Fw: [Mpls] Buses and Bikes in downtown

[Mike Nelson]

Title: [Mpls] Buses and Bikes in downtown

So now bikes are responsible for the economic failure of downtown Minneapolis. B, as in B.   S, as in S. Jeepers, I thought I was reducing traffic, pollution, and my commute time! I'm sorry. What city are we talking about here? Last time I rode my bike downtown (today) I only saw one street where a whole lane was dedicated to bike traffic. Hennepin Ave. has a two-way bike lane, and I believe 2nd St. S. has a one way bike lane on each side so, ok, that's two streets. Every other bike lane that I know of downtown is a one way lane. I just measured the bike lane on Park Ave.  4ft. 6in. wide inside the stripes. Each stripe is 6in. wide. I don't think that space would accommodate a Ford Exhibition, er Expedition.(that was an attempt at humor, don't get all worked up now, I own a full size gas guzzling pickup 6ft. 4in. wide and make no apologies for it.) So, we have a bike lane 4 1/2 or 5 1/2 ft wide then there are 3 lanes for autos 11 ft.wide each, and on each side of the street, a parking lane. That's 5 lanes for autos, half a lane for bikes. Just think, if we eliminated parking on these streets we could put up parking ramps everywhere. this would bring construction jobs and sit in a box and collect money jobs. Tax revenue too. Then 5 lanes would be open for driving. Half a lane on 8 streets, and the equivalent of a whole lane on two is not "substantially reducing the carrying capacity of the street system overall." By the way,I keep up with traffic. Matter of fact auto traffic downtown is slower than I am at rush hour, so that means they are in MY way. What is adding to traffic problems? Could be more cars. Another thing adding to traffic problems. People who drive down the bike lane on Hennepin IN CARS! No fewer than 7 in the span of one block today as I rode home. One guy even had a bike in his car, and he called me all kinds of nasty names for being in his law-breaking way. Where are the cops? They could bring in a lot of ticket revenue from these clowns. I agree, we need to try something different. I try to avoid bike lanes because at best they are a place to double park and at worst a death zone, but I hardly think they will be the ruin of civilization.   Mike Nelson Central   I think one of the biggest isssue with balancing modes in the downtown is that the City has taken a whole traffic lane out of automobile service and turned them into bike lanes on several major streets, substantially reducing the carrying capacity of the street system overall.  Fewer people can now get in and out of the downtown because of this change and this is adding substantially to traffic problems in the downtown.  This, in turn, makes the downtown less economically viable as a business center when compared to suburban locations.  Accomodating all modes of transportation is very important but this tradeoff seems to have large negative concequences. Carol Becker Longfellow Previous message: [Mpls] Busses and Bikes on Nicollet Mall in General Next message: [Mpls] Pulse and a point of view Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]