The Met Council is now considering requests from local and state government agencies in the seven-county metropolitan area to update regional bicycle barriers and regional bicycle barrier crossing areas.
Change request process
This application process is for Twin Cities Metropolitan Region agencies that have responsibility for bicycle system planning and facility development within their jurisdictions.
This update process will consider the following changes:
- Adding a new regional bicycle barrier consistent with the definitions described below.
- Adding a planned bicycle facility improvement location that crosses a regional bicycle barrier and is not currently included within a prioritized regional bicycle barrier crossing area for the specific barrier type.
Applicants are encouraged to review regional barriers and tiered barrier crossing areas within their jurisdictions on the online interactive map to determine if there are any missing barriers or prioritized barrier crossing areas.
Regional Bicycle Barrier and Barrier Crossing Area Change Request Form
Changes accepted through this process will be added to the maps adopted for use in scoring applications for the 2022 Regional Solicitation and included in the Transportation Policy Plan.
The submission period is April 23 through May 28, 2021 by 5 p.m. Requests submitted after the deadline will not be considered through this process.
Definitions
Successful applications to add a regional bicycle barrier or barrier crossing location will be consistent with the following definitions:
Regional bicycle barriers are defined as follows:
- Freeways include the interstates and U.S., state or other highways that are completely grade-separated with no crossing highway intersections
- Expressways are highways that have at least four through lanes divided by a center median with posted speeds of 45 or more miles per hour.
- Secondary and third-order streams are the streams that flow directly into the Mississippi, Minnesota, and Saint Croix Rivers and their direct tributaries.
- Railroad corridors
Planned bicycle facility improvement locations are locations that are described or mapped in an adopted local bicycle or transportation plan, an adopted sub-area or corridor study, or a funded improvement project in a capital improvement plan.
Regional bicycle barrier crossing areas are shown in the online interactive map as tiered (prioritized) circles that vary in diameter according to the preferred spacing distances based on the Thrive community designation group shown in Table A. These areas define the specific barrier segments across which future improvements are desired.
Table A
|
|
Thrive Community Designation
|
Preferred Maximum Distance between available Regional Bike Barrier Crossings1
|
| Urban Center |
1/2-mile |
| Urban |
3/4-mile |
| Suburban/Suburban Edge/Emerging Suburban Edge |
1 mile |
| Diversified Rural/Rural Residential/Agriculture |
2 miles |
1 As determined through the Regional Bicycle Barrier Study’s technical work group.
About regional bicycle barrier and barrier crossing areas
Regional Bicycle Barriers were established in the 2018 update to the Transportation Policy Plan as the region’s most significant physical barriers to daily bicycle travel. These barriers, based on the 2018 Regional Bicycle Barriers Study, included the region’s freeways and expressways, rail corridors, and secondary rivers and streams.
The 2019 Technical Addendum Update to this study provides the most recently updated bicycle barriers and defined barrier segments known as regional bicycle barrier crossing areas. These results were added to the 2020 Update to the TPP and included as a new alternative criterion in the 2020 Regional Solicitation for prioritizing bikeway projects for federal transportation funds.