Walking, biking gaining traction in auto-centric Apple Valley

The campaign to give suburbanites options for getting around, other than the car, just met its biggest challenge ever:

Apple Valley.

"Right now there are zero on-street bike lanes in Apple Valley," said planning consultant Dan Cornejo. "Giving people more options for biking would be a huge jump."

Cornejo's St. Paul firm is part of a team of three combining forces to suggest ways to give the suburb a slightly more urban feel.

"Apple Valley," he said, "was designed for the car. This is the beginning of a retrofit."

Nationally, according to the Complete Streets Coalition, half of all trips Americans take are less than three miles and 28 percent are less than a mile. That's a lot of room for bikes and walking -- if there are trails to use.

Those figures may not apply as well to Apple Valley. The city features an abnormally high degree of separation between homes and businesses. And it leads the Twin Cities in its percentage of commuters who leave town entirely for their jobs each morning.

"There are over 65 miles of paved paths in Apple Valley," said parks and recreation director Randy Johnson. But there could be much more of a system:

"We want, in theory, for people to be able to get anywhere in town on foot or by bike."

Consultants began by being asked to examine the gaps in the network of paths. But as time went on, Cornejo said, the objectives widened dramatically.

"Midway through the study, we found that the people we were working with, including the business community, didn't want to just fill gaps. They wanted to go further: to create some loops and routes."

The momentum comes from several directions, said Public Works Director Todd Blomstrom.

Another is rising congestion. Still another is aging: More and more people won't be able to drive and will want to be able to walk. And then there's concern about healthy lifestyles and childhood obesity.

"Let's have kids walking to school," Blomstrom said. "People were coming to public meetings and talking about trails they'd like to see expanded or connected."

Consultants have mapped out so-called "core routes," Cornejo said, linking important destinations such as schools, parks and the library.

"We're saying you need to make them really attractive. Signage, bike racks, kiosks with local news, water fountains -- make it special. Coordinate it all with bus shelters. It's not just a matter of needing two more blocks of pavement. What started as a technical study has turned into an exploration of city identity, and a sense of community: Giving people places to meet the neighbors."

In accomplishing all these, advocates admit, Apple Valley faces some unusual challenges and some common ones. One unusual challenge is that its main arteries, such as Cedar and County Road 42, are so highway-like as to be fearsome places for bike lanes. The consultants suggest parallel tracks that might even be a block away.

"We have talked a lot about trying to make the case that these are not just frills or amenities," Cornejo said. "When we cover a parking area, we don't think it's a frill. When it comes to bike racks, it shouldn't be thought of as an amenity."