MARCH 2010 Events calendar Here's a sampling from our online events calendar! March 9-11 National Bike Summit March 10 St. Paul Greenway Committee meeting March 11 Virtual Lobby Day for the Active Community Transportation Act March 13 Neighborhood Sustainability Conference March 18 Webinar: Community Approaches to Pedestrian Safety Education Send us your events! events@smart-trips.org   Volunteers needed Bike Walk to Work Day is June 10 this year. Volunteers are needed to help with the St. Paul Smart Trips downtown celebration. We'd love to meet you! Our first volunteer meeting will be April 7 at 9 am. more...   Bike station at Union Depot? Photo from MPR's behind the scenes tour of Union Depot Plans are moving quickly for the redevelopment of St. Paul's Union depot in anticipation of its reopening as a grand transportation hub. Like the idea of showering and parking your bike securely before the next leg of your trip? Attend the next public meeting March 9 and voice your support. For more opportunities to get involved, sign up for the CapitolRiver Council newsletter.   Quick links Taxi-sharing brings  casual carpooling to NYC this month. more... Minneapolis is just .1% away from becoming the #1 U.S. bike city! more... A practical guide on how to influence your local DOT. more... Spring thaw means it's pothole patching season in St. Paul. more... Oh the sad irony, living near traffic arteries may harden yours. more... An iPhone app for everything: should you walk or bus? more... A safety bill for bicyclists stuck at red lights is on its way to a vote. more...   The Bike Song Sing along: "I love my bike" Watch the video   What we're following Editorial: 'Complete Streets' promotes livability - Star Tribune Driving Down in 09, Sustainable Transport Up - Streetsblog Riding the bus changes her view - Los Angeles Times Making Public Transit Work for Women - GOOD Northstar Rail Ridership Exceeds Expectations - WCCO Families and children on Transit - Human Transit Want to Foster Walking, Biking and Transit? You Need Good Parking Policy - Streetsblog We're a non-profit that improves access and mobility for those who travel in and around St. Paul. www.smart-trips.org Commuter Challenge to kick off in April To encourage residents and workers to explore healthier ways of getting around we're partnering again this year with Metro Transit to bring the Commuter Challenge to St. Paul. The Commuter Challenge runs from April 5 to June 27, 2010. Taking part is simple. Just replace a trip that you might normally drive for with one by foot, bike, bus or train. If that's old hat to you, take it a step further and challenge yourself by trying out carpooling, vanpooling or teleworking. Replace just one car trip and you'll be entered into the Grand Prize drawing for REI gift cards, bike commuter packs, an Amazon Kindle and more. New for this year   Make it a bigger challenge and win bigger! Take it up a notch and challenge yourself this year by tracking your trips online. Try it out for any week during the 12 weeks of the challenge and you could win a $50 Target Gift Card in the weekly prize drawings. For workplaces: Click here to reserve promotional materials and have us answer employee commuting questions by visiting your workplace! For Individuals: Beginning April 5 visit mycommuterchallenge.org St. Paul Transportation Summit highlights St. Paul Smart Trips held its second annual Transportation Summit on March 3. Over 100 representatives of St. Paul workplaces and neighborhoods attended the two hour networking and informational event. Speaker highlights included: Councilmember Russ Stark spoke about how a new transportation committee will address all modes of transportation and provide a more cohesive perspective on the needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, drivers, youth and the disabled. Councilmember Melvin Carter spoke about the impacts of the three new Central Corridor light rail stations planned for the intersections of University Avenue at Western, Victoria and Hamline avenues. Robin Caufman from the Central Corridor Project Office gave updates on the whole of the Central Corridor project including information about mitigating construction impacts on traffic and commerce. Bruce Howard gave an overview of Metro Transit's plans for the year including a sneak peak at a new website feature that allows users to track bus locations in real-time on a map. Karri Plowman from the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce / OnBoard Midwest spoke to the benefits of high speed rail and the Union Depot project. Thanks to everyone who shared their knowledge and questions! Learn more: Star Tribune article on the new transportation committee View: Slides from the presentations (PDF 6.2mb) View: Photos from the event Update: Jefferson Bikeway resolution vote this Wed. After being delayed for a month, the following resolution is scheduled to come before City Council this Wednesday, March 10: Resolution-10-108 Approving construction of a bicycle facility on Jefferson Avenue connecting the Samuel H. Morgan Regional Trail near West 7th Street with the East River Road Trail near Mississippi River Boulevard. Do you want better biking facilities in St. Paul in general? Your support of this project is crucial even if you don't live in the Macalester-Groveland community. The Jefferson Avenue Bikeway is an important component in a network of bicycle routes envisioned in the City of Saint Paul Comprehensive Plan (PDF). Take action: Contact your councilmember in support of the project and encourage fellow bicyclists city-wide to do the same. To have the greatest impact, please copy all councilmembers in your e-mail. Learn more: View designs for the proposed bikeway Skip the trip! April is Telework Month Mayor Coleman, along with the mayors of Minneapolis and Bloomington, has proclaimed April to be Explore and Experience Telework Month. The proclamation promotes teleworking as a benefit to the local economy, our communities and our families. We were pleased to see it also includes language about improving air quality, conserving energy, reducing traffic congestion and improving highway safety. To encourage those who live and work in St. Paul to try teleworking during April, St. Paul Smart Trips has teamed up with our other eWorkPlace partners to bring Telework Twin Cities to your home office! Telework Twin Cities is a two-week event in which Twin Cities metro area commuters make the pledge to telework for one or more days per week. Sign up and telework one or two days a week between April 11 and 24 and you'll be entered to win great prizes like a laptop computer and $50 - $150 gift cards. How to participate: Visit the eWorkPlace website to register and explore the resources you'll need to try teleworking. Tip: If you are able to install software on both your home and work computer, we have been using the free trial from LogMeIn and love it! 2009 bicycle and pedestrian counts released The results are in! Between 2007 and 2009 there was a 13% increase in biking in the Twin Cities. This and other key findings are outlined in the 2009 Bike Walk Twin Cities Pedestrian and Bicycle Count Report that was released last month. We thank our St. Paul Smart Trips volunteers who braved frigid weather to fill over 20 shifts at 11 locations around St. Paul. Your work was not done in vain! This crucial baseline data helps paint the picture of how biking and walking fit into the larger transportation system and will inform decisions on how future investments are made. View the report: Executive summary (PDF) SUBSCRIBE TO THIS NEWSLETTER http://visitor.constantcontact.com/email.jsp?m=1101544032920 VIEW OUR NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE http://www.smart-trips.org/news SEND US YOUR NEWS AND CALENDAR ITEMS We publish the first week of each month. Contact brady@smart-trips.org We encourage you to repurpose our content. Please credit us as "St. Paul Smart Trips."