Review Finds Flaws in St. Paul's Draft Complete Streets Design Manual

Andy Singer, Co-Chair of the Saint Paul Bicycle Coalition, recently reviewed the drafted Street Design Manual for the city Transportation Committee, created due to Complete Streets laws requiring cities to develop new design manuals.

Summarizing overall trends, Singer pointed out the lack of any data collection methodology within the design manual, saying that "the city needs to create a Publicly available website with bike/ped count and crash data, perhaps one that utilizes crowd sourcing like http://www.crashstories.org/ as well as official data."

In addition, a particular issue for Saint Paul is snow removal. As Singer explains, "if we really want to be bicycle and pedestrian friendly, it is critical that we clear corners of snow berms and remove ice and snow from sidewalks, particularly on commercial corridors like University Avenue, when stores like Target or other big box stores fail to do it. It’s also critical that we commit to keeping at least some of our on-street bicycle facilities clear of ice and snow in the winter."