[Mpls] Cars/Bikes/Downtown/etc

[Becker]

I wanted to respond to some of the comments made from one of my previous posts specifically on the replacement of .    Jim Mork wrote about the need to not have commuters driving their cars into the downtown.  Minneapolis has the largest municipally owned parking systems in the country.  This system allows commuters to drive to the downtown and park.  These ramps (TAD, Leamington, Haaf, etc) are arranged at the periphery of the downtown so commuters do not need to drive into the core itself.    Zach Korb wrote about how he felt bikers preferred separated bikeways.  I think that things like the connection of the West River Road south of downtown and the Kennilworth Trail are two very good examples of commuter options for bicycles and models that we need to continue to build on.    Ken Bradley wrote about his "tight bum" and I must admit <turning around to check the exact tightness of her bum>  Ken, I was built for comfort and not for speed.  I suspect it has to do with too much time in front of the computer writing things like this instead of riding my bike.  Thank god not everyone is into those "hot fit bodies".   Ken further went on to ask "Carol do you really believe that bike lanes make downtown Minneapolis less economically viable?"  The answer is "no" I do not believe bike lanes in general make downtown Minneapolis less viable.  Just the opposite.  At the end of my original post I talked about the need to have all modes of transportation as viable as possible.  With the current growth projections, the urban form that we have already created, and current transportation technology, there is no solution to congestion.  There are just ways of mitgating it.  And we need to maximize every tool in our tool belt to mitigate it as much as we can.  That means more of every alternative mode of transportation and increasing the carrying capacity of our streets and highways.  A balanced approach rather than pushing for one tool over another.    The question that I raised in my post was a very very narrow one, specifically whether the painting of bike lanes on several specific streets in downtown were poorly designed and such have significantly impacted congestion in the downtown.  For example, on 2nd, the turning lane was taken out to paint a bike lane.  Now, people trying to turn left stack up cars behind them where before, the turning cars were moved out of flowing traffic, thereby letting it go unimpeded.  I would be curious to see before and after studies of wait times and gridlock to see if what I seem to see anecdotially bears out in research data.  It may be that these specific bike lanes are having a substantial negative impact on traffic overall in the downtown and that more optimal traffic overall could be achieved without them.    Mike Nelson interpreted my post as "So now bikes are responsible for the economic failure of downtown Minneapolis." I did not intend that as a conclusion. I do believe that a downtown that is hard to get to is a downtown that is not competitive with the suburbs.  Eagan and Eden Prairie should not have all the job growth.  So we do need to do everything we can to maintain a competitive downtown and one of those things is making it as accessible as possible to the widest number of people possible.    Carol Becker Longfellow