New city focus on ‘active transportation’ aims to make streets friendlier for all

By Jacqueline Palfy, for Pigeon605

The ability to influence urban planning to include all forms of transportation could soon get stronger in Sioux Falls.

Three longstanding groups will, pending approval, merge this fall to create the Active Transportation Board, a citizen-led board with the ability to bring suggestions and solutions to the City Council, much like the Planning Commission, for example. PATH, the Bike Committee and the Pedestrian Committee will combine to create the board, said Sam Trebilcock, transportation planner with the city of Sioux Falls.

“I think it’s fabulous,” said Art Holden, bike committee member and longtime cyclist. “It seems like a lot of these committees are a lot of talking, and nothing gets done. To have an official status and make policy recommendations and have those acted upon, I think that’s great for these groups to have that clout.”

Holden represents Falls Area Bicyclists, a social and advocacy group on the committee.

It’s the latest development in a yearslong process to create a more holistic approach to urban planning. Understanding how pedestrians, cyclists and motorists navigate the city will improve safety and access.

Already, you may have seen signs of this – with back-in parking on Dakota Avenue, additional bike lanes along 15th Street and updates to the I-229 interchange at Cliff and Minnesota avenues to potentially include underpasses for cyclists and pedestrians.

“We’re looking to make streets more comfortable for people who are choosing active forms of transportation,” Holden said. “It shouldn’t be all about the cars.”

Trebilcock said creating an official board – with those three groups as subcommittees – will provide more consistent representation, citizen involvement and decision-making, ultimately leading to a more inclusive planning process.

“We have really good discussions, but you can’t have any consistent decisions,” Trebilcock said. “This raises the bar for something that’s an official board.” The next step is to bring forward an ordinance for the City Council to approve later this summer. He said he doesn’t anticipate any roadblocks.

National trends in roadway safety

Nationally, 1,260 cyclists were killed in 2020, up 16 percent from the year before and an increase of 44 percent over the past decade, according to the National Safety Council. Preliminary figures recently released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indicate cycling fatalities rose 5 percent in 2021, according to NPR.

“While there’s been a lot of infrastructure that has been put in the past 20 years, like bike lanes and protected bike lanes, more connected off-street trails, there still aren’t safe places to ride in most communities, where people feel safe,” Bill Nesper of the League of American Bicyclists, told NPR.

In Sioux Falls, there have been seven bicycle accidents so far this year. Over the past five years, there consistently have been about 25 to 30 accidents a year, said Sam Clemens with the Sioux Falls Police Department.

Trying to improve overall safety and access has been gaining momentum nationally as well.

On June 29, the National Safety Council released the executive summary of its new research report, Mobility, Technology and Safety: The Next 20 Years. The full report will be released in late July and explores the evolution and future of safe mobility.

The NSC calls the roadway fatality trends a national crisis, and it estimates 462 people will die over the Fourth of July holiday weekend alone in preventable crashes. “Vulnerable road users, those who are walking, biking or are otherwise outside a vehicle, are dying at faster rates,” according to a news release.

The summary predicts that climate change and neighborhood density will fundamentally alter urban transportation. The NSC also notes “Congress took a crucial step toward reducing roadway deaths with the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure law, which boosted safety-oriented, community-focused spending through novel initiatives like Safe Streets and Roads for All.”

Grant applications for that initiative opened earlier this month, and Trebilcock said the city already is looking for opportunities, including work along 26th Street and Veterans Parkway.

“There’s an appetite for this sort of thing,” he said. “You hear about it from all the advocates. The importance of providing options for people – whether it’s for exercise or providing clean energy or if it’s because they can’t afford another option. All of those things play into it.”

In 2015, the city launched the Complete Streets initiative, which incorporated pedestrian and cyclist safety into street projects.

“You see projects come in with bike lanes or side paths or improvements for pedestrians, making sure curb ramps are done appropriately,” Trebilcock said. “Those things have improved greatly.”

City projects

In Sioux Falls, one of the most recent projects is a dedicated bike boulevard along 15th Street – linking the bike path near the Great Plains Zoo to central Sioux Falls and, ultimately, the bike path on the eastern edge of downtown. Developing safe and dedicated crosstown routes came out of the bike committee, Trebilcock said. “We started looking at where our priorities are for connecting the bike trail.”

So far, some work has been done on the western side of central Sioux Falls, including a traffic signal that operates only if a pedestrian or cyclist pushes it, allowing them safe passage across Kiwanis Avenue, rather than having to go up to 12th Street.

“That is one of the FAB main objectives – to get that project completed,” Holden said, noting a comfortable bicycle and pedestrian connector to downtown will increase access. “That’s one of the reasons people say they don’t bike downtown – they don’t feel comfortable.”

Falls Area Bicyclists

Curb extensions have been added to calm traffic, and sharrows – those green painted lanes reminding motorists that cyclists are there too – are the next step. Then traffic circles, curb extensions and other measures will be put in place along the route, which goes down Prairie Avenue to Ninth Street and into downtown. Downtown will include bike lanes to route riders safely to the bike path.

“A bike boulevard prioritizes the street for bikes and pedestrians,” Trebilcock said. “The reaction has been very positive. This is our first step toward that idea of bicycle boulevards.”

In July, Holden said FAB will take members on a tour of the new boulevard, to show them what advocacy can do to improve access. FAB membership is open to cyclists of all abilities.

The city is updating the bicycle and pedestrian plans, and the hope is the Alternative Transportation Board can review and recommend approval of those plans to City Council. Other potential boulevards include Dakota Avenue and a boulevard that goes all the way down Minnesota Avenue to the I-229 interchange.

That area – already challenging to navigate – will be reconstructed in 2024 or 2025. Preliminary designs include pedestrian underpasses. “It is being seriously looked at as part of the design,” Trebilcock said.

For Holden, these are all steps toward a larger goal.

“Once you get that east-west connector made, you can look at doing a north-south, and you can keep opening that up,” Holden said. “It’s a benefit to the property owners – it will slow the traffic down and make it more comfortable for walking, running, your kids going to school. There should be some momentum.”

Safety and advocacy

You can improve the process and urban planning as much as you want, but issues will remain – like autonomous vehicles as the NSC noted, or even just big vehicles, Trebilcock said.

“How can we improve safety for bikes and pedestrians when we are driving so many big vehicles,” he said. “We talk about it all the time.”

Or turning right on red – without looking to see if there’s someone standing next to you, or if you’re the pedestrian, making eye contact with the driver.

“There’s huge safety implications all over town,” Trebilcock said “What do we do to make people not only safe but comfortable?”

One way is to add local connections off the bike trail into neighborhoods, such as the one from the development along Songbird Drive west of La Mesa Drive and onto the new bike path between Legacy and Family parks.

“That’s a push for FAB,” Holden said. “If the bike trail is fairly close, what can we do to get that connection made? Like near Granite City or Lake Lorraine.”

In an effort to raise awareness, FAB launched a “Please Don’t Squeeze” campaign, reminding cyclists and motorists what a safe passing distance is. Now, they’re launching a campaign urging motorists to move over a lane when possible. It’s a way to encourage safer passing and remind cyclists they – as vehicles – are entitled to take the lane. “You have a right to be there in traffic,” Holden said.

There will always be pushback, Trebilcock said. “We need to look at what level does the community value safe bike and pedestrian travel,” he said. “We’re really sensitive in Sioux Falls to our travel time. That’s what we hear at the city – ‘hey, you have to keep my travel time to what I expect,’ so that’s where a lot of the funding has to go. It’s something for the public to think about – do you value that?”