the creekside trail through Edina rather than the sidepath route. Yes, they’re building a recreational trail (I think it’s actually the Three Rivers Park District that’s building it, not the City of Edina…), but we all know that recreational trails can be extremely useful for actually reaching destinations as well. All the river trails, Minnehaha parkway Trails and chain of lakes trails are all “recreational” off-street paths, but they also happen to be extremely useful for utilitarian cycling as well, depending on where you’re heading. Whichever route they choose for the trail,I mostly hope they eliminate as many turns as possible. Some of the conceptual route options I’ve seen include so much turning and meandering that it’s hard to imagine actually following the trail from end-to-end.
But I also agree that the City of Edina should be working on more on-street facilities (along with the rest of Hennepin County…). I know that bike lanes are planned for a chunk of 70th Street, but as far as I know, those will be the first bike lanes in the city.
July 23, 2010 at 10:45 am
The planning diagrams I’ve seen on the creek trail suggest it to be a lot less connected into the neighborhoods than something like the Minnehaha Parkway Trail. I think it’s the nature of the lad acquisition and use. Stated goals include connecting to the Promenade and to Edina High School.
The claim I have seen from Three Rivers has it connecting, long-term, to the LRT, Lake Nokomis and the Minnesota Valley Nature Center, with an alleged safe route to the Mall of America.
The concept map doesn’t commit to routing: http://www.threeriversparks.org/news/construction/~/media/Files/nine-mile-creek-concept.ashx