RNC: View from the bike lane (Part I)

The Greenwash Brigade

Yesterday, I devoted my day to checking out what the RNC means for the Twin Cities. As an admitted urban cycling fan, I wanted to look out over handlebars to see how the freewheel!n borrow-a-bike-free program is working - and to see if I, or delegates, or anyone else could really use it as a way to get around Minneapolis and Saint Paul. As the Freewheel!n website says, “why wouldn’t you choose to pedal your way the 4 or 6 blocks from your hotel to the convention center, or from the light rail stop to your office or, well, anywhere else?”

My plan was to try out bikes at stations in both Minneapolis and Saint Paul to see whether bikes were being used, and just how user-friendly the program is.

I had high hopes and significant concerns about whether or not this pilot would prove as successful as in Denver.

My hope comes from seeing so many cyclists in cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam wearing suits, getting to work, hauling kids, and grocery shopping. The program sounds really cool. Freewheel!n provides bikes, helmets, locks, directions, towels, water, and anything else you might need for your ride - all for free. Plus, Humana is donating $10 to Gustav relief for every mile ridden during the RNC.

My concerns arose the instant I saw the map of where the stations were going to be located.

In Minneapolis, the locations seemed reasonable: a couple near hotels and the convention center (not the one hosting the RNC), and a couple on the edge of downtown in beautiful parks. They had the potential to get people to useful places as well as recreational ones.

Bikes awaiting riders at the Loring Park (Minneapolis) bike station location. Photo credit: Janne K. Flisrand

But in Saint Paul, none of the stations is near anything useful. All are in beautiful locations along the Mississippi River — at the bottom of a the steep bluff. Downtown Saint Paul and all the RNC activities are at the top of the bluff. One station is directly below the convention center hosting the RNC but cut off by a security perimeter inside which bikes are banned, a second is several miles west of downtown, the third is to the east across a former industrial zone and a couple of highways. Why was no station put in downtown proper?

The downtown bike station location, a bluff’s-height below downtown Saint Paul. Photo credit: Janne K. Flisrand

Given the challenge of events being located in two downtowns 12 miles apart, and this odd choice of locations, I wondered: was there any hope the Twin Cities could match the 5,555 rides taken during the DNC in Denver? Or match the approximately 26,000 miles a freewheel!n volunteer said were ridden?

Would it be possible to navigate a mostly-closed downtown Saint Paul? Would I get to see any RNC Welcoming Committee activities?

Stay tuned for the next post.

September 2, 2008 by Janne K. Flisrand
0 comments

tags: bicycles RNC

Tools

Meet the Greenwash Brigade

Our hand-picked environmental professionals, each part of the Public Insight Network, are on the hunt for "greenwash" as they examine eco-friendly claims by companies, governments and other groups. They ask tough questions about the mainstreaming of green, from the perspectives of people in the trenches who are focused on these issues 24/7.

Jim Nicolow is a nationally recognized expert on sustainable design and leads the sustainability initiative for Lord, Aeck & Sargent, overseeing the incorporation of sustainable design strategies and features into the firm’s design projects. He is a LEED® Accredited Professional with extensive knowledge of the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED rating system.

Janne K. Flisrand has worked as an affordable housing and urban planning research consultant for five years, primarily supporting local non-profits. Her focus is on transit, transit-oriented design, affordable housing, and sustainability. Currently, she’s the program coordinator for Minnesota Green Communities, a program promoting affordable, healthy, sustainably built housing throughout Minnesota.

Dennis Markatos-Soriano recently completed a Master's in Public Affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. He is now launching Sustainable Energy Transition (SET) to help individuals and institutions move from dependence on oil and gas to an efficient use of renewables. Previously, he co-founded SURGE (Students United for a Responsible Global Environment), which aims to bring young progressives together across issues of environmental and social justice throughout North Carolina and beyond. In the summer of 2006, he helped to start a small green company, Greenway Pedicabs, to provide a greenhouse gas-free transportation option for people in the Triangle of North Carolina.

Heidi Siegelbaum is a principal with Calyx Sustainable Tourism and works primarily on advancing sustainable tourism practices. She also specializes in science translation, cross-border indicators with Canada, cross-disciplinary planning and environmental technical assistance to businesses. Previously, she was in-house legal counsel for EPA for industrial chemicals and biotechnology and the senior performance measure analyst with the Washington State Department of Ecology. She is on the technical advisory committee of the Seattle Culinary Academy and a long standing member of the Chefs Collaborative.

NOTE: The opinions expressed by the Greenwash Brigade bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of American Public Media or its employees. American Public Media is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the Greenwash Brigade bloggers.

Marketplace

The Greenwash Brigade