Star Tribune: Suburbs shift gears, make room for bikes

Bike lanes and links to trails are some of the measures that leaders in Edina and other cities are considering to help cyclists. Denise Watson likes to bike. She hits the road four or five times a week for 20-mile bicycle trips around the Twin Cities, circling the Minneapolis lakes, visiting St. Paul, heading for Lake Minnetonka.

Trouble is, she lives in Edina, where 260 miles of roadway offer a grand total of one street with a designated bike lane. That doesn’t stop Watson, who knows a quiet route near her home that allows quick access to area bike trails. But she worries about less experienced bicyclists in her busy, car-oriented suburb.

“It just scares me to death seeing kids go down Interlachen [Boulevard] on their bikes; it’s so narrow,” she said, talking on her cell phone from her car. “Oh … I just passed one of my daughter’s friends. She’s going the wrong way on the road on her bike, talking on her cell phone. It’s not a real bright thing to do.”

Edina is just one of the Twin Cities suburbs taking a second look at making life easier for bicyclists. Much of the work is in connection with transportation and park-and-recreation proposals that are being written for comprehensive plans that will go to the Metropolitan Council next year.

Many of the roads in older suburbs such as Edina, Bloomington and Richfield were built right after World War II. Unlike newer cities such as Eden Prairie, which has an extensive off-road bike path system, older suburbs have to work mostly with existing roads to accommodate bicyclists.

Some suburbs are working together to try to link up with Minneapolis’ bikeway network. Hennepin County’s park system, the Three Rivers Park District, also is trying to help coordinate bike plans.

“There’s quite an interest in a number of different suburbs to see bike lane development,” said Bob Works, coordinator of the bicycle and pedestrian section of the Minnesota Department of Transportation. “Drivers are becoming more aware of the fact that bicycles are legal vehicles on the roads, and because there are more bicyclists, there’s more tolerance to seeing them on the road.”

But even in the biking community, there’s a difference of opinion about what kind of bikeway development should be emphasized. Cities often choose off-road paths because they’re concerned about the safety of younger bike riders, said Bob Byers, senior transportation engineer for Hennepin County. Passionate adult bicyclists — in Byers’ words, the “road warriors” — often want on-road access in the form of 4- to 6-foot-wide shoulders for bikers.

“We advocate for both,” Byers said. But in the case of developed suburbs with mature street systems, he said, “there are no real good solutions.”

One way: Lane conversions

One quiet way that some cities have tried to accommodate bikers while also slowing traffic is by converting four-lane roads to three-lane streets. With one lane going either way and a center turn lane, the change often leaves wide shoulders that are perfect for bicyclists.

Minneapolis, St. Paul, Crystal, Robbinsdale and Bloomington have switched four-lane roads to three lanes. But national standards call for a formally striped bike lane to be at least 5 feet wide. Some of the new shoulders on redesigned roads are just 4 feet wide, so cities often don’t officially mark them as bike lanes.

Bikers find them anyway. That’s the case with 102nd Street in Bloomington.

“There’s no bike lane, but it’s more receptive to bikers and they’re using it,” said Larry Lee, the city’s director of community development.

In Crystal, parts of Medicine Lake Road and Bass Lake Road have been or will be converted to three lanes. The main motivation is to cut down car speeds, with new space for bikes a bonus, said Tom Mathisen, Crystal’s city engineer.

“We don’t say we’re doing it for bike lanes,” he said. “Down the road, we’ll see if we post it has a bike lane.”

‘The demand is there’

In Edina, the city set up a bike task force after bicyclists protested a plan to put a bike trail on Interlachen Boulevard. The path would have crossed more than 60 driveways in 2 miles, which bicyclists said was unsafe.

Steve Rusk, an avid bicyclist, leads the Edina task force, which will develop a plan for bikeways and propose specific routes later this summer. The plan will be forwarded to the City Council and eventually become part of Edina’s comprehensive plan.

The city’s previous comprehensive plan deals with bicyclists and pedestrians in a mere 70 words, Rusk said. Yet a 2006 survey of Edina residents showed that 64 percent selected walking and biking trails as one of their top four priorities for recreation.

“We know the demand is there,” Rusk said. “Not a day goes by that you can’t find people in Edina riding bikes.”

Rusk thinks Edina could find room for some striped bike lanes by converting some four-lane roads to three lanes. Connecting with the Cedar Lake Trail and bike trails in Bloomington should be a priority, he said. He hopes the plan serves all types of bicyclists, from schoolchildren to adults who want to commute to work or ride a bike to a restaurant.

Watson said she would love that. While she’s not afraid to bike anywhere, streets that were more bike-friendly would make her ride even more, she said. She thinks it’s true of her neighbors, too.

“It would increase everyone’s chance to bike,” she said.