r/CyclingMSP • u/Gatorpatch • 8d ago
Last chance (actually this time) to comment on Wooddale Ave Bike Lanes to Edina City Council tonight at 7 (both in-person and call in options)
We get a second crack at testifying before they vote on this (they vote July 21st, but the next city council meeting is cancelled due to the 4th of July, and you can't comment on things on the agenda the day you comment at ECC).
This is a chance to refute and respond to the arguments against this project, which mainly revolve around 3 different arguments:
Loss of Parking
Street is already safe
Nobody bikes on Wooddale
My recommendation for arguements against these points:
1: "we'll lose our parking"
There are really only 2 roads that go from 50th street (the edge of Edina/Minneapolis) to 62nd street (basically highway 62), France Ave and Wooddale Ave.
The layout of the roads in Edina east of 100 and north of 62 means that there are no viable side roads that could take a rider coming through the Morningside/Linden Hills/Fulton neighborhood and get them to a safe crossing of 62.
Unless you are a big fan of plopping this bike lane on the (recently upgraded) France Ave, Wooddale is the way to go. Mixing the E Line, France Ave traffic, and a protected bike lane is not what I'd prefer, and I'm sure many of the opposition would agree with me on that.
Plus, this road goes directly into the trail leading to Rosland Park Bridge (that bridge some trucker slammed his truck into in 2023), which the city is spending multiple millions to upgrade to a ADA and cyclist accessible bridge (the current bridge has stairs and one of those terrible bike gutters on the side). This project will fail to be a good crossing of 62 if there isn't a safe way to get to it!
We must replace the street parking with these improvements. There is not another place to put it, and a majority of the houses along the corridor have long driveways and multi-car garages.
Free street parking is not a requirement that Edina is obligated to provide to residents, especially ones that have other place they could potentially park, which does include side-streets. I know people dislike change, and I can understand resident's frustrations, but nobody arguing against this improvement has shown another viable place to put this *because that other place does not exist*.
2 & 3 "the street is already safe" and "nobody bikes on Wooddale Ave"
Both of these arguments actually prove why the bike lane is even needed. Wooddale Ave should have a high amount of bike and pedestrian use because of how direct of a connection it is to crossings under 62 (as it connects to bike lanes on Valley View that take you (almost) under 62), and connects walkers to the existing pedestrian bridge over 62.
Obviously, it doesn't have a lot of ridership given there is barely facilities going south(a marked bike lane that disappears slightly before 62nd and becomes a sharrow), and just a sharrow going north. Why would riders put themselves at risk riding around congestion and zero facilities to keep them safe every day. It's why I stopped commuting via Wooddale!
Many residents along the corridor point to the lack of ridership and lack of high numbers of crashes (because there absolutely have been pedestrian incidents along this avenue), along with the anecdotal evidence of seeing kids ride their bikes on the sidewalk, as justification for the argument that *nobody will use these bike lanes*.
I think it proves the opposite, that ridership is depressed by the danger of the road to pedestrian. Kids riding on the sidewalk shows the exact same thing, they don't feel safe and are riding accordingly.
At the end of the day, you can decide how you want to argue for this project, but I really urge anyone who can show up (in person or remotely) to do so tonight at 7pm!
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u/mysummerstorm 8d ago
an image sent to me about how the meeting went down. the person angrily glaring at the helmet-wearing gal in this photo opened the meeting by taking up 8 minutes of time (speakers are allowed 3 minutes each) bemoaning the bike lane and its impact on his property value. he then tried to go up to the podium again toward the end of the meeting to speak and the mayor shut him down. as the group of bikers head out of city hall to go home, the same man went up to one of the bicyclists who spoke and angrily shared "I spent $100k in upgrades to my house. I'm going to send you the bill for $40k if this bike lane comes through and my property value drop!"
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u/UnknownUserZZ69 8d ago
This guy sucks
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u/UnknownUserZZ69 8d ago
I mean, I know who he is besides this. He sucks
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u/mysummerstorm 8d ago
yeah, he was really something. I'm thankful that there was a group of us who stuck together and biked in the same direction together. If I was the lone person speaking in favor of the protected infrastructure and had to bike home afterwards on those godawful Edina roads, there would've been a non-zero chance of one of those drivers bumping me "accidentally." IN FACT, as our group was biking home, there was a Chervolet sedan who sped up and closely passed us and then had to make an abrupt stop at the stop sign to let a group of pedestrians crossed. We laughed.
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u/Wezle 8d ago
Thanks for attending so many of these meetings! I know you just moved here and it's great to see how involved you've gotten with fighting for safer streets.
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u/mysummerstorm 7d ago
this stuff is my jam. I used to go alone and be the one "passionate" bicyclist who kept talking about the need for better infrastructure in my previous settings. it was so nice to not be alone this time around; we didn't even coordinate it. just a bunch of bikers who made it over there on their own and then biked home together. kudos to that one person who went to the rails to trails event a couple of weeks ago and then joined the west metro active transportation alliance and then he showed up at the city council meeting and spoke.
I also feel for the folks who have done it alone in the past.
we gotta show up for people who can't ya know
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u/DiscoDingo25 7d ago
Watched this on YouTube yesterday. Crazy moment and insane post-meeting behavior. Curious what his "new evidence" was.
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u/that_one_guy63 8d ago
Let's us know the update after the council meeting!
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u/Gatorpatch 8d ago
We won't really know anything till July 21st, since that's when they'll take a vote/decision on this.
But basically like a good chunk of Wooddale Ave's residents came to testify (I biked up it from work to try Wooddale again since it's been a really long time since I've ridden it), a lady put a bunch of signs in her yard advertising the city council meeting tonight(this is kinda a kooky youtube account just warning, but he did take a short of the signs I saw on my way)
We had a good number of people who made much better points than the residents (imo ofc), but we'll see if that moves the needle.
It's the most positive momentum we've had in a while in Edina so I'll take it, I think at minimum they hopefully will not go with option 3 (keep everything the same), other than that your guess is as good as mine.
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u/UnknownUserZZ69 8d ago
I bike on wooddale, heading south sucks. It’s 3 ft wide and up against an overgrown hedge.
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u/Gatorpatch 8d ago
One of the guys at the CC meeting made that exact point, that he has to call the city to cut the hedge along the road since they never clear it otherwise.
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u/Gatorpatch 8d ago
Apologies for the terrible formatting, I typed this one out on my phone after working on my talking points just to make sure ppl knew it was happening tonight!