We Like It Here

I got back on the bike this morning after a week of riding the bus, following our first snowstorm of the season. It was good to be moving under my own power again; I’d much rather be chilly on a bicycle than chilly at the bus stop, anxiously looking down Lake Street for the 53 or 21A.

A week of riding the bus, stealing Christmas cookies from the break room, and not walking the dog as much left me a little soft. I was winded by the time I got to Snelling and Summit, though I was able to push through it and actually felt fit again by the time I got to the Cathedral.

What I couldn’t push through, though, was the compacted snow, greasy brown slush, and chunks of rutted ice where my bike path along Summit Avenue used to be. West of Lexington, there simply was no bike path; riding in the car lane was the only option. The only clear places were where the bike lane disappeared into the automobile turn lane. East of Lexington, things got better. For about two blocks. Then it was out of the lane and onto the road for the rest of my ride.

I don’t especially mind riding in the car lane if there’s not too much traffic. The Summit Avenue bike lane is in the door zone, making it a lot less safe than it looks, so even when there’s no snow I tend to hug the outside edge of the lane. But I do mind negotiating the slippery edge between the clear car lane and the ice and snow where the bike lane and parking lane are merged into one sloppy mess. It’s incredibly dangerous for a bicycle to move between surfaces: pavement to gravel, clear road to slush, concrete to cobblestones. And it’s even more dangerous when the surface you’re moving onto is slippery and bumpy and you’re moving with the “grain” of rutted car tracks.

A couple weeks ago, while one of the boys and I were doing some Christmas shopping, we stopped at Culver’s and I perused the Northeaster newspaper while the boy ate his ice cream. There was a letter in the paper decrying the new bike lanes on 18th Avenue NE; why give up perfectly good pavement to bicycles when “five months out of the year, the bike traffic will almost cease to exist, and the painted lanes will probably be covered with plowed snow and ice”? And that made me think about the self-fulfilling prophecies of transportation policy in the United States.

Virgin Vacations has put out a list of the 11 Most Bike Friendly Cities in the World. Of the eleven, five have winters that are surely the equal of ours in Minneapolis and St. Paul: Copenhagen, Denmark; Sandnes, Norway; Trondheim, Norway; Boulder, Colorado; and Basel, Switzerland. And three–Amsterdam, Portland, OR, and Berlin–are in northern climates that may not have to contend with our snow, but do have chilly weather and dark winter nights. I can’t imagine that there are fewer cyclists on Twin Cities roads in the winter because we’re wimps: sure, those Danes and Norwegians are a hardy bunch, and there’s no denying the fortitude of the Swiss, but Minnesotans are descendants of people who, when given their choice of frontiers, opted for the wintry prairies over the sun-kissed fields of California. The real difference between us and the Danes, the Norwegians, the Swiss, the Dutch, and the Germans, not to mention the Coloradans and Oregonians, is that their bicycling infrastructure is maintained and extended with the same commitment we make to our automobile infrastructure. Flying columns of plows and salt trucks descend on the highways at the first sign of snow; it would be nice if a plow blade could scrape its way six or seven inches into the bike lane now and again.

The reason that bike lane on 18th Avenue NE (or Summit Avenue in St. Paul) is empty in the winter is that it’s full of ice and snow. The lane doesn’t get cleared, so people can’t use it; no one uses the lane, so it doesn’t get cleared; and so goes the vicious cycle until Spring finally does its job, uncovering the potholes and pavement ruts that have festered under the ice all winter. And that’s better than the snow storage slots Minneapolis recently installed between the parking lane and the curb, which will be unusable until the last of the snow is finally gone.

While the world’s leaders are meeting in Copenhagen this week, discussing the ways we can solve our climate and environmental crises, the European Cyclists Federation has reminded the delegates that cycling is part of the solution. It’s a part of the solution not only to our consumption of fossil fuels and emission of greenhouse gases: it’s also part of the solution to our problems with congestion, sprawl, and public health. And while that means that people need to make commitments to choose alternative modes of transportation, sometimes at the cost of some discomfort (though it’s surprisingly comfortable to bike at 10 degrees F, once you get rolling), it also means that some commitments need to be made to provide the basic infrastructure to enable those choices. I’m not easily discouraged, but if I were, I could imagine giving up on the winter riding after this morning’s adventure.

As it is, I’ll probably be taking the bus home tonight. I don’t especially enjoy riding in downtown St. Paul during Wild games as it is (too many people who aren’t used to driving downtown’s one way streets), and I don’t relish the thought of negotiating the slushy bike paths in the dark. But I’ll be back in the morning, claiming my lane as necessary and looking for the plow truck to take some of the bike lane back from the slush before the next storm rolls in.