Multimodal, walkable, bikeable, oh my!

A pedestrian walking near Northwest Technical College, Bemidji 1/22/09

There is a lot of talk these days of making community streets Complete Streets. This movement is meant to provide streets that are usable for ALL users--pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, people with disabilities--and motorized users. According to the Complete Streets Coalition, studies show that complete streets encourage walking and bicycling for health:

One study found that 43 percent of people with safe places to walk within 10 minutes of home met recommended activity levels, while just 27% of those without safe places to walk were active enough. Residents are 65% more likely to walk in a neighborhood with sidewalks.

One low-cost way to create more opportunities for non-motorized users is to re-stripe existing streets. The downtown plan prepared for the City of Bemidji by RDG Planning shows how Minnesota Ave. downtown could be re-striped to accommodate parking on both sides and a bike lane painted on both sides and still have two driving lanes. Obviously, some of our streets are VERY wide.

Narrowing the streets has the added benefit of calming traffic and making intersections safer for pedestrians. I encourage you to download the plan (it is a pdf of a PowerPoint presentation they made in November) and see their great ideas for our community.

There are a lot of sections and ideas in the plan and I will likely have a few more blog entries based on the ideas in it! The final plan will be ready in February and come before the City Council for adoption. Check it out.