People Bicycling

Yesterday one of the promises I made was to show photographs of bicyclists. On the third day of my trip it rained, as you can tell by the look on this poor sap's face (you can see what I mean if you click on the photo to enlarge it, and if that doesn't work just imagine a grimace on his bent down head):

That was the look on the face of yours truly as well, except I forgot to bring my jacket and an umbrella. Somehow, I have envisioned tons of bicyclists riding around Northern Europe in the rain. This was not true in Nijmejen, the city who traveled to today. The paths emptied out a moderate amount when the rain began falling (similar to our paths becoming less frequented on a cold, snowy day).

Here are some more photos of "normal people" riding around:

Everyone bikes. And I've seen 3 lycra/helmet combinations since I've gotten here.

We're off to Germany tomorrow, to the bicycling capital of that country, Muenster. I'll try to get a photograph of someone eating cheese on their bicycle, I promise!

Bicycle Paradise

I have arrived in the Netherlands, and there is really no other way to put it . . . this is Bicycle Paradise (capital "B", capital "P"). After stepping off the plane and promptly getting my debit card eaten by an ATM machine, I threw my troubles to the wind and took a quick side trip to Central Amsterdam. This was one of the first bicycle scenes I fell across:

Of course, the famous cycle track (at least famous amongst my bicycle compatriots)! A bike lane sandwiched between the sidewalk and the road at a slightly different elevation. Really, at this point I was in a stupor from my flight, and I could barely comprehend what I was seeing. Bicyclists everywhere, on every street, with bike lanes and cycle tracks at every turn. And then hordes of pedestrians, and different types of signals and signs. And young, fashionably dressed people everywhere. And then of course, every once in a while, the smell of pot wafting in the air. I was in Amsterdam, eh?

One of the new signals I saw was a bicycle signal:

Notice the red right arrow and red bike light in the upper right-hand corner. First what happened was the bicycle symbol turned green. Those 2 cleared the intersection, and 5 seconds later it turned red (a very short cycle). Then this happened:

The cars turned right for a few seconds, and then everything turned red for this street, and the parallel street went green for about 30 seconds.

It didn't take long before I became nearly unable to walk. I was on sensory overload after only an hour of sleep the night before. So I trudged back to the train station with my luggage in town, and took the 30-minute ride to the nearby city of Utrecht (where I sit typing now). Utrecht is about the size of Minneapolis (pop. 350,000), and much of it is quite historic. And surprise, surprise, full of bicycles, such as this one quaintly leaned against a brick wall of an apartment on a street as narrow as an American alley:

The following signs are everywhere. I've gathered that they mean "Dead End - Except Bicyclists and Scooters." They have one or two simple bollards at the end, which prevents cars from going through.
At times it appears that bicycles have free reign in this city. There are just so many of them, it's hard not to go with the flow, even if there's a red bicycle light (when in Rome . . . ). While I don't have a picture of that happening, here you can see that we have a Yield sign. What you may not notice is that the bus is stopped, even though it has the right-of-way:

But the bus driver sat. I asked our tour guide about this, and he said that in Utrecht, drivers are extra careful around bicyclists, as bicyclists tend to do what they want. It is a general rule also, that judges favor the bicyclist, as there is a Dutch law that says drivers bear the burden of driving a machine that can kill non-motorized users (and not vice versa).

Here we were being good bicyclists waiting at a stoplight 60-deep with bicyclists (there were many more behind me):

But they do write tickets here, as was evident to me when we ran across this police officer writing something (probably a ticket) for a morning commuter who ran a red bicycle light:

After a while of riding around, we had to go to a meeting with someone with the City of Utrecht, who works on bicycling projects. We pulled into this bicycle parking lot, and I seriously felt like a car riding up and down the aisles of this area looking for a parking spot:

That's my bicycle in the lower right-hand corner of the photograph. Yes, I had to park as far away as you could get in order to find a spot. Rosedale Mall in the Twin Cities anyone???

One thing I found interesting is this - bicycle mode share of all trips fell steadily in the Netherlands from the 1900's to the 1970's, from 80% to 20%. Cars didn't reach this country until after World War II. They took their toll here as well - there are still freeways and big auto streets. But in the 70's most cities in the country decided to begin catering especially to bicycles. They now have a mode share of 27%. When asked about their mode share goals for the future, the official from the City of Utrecht says that he hopes they can maintain 27%, as pressures to go longer distances (and drive more) prevent them from increasing this goal.

On another note, if anyone thinks a bike lane can't be done in a roundabout, that's not true. I felt quite safe in this one (could it be the ten or so bicyclists that are always in it also, keeping motorists on their toes?!?):

I've had a really fun day. The amount of bicycling is overwhelming. I've never felt so normal, and seen so many normal people riding bicycles. More photos of those people to come, as well as some not so great things from the Netherlands. Yes, those exist (i.e. graffiti).

And if you're reading this and you have questions, be sure to let me know. I'll see if I can find the answers!

One last photo for the day. I want to ride this:

Minneapolis - the Coldest, Biggest City in the World

Lately I've been impressing acquaintances with a new fact that I learned last weekend. Thankfully it's working (my best friends can attest to the reality that I'm not always successful at making facts cool).

Minneapolis is the coldest, biggest city in the world. Not Toronto, not Montreal, and not Moscow.

Minneapolis.

My friend James arrived at this fact by perusing through a factoid book of worldwide metropolitan statistics. Each metropolitan area has an average winter temperature in its list of facts. Moscow is a couple of degrees warmer. Winnipeg is colder, but it's not as large. Go ahead and throw out your ideas (like I did).

We did it! No other metropolitan area has grown to our size (~2.5 million) in a climate as cold as ours in the winter (note this is not a year-round mean temperature - maybe Moscow and Montreal have us beat there).

I think the Twin Cities has accomplished something here. And as a year-round bicyclist, I'm not just whistling Dixie. This leads me to my topic for today - sometimes the weather stymies my Minneapolis bicycle riding experience.

On Tuesday, I was working in the field. Several outside bicycle and pedestrian consultants were visiting Minneapolis (and they were all from Florida or some similarly warm state). It was a stormy early spring day. It was in the low 30's, and waves of ice pellets, rain, mist, and snow were pulsing their way to the ground. There were breaks in between.

Like a real trooper, I rode my bicycle to meet these consultants at 4 locations, where they shared ideas on how to improve some of our more intimidating intersections for bikers like me. Dan Burden was taking lots of "I've never seen this winter weather before" photos. They would jump in their car to go to the next location, and I would jump on my bike.

Now keep in mind that the weather usually doesn't stop me. I rode when it was 21 degrees below zero in January. I know, I know, I know, you either think I was crazy or awesome. For all the "you're crazy"'s, it's not impossible. Think skiing or snowshoeing in frigid air - if you keep moving your torso is fine - but your extremities get pretty dang cold after 10-20 minutes. But you live.

Tuesday was a different story. Between location #3 and location #4, something funny started to happen. I was riding on the Midtown Greenway between Bryant Avenue and Minnehaha Avenue. There were ginormous puddles of water, along with alternating patches of snow, slush, slush, and wet. Under the I-35W bridge, my chain started to skip and grind. Then it got stuck. My first thought was, "Something's wrong mechanically - and here I just spent $220 on new pedals, chain, and crank!"

I was on a slight downhill so I stayed on and pushed myself along with my feet, thinking "I'm glad the Midtown Bike Center is a half mile away." I looked down and could see the ice forming on the gears.

I stopped to investigate and discovered that I could pull my chain out of a wedged location and move it back onto one of the gears. For awhile I could pedal. I rode past the Bike Center and over the Sabo Bridge. I met the consultants at location #4, we talked, and then I headed home. By the time I got there, the skipping and grinding was worse again.

The next morning I went out to the garage to get my bicycle, and it was frozen solid (it was below zero by then). I couldn't have pedaled if I tried.

I took the bus to work, and at a meeting later that day I heard a fellow bicyclist say, "The freezing rain froze my chain!"

"That was it!" I said. "It did that to me too!"

The summary of this post is:

• I'm not always quick to give an accurate "mechanical problem" diagnosis
  
• You cannot bike every day of the year in Minneapolis
• Minneapolis is the coldest, biggest city in the world (which makes us cool)

Cheers!

Bike Sharing's Big Day

Today was a very exciting day for me (and several others). Minneapolis now has a majority of funding for its public bike sharing system. When completed early in 2010, it will be the largest bike sharing system in the United States, at 1,000 bicycles (Denver is implementing a 500-bike system, and DC already has 120 bikes on the ground). Soon you'll be able to "check out" a bike in Downtown, Uptown, and the University of Minnesota area from 75 kiosks. A quick summary of the program is in this news release from the City and in this Star Tribune article.

The first time I heard about a local bike sharing program was in Mayor RT Rybak's office. We were hearing a sales pitch from the Freewheelin' folks, who helped to bring a temporary bike share program to Minneapolis and St. Paul during the RNC. He enthusiastically wanted it to happen, and I remember him saying to me as we filed out of the room shaking hands, "This is going to happen here!" I thought he was crazy at the time, but now I'm eating my thoughts.

The biggest reason for my excitement is the huge change this will probably bring to our bicycling life here in Minneapolis. In cities in Europe with bicycle sharing systems, bicycling use has skyrocketed. This happened in cities like Paris and Lyon, where bicycling was about as common as is here. And even better, most of the bicyclists were new to the experience. Bicycling rates went up, driving rates went down, and bicycle-vehicle crashes went down as well (in this case, safety in numbers works on the roads). I haven't thoroughly read the bike sharing blog, but it contains a lot of details on bike sharing systems around the world.

The program is not being implemented free of risk. It's hard to be a leader - to be the first in the country at this scale. Those who made the funding decision worried about theft of the bicycles, safety of bicyclists, land use differences between our city and those in Europe, and the price tag ($1.75 million was requested). But in the end they decided that Minneapolis had to stick out its neck and feel the bike sharing air.

Getting to this point has required a lot of work with a strong partnership. Primarily the effort came from Bill Dossett. Many of his accomplishments are on the www.twincitiesbikeshare.com website. You can also hear Bill who was interviewed this morning on MPR. Bill is setting up the framework for a new non-profit called Nice Ride Minnesota. That non-profit will run the system. Secondarily the effort has come from the City of Minneapolis. Bob Lind in the Minneapolis Community Planning and Economic Development office provided the funding (with taxpayer dollars of course) to write a business plan. Jon Wertjes in Minneapolis Public Works twice went to the Minneapolis City Council to ask for permission and direction. You can view our second letter to the Council here (I helped to write and present this one). Last week Transit for Livable Communities joined the fray, with its decision to fund the project. They are the organization responsible for handing out the federal dollars for the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Program.

In the coming months, the partnership will grow and have much more on its plate. Time will tell the success of the project. But for now, I'm celebrating that one huge hurdle toward the bike share goal has been cleared.