Minneapolis

I did a ton of riding in the Twin Cities, largely thanks to my friend Max who provided both a nice bike and a whole lot of guidance on where to go. People who race alleycats know a lot about how to get around the city. I totaled over 300km, and hit almost everywhere I needed to get a sense of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The Twin Cities have a strong urbanist community, symbolized by the active streets.mn blog. There’s a ton of interesting content there. Several people had suggested that I should meet Bill Lindeke, one of the blog’s regular contributors. Bill describes himself as an urban geographer; in addition to writing on a broad range of subjects for streets.mn and for the Minneapolis Post, and sitting on the planning commission for St. Paul, he organizes walking and biking tours which highlight different aspects of the historical or current city.

I’ve mentioned the Midtown Greenway a few times, and it’s worth talking about it because it’s really quite an impressive facility. I did a bike count there, and my notes from that day say, “If you want to feel better about the future of the world, go sit on the Midtown Greenway for two hours.” But context matters; its success isn’t easy to duplicate.

North Minneapolis is a majority-minority district, with African-Americans (43%) being the predominant race. The typical hallmarks of disinvested ethnic districts are found there; decaying infrastructure, fewer trees, poorer schools, and higher crime rates than the rest of the city.

Inspired by the best bike facility in town (the Midtown Greenway, an impressive rails-to-trails conversion of a multi-track trenched railroad), a number of groups have been working for five years to convert some of the low-traffic street infrastructure of North Minneapolis into a greenway.

Unfortunately, skepticism among the neighbors and missteps during the outreach process have made the temporary installation acrimonious and disruptive.