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Photo by Robb Long
Local biking experts (from left) Fred Mayer, Shaun Murphy and Gene Oberpriller ride down Hennepin Avenue.
By Dylan Thomas
Three passionate bicyclists discuss the future of biking in the city
By several measures, Minneapolis is already a fabulous city for bicyclists.
We have the second largest share of regular bicycle commuters, ranking just a hair behind Portland among 50 large cities studied by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2007. Last year, the League of American Bicyclists looked at our bike infrastructure and ridership, and awarded Minneapolis its Bicycle Friendly Community Award.
For many bicycle advocates, that’s good, but it’s not enough.
To mark Twin Cities Bike Walk Week May 10–16, the Southwest Journal convened a roundtable of three passionate cyclists to answer this question: What can we do to be an even better bike city?
The three experts who pedaled to the Southwest Journal offices in April were: Shaun Murphy, Minneapolis Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Program coordinator; Fred Mayer, a serious recreational rider who lives in Southwest and is a frequent Journal contributor; and Gene Oberpriller, owner of One on One Bicycle Studio in downtown.
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Southwest Journal: Why do so many people in Minneapolis ride their bicycles? In what ways is the city doing a good job at promoting bicycle riding?
Gene Oberpriller: We’ve had that infrastructure here for almost 100 years.
Having a lot of green space, it kind of fosters that [attitude of] get out and either walk or ride. It’s in the city’s DNA, I think, because of the Park Board and the park system that we have.
It’s mostly recreational, but now it’s being used for much more than that.
Shaun Murphy: We’ve calculated the miles, and it’s something like we have 120 miles, total, of bikeways in the city — actual bike paths or bike lanes painted on the street. I think at least 50 or 60 [miles] of it is the Grand Rounds off-street bike paths.
We have these other great [bikeways] that have come into being recently, but without [the Grand Rounds] we would look pretty bad.
Fred Mayer: I moved here from Michigan about 12 years ago, and that was the first thing we noticed. … For the first winter, I couldn’t believe how quickly they got out and plowed the bike paths around the lake – they did before they plowed our street. …
I was so excited to see that, because that commitment by the city to the public space is so amazing. I agree with Gene; that’s a great tradition that we need to continue.
Oberpriller: Everything that was old is new again.
Cycling was a main mode of transportation 100 years ago. Minneapolis, I think, was one of those cities where we just never quite let go of it.
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SWJ: What kinds of changes in bicycle policy or infrastructure — or in any other area — do you feel would do the most to promote bike riding?
Oberpriller: We’re not licensed. We’re not regulated.
The vehicle doesn’t have a license and the driver doesn’t have a license. With everything else transportation related all those things are covered. Except in cycling, it’s not. …
Is that the next step?
It brings more money to the system, because with licensing and registration, it all adds up in the end.
Mayer: But then how do you do that without making that a kind of bottleneck or a hurdle for people?
…
Murphy: Even though I think we have good infrastructure, I would say … the infrastructure that we do have that’s really good is the off-street infrastructure. The on-street infrastructure is another story.
Oberpriller: It’s a work in progress.
Murphy: It’s definitely a work in progress. …
We’ve got 2,000 miles of streets in Minneapolis and 40 miles of those streets have on-street bike lanes. If you throw out all the residential roads, and you just look at the arterials, the busy roads, it’s 11 percent of those busy roads that we have bike lanes on. …
It takes a lot of work, but I think that’s one of the hugest barriers that people have to actually doing more of the functional trips. They work on the busy streets, they shop on the busy streets and they go out to eat on those busy streets. And so how do they get to those busy streets?
We certainly have a really good backbone and spine, which has propelled us forward, but we really don’t have all the fingers that reach into the heart of the city.
…
Oberpriller: Education is a key thing.
If you look at a current State of Minnesota drivers’ manual, cycling is — I’ll just come out and say it — it’s just a footnote. It’s in there, but it hasn’t changed much in probably 25 to 30 years. …
The Minneapolis Police Department used to put out a bike safety manual, and it’s awesome. It really lays out everything for kids.
They don’t do that anymore. Now, there’s certain schools you can’t even ride a bike to; they say, No bikes.
Mayer: Our oldest child is 9, now, and he was the one kid to ride his bike through the winter to school.
More and more kids do come out, though. He goes to Lake Harriet Community School and his third-grade teacher is a cyclist, himself, who runs a really cool program there. They have a bike club and I think they get up to … 30 to 50 kids out once a week.
Murphy: Examples like that, of your kid’s school, we have to use those as models. We obviously have some energy here; it’s just not widespread.
——— SWJ: What do you do, personally, to encourage other people to ride their bicycles more?
Mayer: A coworker recently bought a new bike, and I told him, “… Some day on a Friday, when things are a little more casual in the office, I’ll ride over to your house and we’ll bike into work.”
He’s nowhere near on the way for me, but I don’t care. I’d love to ride over and just have him commute one day with me just to see how easy it is.
Oberpriller: [When I ride in the winter] people ask me: Isn’t it cold out? And I say, ‘We live in Minnesota; there’s no bad weather, just bad clothing.’
Murphy: I always just try to encourage people: Don’t try to bite off more than you can chew.
There are so many small trips we take in our lives that are two or three miles — they’re so perfect for the bicycle.
It’s not the 10-mile ride for the starters that’s the perfect trip, it’s the small ones.
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Newest development proposal: A courtyard with pool and movie screen in the heart of the Uptown nightlife scene
UPDATED August 31, 2010, 11:04am
By Nick Halter
A new development proposal in Uptown calls for the construction of a three-level restaurant with a rooftop patio, plus a private, ground-level courtyard with a pool and movie screen in the heart of the Uptown nightlife scene. The courtyard would go between Cowboy Slim’s and the new restaurant, which would be built directly across from the Lagoon Cinema on Lagoon Avenue, according to a plan submitted to the city of Minneapolis. The owner of the site is Uptown Gassen LLC, which is owned by Clark Gassen. Gassen is proposing a 3,000 square-foot, single-level retail building that would go along Girard Avenue between Lake Street and Lagoon. Underneath the proposed development would be a 125-car parking ramp. The restaurant’s three
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Harriet concession contract nears approval
UPDATED August 30, 2010, 1:00pm
By Jake Weyer
2 Comments
The board will decide this month whether to approve local restaurateur Kim Bartmann’s concept, Bread & Pickle.
After more than a year of community review and a selection process that narrowed a field of nearly a dozen applicants, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board is scheduled to vote this month on a new Lake Harriet concession contract.
Staff recommended local restaurateur Kim Bartmann’s concept, Bread & Pickle, based on the suggestion of a community group that reviewed and interviewed the applicants. That group was made up of former members of a Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) the Park Board assembled last year after public outcry over a proposed concession change that would have required a new building. The CAC examined concession opportunities and drafted recommendations used to review applicants.
“The CAC was really a lengthy, drawn-out, long process,” said Park Board General Manager Don Siggelkow. “But it yielded the information and the understanding that I think brought this conclusion the way it needed to happen.”
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Urban fashion store and art gallery opens on Hennepin
UPDATED August 26, 2010, 10:14am
By Nick Halter
With rare Michael Jordan sneakers dating back to 1985, local art work, a DJ table and pinewood floors, Moh Habib on Aug. 21 unveiled Studiiyo 23, an urban fashion store and art gallery at 2319 Hennepin Ave. Everything about Studiiyo 23, from the name to the design to the merchandise, is a reflection of Habib, a 34-year-old world traveler who spent his high school and college years in Minnesota. “In those travels — I’ve been to 30 countries and 169 cities so far — I picked up the best of what I like from all those spots, and what I did was try to merge everything I love in life into one space,” he said. Habib has spent the last eight years working in Japan and Switzerland, first for Northwest Airlines and later as a
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Bryant Lake Bowl operator plans to buy Casey’s Bar and Grill
UPDATED August 25, 2010, 2:12pm
By Nick Halter
Kim Bartmann, who runs popular Lake Street establishments Bryant Lake Bowl and Barbette, said she has a purchase agreement for Casey’s Bar and Grill, 3510 Nicollet Ave. Bartmann wouldn’t offer specifics on what she will do with the space. She is asking to present to the Kingfield and Lyndale neighborhood groups soon to show them her plans. She said the renovation will last a couple weeks and said work will be done on the kitchen and dining area. Casey’s has a very limited food menu. “We’re a very food-focused company, so I think that will be a major change,” she said. Bartmann said Casey’s current owner has taken good care of the place and kept it clean. “It has a lot of potential,&rdq
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Neighborhood notebook
By Dylan Thomas, Nick Halter and Sarah McKenzie
THE WEDGELHENA hires new newspaper editorLowry Hill East Neighborhood Association hired a new editor for its monthly newspaper, The Wedge. Wedge resident Quentin Skinner took over with the July issues of The Wedge. Best known as the theater critic for City Pages, Skinner also has written two novels set in the Wedge, where he has lived for 15 years, according to an announcement posted Aug. 2 on thewedge.org. ——— WHITTIER Rex Hardware demolishedWrecking crews in early August demolished the former Rex Hardware building at 2601 Lyndale Ave. S. The demolition came 11 weeks after the Minneapolis City Council overturned a Heritage
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Parks update // Lake Harriet health
By jake weyer
Park Board applies for grant to study Lake Harriet healthThe Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board has decided it’s time for Lake Harriet to get a checkup. The board frequently receives complaints about the lake’s smells and surface algae and is hoping to perform a diagnostic study — funded by a $55,000 matching grant from the state — to see just how healthy the popular body of water is. “These grants are specifically being put out to prevent lakes from being designated as impaired lakes,” said the board’s Environmental and Field Services Director Debra Lynn Pilger. Pilger presented the details of the “clean water partnership grant” to the board at its Aug. 4 meeting. A
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Green digest // More mini markets
By Dylan Thomas
Farmers market season is at its late-summer peak, and more neighborhoods this year have easy access to fresh tomatoes and sweet corn thanks to an expansion of mini farmers markets sites. The number of mini farmers markets located mainly in low-income neighborhoods has tripled between 2008 and 2010, reported the Whittier-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), which established the market program in collaboration with the city. The Walker Place Farmers Market in the East Harriet neighborhood near a senior housing facility was one of the mini farmers markets to debut this summer. The Stevens Square Farmers Market, Southwest’s only other mini farmers market site, opened in 2008. The mini farmers markets are limited to five or fewer
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Wine may flow, after all
By Dylan Thomas
Uptown wine tasting was in question this springStart working on your swirl, sniff and slurp technique: The annual wine tasting sponsored by Hennepin Lake Liquors may go on this year, after all. This spring it appeared the wine tasting, an important fundraiser for Uptown-area neighborhoods, might not return for its 28th year. In mid-August, though, event organizer Pat Fleetham said he was nearly ready to announce a fall wine tasting. Fleetham said he was “tentatively proposing” a date in October for the tasting but still needed to finalize agreements with event sponsors before he could announce a time and location. The event in recent years had been held in early June. In March, though, Fleetham wrote in an email to
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Biz buzz // New improv theater
By Nick Halter
New Lyn-Lake improv theater will focus on long-formA new improv theater is coming to Lyn-Lake this fall, leasing the space formerly held by Lava Lounge clothing store at 3037 Lyndale Ave. Huge Improve Theater, the nonprofit company that is leasing the space, plans to have a roughly 100-seat theater open in late October and is pursuing a beer and wine license from the city. While Minneapolis already has improv theaters like Comedy Sportz and Brave New Workshop, HUGE Executive Director Butch Roy said the Lyn-Lake theater will be dedicated to a unique form of improv — long-form. No theater in the Twin Cities is devoted to the form. Most know improv in its short form through the “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” TV
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Schools notebook // Southwest steady on AYP
By Dylan Thomas
Six Minneapolis Public Schools in Southwest met goals for student proficiency in reading and math this year, down from eight schools in 2009. The district as a whole saw slightly fewer schools making AYP, or Adequate Yearly Progress, toward student achievement goals. About 14 percent of district schools met benchmarks on state standardized tests, down from nearly 19 percent in 2009. The slide means more district schools will face escalating sanctions under the federal No Child Left Behind law, although many in education say the law sets an unachievable goal. Approved by Congress in 2001, No Child Left Behind set a goal of 100 percent proficiency on math and reading assessments by 2014. But the ever-rising benchmarks mean more schools every year are
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Park Board organizing LRT advisory group
By jake weyer
Adding another facet to the ongoing Southwest light rail discussion, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board voted last month to organize a citizens advisory committee (CAC) to mitigate the impact of the route on parkland. Park Board commissioners, City Council members, neighborhood associations, Mayor R.T. Rybak and County Commissioner Gail Dorfman will appoint the 17-member CAC. The group will consider historical, cultural, visual, social, and safety issues associated with the 14-mile Southwest Light Rail Transit line (LRT). The route will start Downtown, travel along the Kenilworth trail between Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles, then stretch through St. Louis Park, Hopkins and Minnetonka, ending in Eden Prairie. Along the way, it will intersect or run
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