Day 29

Yesterday, I had a very informative meeting with some fine individuals from the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MNDOT), Bicycle and Pedestrian Section. Both Fay Cleaveland and Lisa Austin were gracious enough to welcome me to the city by spending over an hour discussing their section and why it has led Minnesota to the forefront in most bicycling rankings.

One of the main reasons for their high ranking: the people of Minnesota. According to both Cleaveland and Austin, Minnesotans are well known for their love of the outdoors and the recreation it offers. They accordingly support such initiatives that allow them to get outside and be active. When the winter months end and enjoying the slopes, skating, or ice fishing are no longer viable options, Minnesotans typically hop on a bicycle or find the closest trail to take a walk. Our bike group’s host for the past couple days said that he thought the reason Minnesotans have such a love for biking is that they can only do it 4 months out of the year. “When the weather finally becomes warm, EVERYONE grabs their bicycles and takes advantage of the weather.” I believe it too. As we cycled into town for our multi-day respite, we must have passed at least 5 separate groups of cyclists,all of them cheering us on.

MNDOT has 9 separate districts that are responsible for the actual project planning and construction. The state’s central office, including the individuals that I met, is typically used to provide the policy framework and guidance necessary for the individual districts to perform their tasks. The central office, being one of the main resources of the districts, collaborates heavily with the districts especially when it comes to matters dealing with bicycling or pedestrian areas. Cleaveland and Austin both stated that this was necessary in that the smaller DOT districts do not have experts or personnel devoted totally to those sections (bike/ped). Boasting one of the nation’s largest sections of employees for bike/ped issues, MNDOT has 4 full-time and 4 part-time employees that collaborate with the individual districts with regard to bicycling and pedestrian matters across the state. Each of these employees brings something unique to the table whether it be through a formal education in urban planning or years of experience in the field.

Today, the section has quite a few projects on the agenda. Below is a summary of some of these initiatives or other programs taking place in the region:

1. The Bikeway Plan- MNDOT hopes to complete a plan that identifies and describes which roads throughout the state need to be constructed or reconstructed for bicycling or walking based upon vehicle/bicycling traffic, routes between cities, etc. The plan will also include an appropriate time table for these actions based upon the derived necessity. There was a similar plan in place a few decades ago that has little relevance in that it has grown outdated.

2. Share the Road Program- MNDOT began a huge public awareness marketing campaign nearly five years ago hoping to enlighten the public to the laws relating to bicycling in the state. Called Share the Road, this initiative attempts to educate both drivers and bikers with regard to such laws as who has the right-of-way in certain situations and that a vehicle must pass bikers with at least 3 feet of distance. MNDOT created large quantities of educational materials for the program and uses various venues including public events (Minnesota State Fair), bike tours, rest stops, libraries, police officers, and their website to distribute these items. The program has proven successful, as based on annual MNDOT marketing surveys.

3. Bike Map- MNDOT does have an outdated bike map of the state that they are hoping to make current over the coming months. They also hope to incorporate their map with technological advancements such as GPS devices into their map design. With the growing popularity of these devices, including them on bicycling and pedestrian maps will make the maps more familiar and user friendly.

4. Cyclopath.org- Although not exclusively attributed to MNDOT, this new website gives bicyclists in the area the ability to research the conditions and characteristics of certain routes in the Twin Cities area, based on the findings of other cyclists. It allows users to have a greater understanding of the routes they are thinking about riding.

5. Nice Ride Bike Share- This program in Minneapolis and St. Paul is sponsored and funded by a bicycling group called Nice Ride. Similar to the Zipcar, Nice Ride offers individuals the ability to rent their product from a certain area of town, ride the product around town, and leave the product at any Nice Ride station. The only difference is the product is a spray painted green bicycle. For only $60 annually, subscribers may use a Nice Ride bicycle anytime and anywhere in the city.

6. Mississippi River Trail-MNDOT recently completed their portion of the Mississippi River Trail (MRT). This 3,000 mile long trail runs alongside the “Great River” from Minnesota to Louisiana

The list above is certainly not all inclusive, but it gives one an idea of the multitude of projects that MNDOT’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Section works with. As a final observation, I am confident in asserting that the state’s willingness to allocate funds to biking and pedestrian projects has tremendous impact on Minnesota’s high bicycling/walking ranking. For example, Minnesota used monies from the Tobacco Settlement to establish programs to construct roads/sidewalks to encourage more active living among residents when other states simply dumped the funds into building more roads. Additionally, Minnesota consistently spends more of their transportation dollars on bike/ped projects. This willingness may come right back to what my contacts originally said as the reason for Minnesota’s high ranking in bikeability: its people and their love of the outdoors.

Please read more about the MNDOT Bicycle and Pedestrian Section at the below link:

MNDOT Bicycle and Pedestrian Section