Four protected bike lane projects have been planned in Minneapolis that will be paid for by $790,000 set aside in this year's budget by Mayor Betsy Hodges. They total 5.6 miles.
The list of projects includes Plymouth Avenue N. and 8th Avenue NE. between Fremont Avenue N. and 5th Street NE. Oak Street SE. between East River Road and Washington Avenue SE., S. 9th Street between Hennepin and Chicago avenues, and E. 26th and 28th streets between Hiawatha and Portland avenues.
Three of the four are in addition to previously announced plans to add protected lanes as part of street repaving or park projects. The exception is 26th and 28th, where the money will cover a $160,000 gap in an already planned street resurfacing project that's also expected to include better pedestrian crossings.
Protected bikes lanes involve separating bike lanes from motor vehicles with a barrier. In Minneapolis, that separation has usually come in the form of flexible plastic tubes, although parked cars are used on 1st Avenue North downtown.
The new projects represent one on the South Side, one on the North Side, one downtown and one near the University of Minnesota.
The downtown and Oak projects will serve higher-volume biking areas. South 9th now has a narrower bike lane but Oak has none. Bikers generally avoid 26th and 28th, which have three traffic lanes and no bike lanes.
The Plymouth project will extend the current protected bike lanes on the roadway's river bridge. Bike traffic on that bridge has shot up since the addition of protected lanes. The east end of the new lanes will connect with the 5th Street NE. bike boulevard, while the west end will connect with bike lanes on Fremont and Emerson avenues. Those currently have wider buffered bike lanes, but protected bike lanes are proposed for one or both avenues in the future.
Planners will retain narrower bike lanes west along Plymouth from those two streets to Wirth Park.
