Shot in the Dark

The Cramdown

I like to bike.  My current commute is 16 miles each way, if I do the whole thing (and I usually don’t; most days, I’ll throw my bike on the rack and drive to a park-and-ride and bike the last 8-10 miles,although my goal by the end of bike season, November-something with any luck at all, will be to ride the whole thing at least once a week).

Jason Lewis’ accusations notwithstanding, bikers pay all sorts of taxes; for starters, very few of us bike exclusively; most of us drive cars, and pay gas taxes, and as I showed some time ago, those of us who mix biking and driving actually benefit the rest of you taxpayers and gas-buyers.

I mention all of this purely to set up the fact that I’m not one of those conservatives who thinks bikes are in and of themselves a communist conspiracy, and that bikers have been sucked, wittingly or not, into some “progressive” vortex.  It’s just not true.

But like most conservative bikers, I do the odd theatrical facepalm when I see the institutionalized arrogance of the Bike über Alles crowd.  And we have just such a case on display in St. Paul’s Mac-Groveland neighborhood.  A “non-profit”, “Transit for Livable Cities”, is proposing a “bicycle boulevard” – not much unlike the one on 39th Street in south Minneapolis, which I accidentally discovered this past weekend, and which seemed oddly devoid of bikes when I saw it – straight down Jefferson Avenue.  And to do it, they want to make Jefferson, especially at Cleveland Avenue, virtually impassable to cars.

St. Paul Public Works plans to move forward this year with a grassy, bicycle-friendly median along Cleveland Avenue at Jefferson Avenue that has drawn both praise and criticism from residents in the area who are weighing the merits of a narrower crossing.

The median would force northbound and southbound traffic along Cleveland Avenue to slow and traffic along Jefferson Avenue to make right turns.

Public Works has tentatively proposed that the median go before the St. Paul City Council on Aug. 17. If approved, construction could begin in October or November.

Cleveland is the main way of getting north and south from Highland to the Midway.  Having a big gnarly bottleneck at Jefferson will not just be a huge pain, but it’ll squeeze traffic into the side streets or bump it over to Fairview, which is already overtaxed; with light rail contruction, getting north and south through Saint Paul anywhere west of Lexington (so far) is a sisyphean nightmare.

The citizens against the Jefferson Avenue Median have a facebook page.  And Joe Soucheray – who benefits from being one of few mainstream conservative commentators who don’t froth against biking for no reason takes the proposal apart.

More later…

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Mitch Berg

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7 responses to “The Cramdown”

  1. bubbasan Avatar
    bubbasan

    Just to make you jealous, I’ve got to let you know that where I am, drivers work really well with cyclists, often even waiting for me to cross when they don’t have to. Much nicer than Twin Cities drivers, and you betcha I try to return the favor.

    Maybe people up there need to consider that high density isn’t always a good goal to have…..

  2. Kermit Avatar
    Kermit

    Oh for Giaia’s sake. When I was growing up I rode a bike. A 10 speed. We had these things on the road called “shoulders”. They worked just fine. I could not care less if people want to bike. I do care when they spend millions of my tax dollars setting up boutique venues to do it in.

  3. K-Rod Avatar
    K-Rod

    Another fiaso sucking up millions of my tax dollars, all thanks to the bicyclists.

  4. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    I bet it is a shovel-ready project.

  5. Loren Avatar
    Loren

    I cycle. I live in this neighborhood. This is a stupid idea.

    If there really is a traffic problem, put up stop signs. But there isn’t a problem.

    Two blocks west, Jefferson crosses Cretin, a street which is just as busy, or busier than Cleveland, but they haven’t proposed this insanity there (yet).

  6. golfdoc50 Avatar
    golfdoc50

    When I was a student at the U in 1973 I lived at 38th and Chicago. During the summer sessions I rode my bike to and from every day. No helmet, no bike paths, no accidents. I know, anecdotes prove nothing. Still, I wonder why liberals always seem to take good ideas (biking, eating right, not smoking etc) and try to cram them down everybody’s throat. That is all.

  7. nate Avatar
    nate

    The trouble with bicycle fetishists is they imagine every day is Father’s Day, a beautiful weekend in June with blue skies, puffy clouds, budding trees, singing birds and happy children riding their bikes with balloons streaming from the handlebars while cheerful mimes perform amusing street theatre. Heaven. So that’s what they try to build here in St. Paul. Narrow the streets, build more bike trails, fund the arts.

    Then February comes along and ruins everything. Not only can’t you ride the bike, you can’t even drive a car because the street was too narrow to begin with and now the snow is piled up on both sides. All you can do is trudge through unplowed snow to stand shivering at the bus stop. And there’s nothing cheerful about trudging.

    The Wright Brothers had a bicycle shop but they weren’t content to stop at that level of technology. We shouldn’t, either. Society is regressing. And that’s not a good thing.

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