What is Bike Infrastructure?
Minneapolis Stone Arch Bridge. Bikers cross it every day, year round. Photo credit: Jvstin / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA
On my last post, commenter Johnny K writes:
“You know I have heard many people say that this place has good bicycle infrastructure or that place has good bicycle infrastructure. It got me wondering what is good bicycle infrastructure? What does that look like exactly? What do they have that we do not? I have only ridden in Florida and only North East Florida at that. I know it’s a loaded question and I think I will post this question on other websites and see what answers I get.”
Great question, Johnny K! I’ll do my best to answer it. The place in question, of course, is Minneapolis, a city that has vied with Portland for the “Best Biking City” crown for the past few years. Here’s what bike infrastructure in Minneapolis looks like.
Bike Trails
Minneapolis has miles of bike trails. Many them are scenic, such as the trail that winds along the West River Parkway and gives you a great view of the Mississippi or the Cedar Lake trail that edges one of the city’s many bodies of water. But many others are like freeways for bikers. The Greenway stretches from St. Paul to St. Louis Park (a suburb) and sees traffic from bikers, runners, skaters and skiiers year round. In just about any part of the city, bikers can connect to a trail that provides a safe, traffic-free option that will get them to their destination.
Bike Lanes
Throughout the city, bike lanes give bikers designated space on the road. Many of these lanes are on busy thoroughfares that cross through Downtown Minneapolis, enabling bike commuters to speed from point A to point B.
Bridges
The Stone Arch Bridge was originally a train bridge. Eventually, it was converted into a bike and pedestrian bridge, connecting Downtown with Northeast Minneapolis. A friend of mine who lives in Minneapolis told me that she crossed this bridge every day when she commuted to a job in the suburbs. Sure, you have to put up with the occasional bridal party hogging the bridge to take photos — the bridge is very scenic — but it’s lovely to cruise over in the morning. Or evening. Or whenever.
In addition to the Stone Arch bridge, there is the Sabo bridge that allows bikers to cross over a busy intersection without having to navigate it. Many people who commute from Minneapolis to St. Paul (or vice versa) cross this bridge every day.
Community
There’s a very strong and vocal bike community in Minneapolis. People from the community host events like Winter Biking Skill Shares, where bikers teach others the best way to dress, ride and care for their bikes during the snowy months. There are also races, “No pants” bike rides, and other events that happen year round. The city council even has a “bicycle advisory committee.”
Transit
The Light Rail trains have bike racks built in, so that bikers can switch from trails to rails without stressing about what to do with their wheels.
What bike infrastructure looks like, in a nutshell, is a multi-faceted system that incorporates not just one, but all of the different things that making urban biking possible. And, it can’t happen without a strong community to back it.
That answer your question, Johnny K?
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Well that answered my questions all right. I will say Jacksonville has several of those things you mentioned however they don’t connect to each other and they are not made with the idea that we are trying to use the infrastructure as a means of transportation by bicycle. We have bike trails that exclude motorized traffic however those trails have no practical use (ie… they start and end no where in particular). Our bike lanes while there are several they too are not meant for using as a mode of transportation. They go for a few miles and then stop for no obvious reason. There are tons of multi-lane intersections that you cannot bike through without the lights changing let alone walk across (ie… I see people trying to run across them) and these are intersections with bike lanes. Also the lights at the intersections do not protect pedestrians at all. When FDOT puts in a bike lane there is no signal to manage the safe crossing of bicycles. The cross walk signaling system needs to only allow foot traffic when no other vehicles are allowed in the intersection but they don’t . We have 2 bridges that I know of that allows foot traffic across the river however on the Main St. Bridge there is only room enough for 1 person walking at a time. You have to squeeze past each other for 2 people to pass sort of like the width of the register lines in Wal-Mart (actually I think there is more room in line at Wal-Mart) . I have tried riding my bike on the sidewalk of these bridges and if there are people on it that will scare you to death. So I do see your point however I also have to say this by comparison Jacksonville has by far more physical space than the Cities you mentioned in your post. There has been some progress here and there in Jacksonville with the conversion of the shoulder on Phillips Hwy to a bike lane and the conversion of the parking lane on San Jose Blvd. Plus the bike lane on Beach Blvd as you head out to the Beach however if you look at them from being a complete thoroughfare you will see they are far from that since they don’t inner-connect with each other to make a real road system for bicycles. I guess it would be nice if they just made a complete bicycle system. It is still a tough ride to get across the river especially if you are loaded. I have all but given up on JTA. We have a community of cyclist but it is small as far as cyclist that have chosen the bicycle as their mode of transportation. Most other cyclist in Jacksonville use the bicycle as some kind of exercise torture device so I guess long straightaways that don’t go anywhere is probably good for them. I want practical connected bicycle thoroughfares so we can get from store to store and office to office without killing the bank. Anyway I do listen to @PedalHubMPR so I do know what you’re talking about but was not sure if there was anything beyond the normal bike lane and it sounds like bke-paths are the in thing now?
Honestly, I think bike lines are kind of like the International Court of Justice — it’s only real as long as everyone involved agrees to it. When bike lanes are just painted lines on the street, there’s always going to be some asshole who thinks it’s the perfect place to double park. In some spots, they’ve “buffered” bike lanes by painting additional lines on either side of the lane. It helps, but it’s still Tinkerbell in that it is only safe as long as motorists actually stay the hell out of it. And I agree that it is a lot harder to implement bike infrastructure in cities that aren’t as dense. Part of the problem, I think, is that cities that are more sprawling intimidate people who might want to bike across them. So people just don’t do it, and you don’t get a critical mass of people who bike. That critical mass is what makes change happen. All of the “best cities for biking” reached that critical mass at some point. I think that’s the challenge we have in Jacksonville. How do you reach critical mass when biking across town is scary?
But interconnectedness is awesome. For example, in Minneapolis, one of the bike trails has several exit ramps, and at the top of the exit ramp, where you exit onto the street, there’s a bike-specific traffic signal that cyclists can use so they can safely merge into the bike lane on that street.
Well I have biked from one end of this country to the other and all points in between. Mostly by myself and usually to get to the neighboring counties. I will say there are some areas that are scary but by and large many places are too bad. However that is coming from someone that has been riding for a while and rides everyday. For noob’s which I was one at one time it is very scary and like I tell people take short trips at first. Don’t try to from downtown Jacksonville to Green Cove Springs on 17 day 1. Try just riding around your block and then try riding to the closest store to you and then after a few months of that try to venture out further and further. I think Roosevelt BLVD, and Atlantic BLVD are probably the worse of the worse but only in spots. It would be nice to have to some protected roads for cycling here in Jax but I think they first need to learn how to build a proper road. It seems like FDOT just does not know how to build roads especially for large cities. Most of these roads are scary to drive on let alone ride a bike or try to walk across. They need to lower speed limits and then enforce those speed limits. I’m not really sure why we need 4 lanes and a speed limit of 45MPH or faster for every road in the county? Also why is 30MPH the norm for residential streets? I just want to know who makes these decisions and how they arrive at them because they seem a bit arbitrary to say the least. The speed limits are just way too high and need to be lowered. Also I don’t think this City really wants to encourage people to use alternative modes of transportation. Anyway places like Portland, Minneapolis, and others are like some kind of dreamland that I may never get to see other than in pictures and TV.
Oops I swear it is hard to proof these posts… My first sentence the word country should be county. I wish I have biked from one end of this country to the other but alas I have only biked here in Florida and some in Georgia.
Aren’t you being a tad over dramatic? You can get a cheap flight on Spirit Airlines from Orlando to MSP or PDX. Once you get there, there’s bikes galore. Just borrow one.
All kidding aside, I do agree with you. There are a lot of problems in Florida that will need to be addressed before better bike infrastructure can feasibly be implemented here. There are too many places where roads were designed strictly for cars, designed to cater to car culture exclusively. They were never meant to be walked or biked on. Exurban areas are particularly bad in this regard. Throughout the entire country (and I mean country, not county, lol) there are too many places like this.