Local View: Duluth can follow bikeways plan for active transportation

Source: Duluth News Tribune 11-25-18 Local View: Duluth can follow bikeways plan for active trans…

By Ruurd Schoolderman on Nov 25, 2018 at 7:30 p.m.

Duluth has been making great progress as an active outdoor-recreation community. We are well on our way toward achieving the goal of having every citizen within a mile of an access point to Duluth’s trail system. The Duluth Traverse mountain biking trail and Superior Hiking Trail string together Duluth’s many neighborhood parks. Amenities like these make Duluth an attractive city to live in and to visit and are part of the city’s overall economic-development strategy.

This great investment to improve access to our green space by bike and on foot stands in contrast with the limited bike infrastructure that currently exists to safely navigate our neighborhoods and city for day-to-day active transportation. This is a missed opportunity.

The Duluth-Superior Metropolitan Bikeways Plan presents a vision to change this. The plan was prepared by the Duluth-Superior Metropolitan Interstate Council, or MIC, a regional transportation-planning agency. The plan serves as a coordinating framework for the road authorities (city, county, and state) responsible for our road system.

The Duluth Bike Coalition, a chapter of the statewide bike advocacy group BikeMN, advocates for improvements to Duluth’s bike infrastructure. Our mission is to work to make biking for everyday transportation easy, safe, and fun for everyone.

Our current bike-transportation infrastructure for everyday transportation to work, school, and businesses does not serve users of all ages and abilities. As a result, a large portion of Duluth’s citizens which does not have access to a car or prefers not to drive is limited in transportation options. Think about low-income families, teenagers, and the many Duluthians who prefer to ride a bike as part of an active-transportation lifestyle.

Duluth Bikes supports the vision presented in the Duluth-Superior Metropolitan Bikeways Plan. We ask that the roadway authorities, especially the city of Duluth’s, make a concerted commitment toward implementing this vision. We hope the city of Duluth will use this plan to proactively work to develop access to bike infrastructure for all ages and experience levels.

Two open houses organized by the MIC are scheduled so the public may comment on the bike plan. They are a great opportunity for Duluth citizens to show their support for active transportation and to provide input on how they would like to see Duluth’s bike infrastructure improved.

Ruurd Schoolderman is chairman of the Duluth Bike Coalition (duluthbikes.org), a chapter of the statewide bike advocacy group BikeMN (bikemn.org).

Get involved

Two open houses are scheduled for the public to review and to provide feedback on the draft Duluth-Superior Metropolitan Bikeways Plan. The open houses are both Wednesday — one from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and the other from 4-7 p.m. — at the Duluth Folk School, 1917 W. Superior St.

To read the bike plan, go to dsmic.org/study/dsbikeways.

Long Range Plan Phase 2 Survey Now Open

We are building off responses from our Phase 1 Survey to dig deeper: What are your transportation-related priorities? What tradeoffs would you accept?  Your input is essential to better target our limited financial resources toward meeting our transportation needs, now and in the future.

Take the survey - click to begin

Even if you didn’t participate in the Phase 1 survey, you can still take the Phase 2 survey!. It’s interesting, interactive and will take 5 minutes or less. It’s open through December 31.

The INTERNal Outsider: Collaboration Between (seemingly) Opposing Mindsets

An Intern’s-Eye View of the MIC

When you listen to the news long enough, you’ll find a recurring theme at the base of many major news stories: the environment versus the economy. You can find these opposing ideas in stories impacting regions as large as the nation, all the way down to our own city streets (google “TransCanada pipeline”, or “4th Street long-eared bats in Duluth”).

HTAC Mtg1The MIC, however, does put these two opposing views together in a room at least four times a year at the Harbor Technical Advisory Committee (HTAC) meetings. As one of the MIC’s three advisory committees, the stakeholders of the harbor are brought together for presentations and discussions with other stakeholders of the harbor. The 31 voting members of the HTAC include business owners, environmental groups, and local and state federal officials. Non-voting stakeholders are also invited to meeting to participate.

During my internship I attended two HTAC meetings and have also been helping out with tasks from the Port Land Use Plan. Topics at the HTAC meetings encompass both the environment and the economy and demonstrate how they are not mutually exclusive.  At these meetings we heard about what the regulatory agencies in the area are doing to take the harbor off of the national Area of Concern list, followed by a summary of how the economic development of the port supports the region and connects our economy to the rest of the world. A report on research done on the economic impact of ports throughout the Great Lakes is followed by a description of the habitat restoration being done in Radio Tower Bay and a discussion on the impacts of ballast water.

Beyond these quarterly meetings, the MIC staff facilitates subcommittee meetings that get into even more depth of how the decisions of each side impacts the other.  The Open DuluthHarborAerialViewWater Mitigation subcommittee, for example, creates a working group for the regulatory agencies and the investors of the port to discuss their individual goals of restoration within the St. Louis River estuary and development within the harbor.  The objective of this group is for the Minnesota DNR and PCA, along with the Army Corps of Engineers, to help other entities such as the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, port businesses, and engineering and planning firms, understand how to get through the environmental permitting process for new construction.  Although much of the discussion went over my head, the desire to understand each other and wanting to be better understood was palpable.

The atmosphere at both of the HTAC meetings, along with both Open Water Mitigation subcommittee meetings, amazed me. The classic ever-battling mindsets are getting together on a regular basis to understand one another and to create a better setting for growth on each side.

One function I’ve come to appreciate about the MIC is that, as a neutral transportation planning organization, it is uniquely situated to support this type of coordination and collaboration.  Because the MIC is tasked by federal highway legislation with a primary responsibility of creating opportunities for public participation for all modes of transportation, the MIC includes funding and staffing resources for this harbor group in its annual work program. It serves as a much-needed, often-lacking champion or sponsor to gather diverse and unrelated stakeholders together as one group.

This type of collaboration is almost unheard of throughout the rest of the United States. In fact, the other ports of the Great Lakes are looking to the HTAC as a model to create this same type of collaboration between these two opposing mindsets.

From what I’ve seen so far, other port communities could benefit from an HTAC-type of group if their goals include improved outreach, education, state and local level participation and grassroots support for maritime industry.

 

Erica H-150pxErica Hansen is finishing up her final semester at the University of Wisconsin – Superior in the Transportation and Logistics Management program. She is intrigued by looking at transportation from a different side than freight movement, and helping to create an efficient and safe transportation network for the Duluth-Superior area. The INTERNal Outsider is her account of some of her work and observations while working as an intern for the MIC.

 

Last Call for Comments on 2019 Transportation Projects

Almost $10 million of federal funding is being programmed for Duluth area transportation projects in 2019, and you have the opportunity to review and comment.

2019ProjectApps-ImageStrip550px

The programmed projects include:

  • Bridge preservation on the Blatnik bridge and the Mesaba Avenue bridge over Superior Street in downtown Duluth;
  • Mill and overlay of Highway 39 in Gary/New Duluth;
  • Resurfacing of Maple Grove Road (from Midway Road to Westberg Road) in Hermantown;
  • Pavement reclamation and storm sewer repairs on E 8th St/E 9th St in Duluth’s East hillside; and
  • Duluth Transit Authority operations (approx. $2 million in FTA funding programmed for continued public transit operations.

Additional project details are described in a post from March 5th, when they were first proposed.  As noted in that post, because federal funding is public money, the public has the right for their comments to be recorded and reported on these projects. 

The MIC will be taking official public comment on all projects included in the 2016-2019 Duluth Area TIP – from July 12 to August 13th

You may leave your comments in the section at the end of this blog post, and you are welcome to stop by the ARDC offices and speak with MIC staff directly during a couple of “Open House” days from 9am to 5pm on Thursday, August 12th and Friday, August 13th.

Look the projects over – do you have anything to say about them?<br></br>