Staying safe on the Greenway

The Greenway is safe, Soren argued. Pedestrians, cyclists, and skaters take 1.5 million trips on it each year, and there are, on average, two or three late-night assaults during that time. On top of the benefits of being a car-free thoroughfare, the Greenway has a relatively low level of crime. This, of course, is not an accident. The city and volunteers from the community have worked hard to make the Greenway safe.

Soren described the current safety initiatives in effect on the Greenway. The path is patrolled occasionally by Minneapolis police, and every night by a volunteer trail watch group (click here to get involved). There are emergency phones every few blocks along the trail, so a trail-user can call 911 at any time, even if their cell phone is lost, stolen, or out of battery. Also, surveillance cameras monitor several locations of the path. Thanks to these projects, the Greenway is a safe place for non-motorized transportation.

Read more of my post (which includes four safety tips) on the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition’s blog.

USPIRG's new report on America's changing relationship with driving (PDF)

Their recommendation:

Support the desire of Millennials and other Americans to drive less. The Millennial generation is saying loud and clear that it is looking for alternatives to auto-oriented lifestyles. Reducing the growth in driving on American roads can bring great benefits to society—curbing the nation’s dependence on oil, reducing congestion without the massive expense and disruption of expanding highways, and reducing emissions of air pollutants that threaten the environment and public health.

RELATEDLY, there’s a public meeting from 5-7 pm tonight at the Mill City Museum about the redesign of Washington Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. When we rebuild the street, should we make it accommodate bicycle and pedestrian traffic, which would benefit local business, or should we keep it as a barren, dangerous mini-freeway?

psydoctor8: Justice for Psychopaths -  by Neil Levy I’m listening to “The Psychopath Test” by Jon Ronson on audiobook (narrated by the author!). It’s been very entertaining, but I don’t know enough about psychopathy to challenge/corroborate his bolder claims. So until I have time to see what the pros have written about the book, I’ll have a nagging worry that I’ve been swept along by this neurotic and charismatic journalist. It makes me just a little uncomfortable.
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psydoctor8:

Justice for Psychopaths -  by Neil Levy

I’m listening to “The Psychopath Test” by Jon Ronson on audiobook (narrated by the author!). It’s been very entertaining, but I don’t know enough about psychopathy to challenge/corroborate his bolder claims. So until I have time to see what the pros have written about the book, I’ll have a nagging worry that I’ve been swept along by this neurotic and charismatic journalist. It makes me just a little uncomfortable.

On one side of the scale are thousands of residents, plus thousands of visitors and thousands of employees, who would start benefitting in 2014. On the other side is 60-180 seconds for 1,300 commuters in 2035. The holistic public policy calculus, and the political calculus, should be glaringly obvious by now.

The peerless Janne Flisrand breaks down the wonky struggle over Washington Avenue with grace and quantitative finesse. I’m proud to volunteer with her.

Come to the public meeting at the Mill City Museum from 5-7 on Tuesday, May 14th to push for a friendlier Washington Avenue (PDF).

Terrible Star Tribune comment of the day

Here is the mistake. The DOT had purchased right-of-way through northeast Minneapolis and highway 35 would have extended directly to 94 westbound. But, But, a group of community activists convinced the DOT that the city didn’t need that capacity and had them run all the traffic south of downtown. And that’s how we got the mess we have now. Thanks, community activists.

A semi truck drove too fast on wet pavement and crashed, and this commenter blames the crash on there not being a freeway running through Minneapolis’s thriving arts district. He’s livid that “community activists,” with their living and working and raising families, got in the way of shaving a minute off his thirty-mile daily commute. As if using money from taxpayers to raze a neighborhood (thereby blighting adjacent ones) were the conservative or free-market thing to do.