When Leo Lopez realized he was sitting across the table from Roadguy, he immediately had thoughts to share.

Leo used to commute by bicycle from Highland Park in St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis. It was seven miles, he said, and back in the day, he had no trouble going full tilt the whole time. He didn’t realize he was breaking the speed limit, which on many recreational paths is 10 miles per hour, and even if he had known the rules, “Who has a speedometer on their bike?”

As we talked, it occurred to me that bicycles are still widely viewed the way automobiles once were: as recreational contraptions. Leo, who now lives in Minneapolis’ Longfellow area, would like to see things change, and soon. In fact, if I-35W is ever rebuilt, he’d want to include a reversible bicycle lane, with nonstop pedaling for miles. He’s “not so interested in a scenic ride” — he just wants to get where he’s going.

That was just one of the conversations I had Monday night at another community event in Longfellow. Homes in Longfellow range from modest rentals to riverfront palaces, bike paths grace the area’s perimeter, and the light-rail line is just across Hiawatha Avenue. So it’s an interesting and diverse place to examine transportation — and some of its residents spend a lot of time doing just that.

	Annie Welch serves up a pie chart.
	Chris Wiger maps things out.

Or they get other people to do it. Last night, a main part of the meeting was a presentation by four students from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, who asked more than 200 residents about how they got around. The students used an online survey rather than a scientifically randomized poll, but the respondents were from all parts of the expansive neighborhood, and the conclusions were worth a look.

When asked about their main mode of transportation, 71% of respondents said automobiles, which was lower than the students expected. While many of the reasons for not using bicycles or transit could not be remedied (”Bad weather,” “Destination too far,” “Too difficult to carry items,”), the researchers focused on things that community groups might address, such as improving difficult intersections or increasing lighting to reduce “fear of vehicles.” The main recommendations for boosting alternative transportation included:

• Add and upgrade bike routes.
• Promote bicycle safety with a variety of innovations, such as raised or blue-painted lanes.
• Increase driver awareness.
• Learn from other cities. (Portland, Ottawa, Boulder and Chicago were among those cited.)
• Evaluate and address fears about crime. (More secure bike parking, more surveillance at rail stations, etc.)

Even making the best of their limited resources, the students weren’t able to tackle the most mammoth and eternal challenge of getting motorists to switch to transit — “takes too long to arrive at destination” — but they provided lots of other valuable information to some community-minded neighbors. And who knows — as transportation conversations like these continue around the metro area, maybe Leo will get his freeway bike lane after all.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 5th, 2006 at 6:10 am and is filed under Transportation conversations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.