Why should there be a bikeway on 28th Street?
Crossposted from Bikeways for Everyone.
Minneapolis plans to add protected bike lanes to 26th and 28th streets in the Phillips neighborhood. The project could calm dangerous streets and make short trips between Hiawatha Avenue and Portland Avenue much easier for local residents.
But here's a question you might hear over the next year:
"Why should we put a protected lane on 28th Street? The Midtown Greenway is just a block away."
This question actually has an answer.
When a block is more than a block
28th Street and the Midtown Greenway are indeed a block apart, as the crow flies. But for those of us who use wheels instead of wings, getting from the Greenway to 28th isn't that easy. There are only four ramps off of the Greenway between Portland Avenue and Hiawatha Avenue — that's one every five blocks. What looks like a block-long distance on a map usually involves three or four extra blocks of biking, plus a significant hill. For ordinary folks making short trips by bike, those detours might be a dealbreaker.
Mobility vs. access
Saying that the Midtown Greenway serves the Phillips neighborhood is like saying that I-94 serves the Seward neighborhood. Sure, people from Seward get on the freeway to go other places, and people from other places use I-94 to get to Seward, but 94 is useless for people who want to make a short trip in the neighborhood. I-94 provides mobility, and Franklin Avenue (a street that's "only a block away") provides access. No one believes that 94's existence makes Franklin redundant.
In the same way, the Midtown Greenway provides mobility for longer rides, and a protected bike lane on 28th Street would provide access for shorter trips.
Phillips isn't just space to be traversed as quickly as possible; it's a neighborhood where people live, learn, work, worship, and grow old. Let's take a look at some of the destinations on 28th Street: Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Allina Healthcare, Andersen Elementary School, Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center, St. Paul's Lutheran Church, and some low-income housing: New Village Co-op and Ebenezer Park Apartments. These establishments reflect the diversity of the Phillips neighborhood. Bikeways for Everyone believes that we can build a city where everyone feels safe and comfortable riding a bike, age 8 to 80, no matter their race or economic status. There's no reason this neighborhood's great diversity shouldn't be reflected in its cycling community.
Phillips deserves safe streets and great bike infrastructure. The Midtown Greenway does indeed pass through Phillips, but it doesn't provide access to the neighborhood's many destinations. A protected bike lane on 28th Street would be a boon to the economy, health, and safety of the neighborhood.
So if you hear someone ask, "Why do we need a protected bike lane just a block away from the Greenway?" do them a favor. Answer their question.
Artfully Installed Bike Racks for Chicago Ave.
This is a guest post by Stephanie L. Rogers, an artist and arts administrator who lives and works in Minneapolis. When she’s not doing art stuff, she’s probably riding her bike or wrenching with Grease Rag. Photo credits Ethan Turcotte.
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This past summer, two sets of bike racks were installed along Chicago Avenue in South Minneapolis, a major commercial corridor that previously had far too few places to lock up. Another set of racks is slated for installation when spring finally arrives.
In many ways, the process of getting more bike parking on Chicago Avenue looks a lot like previous efforts by members of the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition – a small group of people focused on an area, petitioned local businesses, and was rewarded with a safe place to lock up. This group also had the added challenge of finding funding and applying for permits.
The racks themselves, though, are the work of metal artist Kelly Brazil, and they look totally different. Brazil has been recycling found metal scraps into functional art for more than a decade. When Pillsbury House + Theatre put out a call for public art projects two years ago as part of their Arts on Chicago initiative, Brazil saw an opportunity. [Full disclosure – I received grant funding from Arts on Chicago for a different project]. Having lived in the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood for eleven years, Brazil had experienced the problem first hand. “The increase in biking here, just in the neighborhood, has been incredible. Everyone in my house bikes, my neighbors bike, but there’s never enough places to lock up.”
Brazil partnered with Loren Ziemek and Angie Raschio, who have both worked at Full Cycle, and with the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center (CAFAC). Ziemek and Raschio took welding classes at CAFAC and, with guidance from Brazil, bike racks began forming in the Center’s workshop space. CAFAC artistic director Heather Doyle and Mike Hoyt from Pillsbury House + Theatre coached the team through the public permitting process, which included site plans, diagrams, encroachment permits, and a presentation to the City of Minneapolis Public Arts Advisory Panel.
The public was welcomed to CAFAC to try out the racks, and people came, bringing with them their weirdest shaped and hardest-to-lock bikes. Brazil notes that creativity doesn’t just stop with the manufacturing process, saying, “I am amazed at how creative people are with how they lock their bikes. I got a text from Dara (co-owner of Modern Times Restaurant, which has three of Brazil’s bike racks in front of it) saying ‘there are seven bikes locked to your bike rack right now.’” The racks have made a difference for small businesses along the corridor, including Café Southside near 34th Street, where Brazil’s sculpture functions as both a bike rack and outdoor seating.
My own first experience of this corner of Minneapolis was the annual MayDay parade, the pedal powered community-produced art event that culminates with a celebration in Powderhorn Park. I now live, work and play in the area (Powderhorn and connecting neighborhoods Central, Bryant and Bancroft), but I still think of this part of Minneapolis through the lens of MayDay. These are neighborhoods where outside-the-box thinking, community engagement, and a strong reuse ethic form a collective aesthetic as well as a shared value system. The new bike racks fit in perfectly, and Brazil is planning on applying for more funding to build more racks.
