Investing in Winter
We invited Our Streets Minneapolis Executive Director Ash Narayanan to talk about the unique challenges Minnesotan winters present to trying to make Minneapolis a city where biking, walking, and rolling are easy and comfortable for everyone. We look forward to joining forces with Our Streets Minneapolis in future festival years and discovering new and novel ways to overcome those challenges.
Winter biking across the Stone Arch Bridge
I moved to the Midwest from Southern India about a decade ago. While I adapted fairly quickly to a new culture, my biggest challenge was getting used to our long and harsh winters. As someone who hadn’t even seen snow before I came here, I resigned myself to the short and dark days and frigid temperatures. I coped with the season by rarely venturing out, and spending as much time at home as possible.
After a couple of seasons, I realized that avoiding winter was not helping me live a full and vibrant life and was detrimental to my mental health. I decided to work up the courage to plug into the seemingly myriad activities that many of my friends and neighbors were partaking in.
Almost immediately, I realized that there were tons of resources available if I only looked. State parks in Minnesota have some of the best skiing, snowshoeing, and fat biking trails in the region. Events like The Great Northern, ice block carving, and Art Shanty Projects abound. Many restaurants have set up heated patios for outdoor dining.
Ice covered Minneapolis sidewalks
As someone who lives without a car, as a first step, I invested in some higher quality outerwear like a warm jacket and boots. This helped me walk long distances without getting too cold. As I spent more time outside, it became apparent that many of the structural barriers that people face in our state are amplified during winter.
The clearest example: it is often not easy or comfortable to get around while walking. Sidewalks are often full of snow and ice. In Minneapolis, we rely on property owners to shovel the sidewalks in front of their homes and businesses. While most people do a good job, even one portion of the sidewalk not being cleared can make an entire city block impassable. Disabled people and people with mobility issues or other physical challenges are affected the most.
While the City of Minneapolis clears the street of snow and ice for cars, walkers are often forced to navigate snow and ice-covered sidewalks on their own. This is one of the reasons why my organization Our Streets Minneapolis for years has advocated for better winter sidewalk clearing. This year we’ve gone one step further and asked for the City to implement a municipal-led shoveling program on the streets most used by pedestrians.
An Our Streets volunteer navigating transit stop piled high with snow
Transit stops often are piled high with mounds of snow. Many of our bus stops are unsheltered and people have to wait for long hours in freezing temperatures and in the dark to get to their final destination. BIPOC folks and people who have a lower income are most likely to not own a car and rely on public transit as their primary means of getting around. Again, this disparity in transportation options worsens access to our city’s destinations for those without a car in winter.
Major highways and arterial streets cut through our communities–often creating an increased risk during winters for pedestrians and bikers.
It’s often hard to also get to some of Minnesota’s best winter destinations without a car. State parks that offer skiing, snowshoeing, and skateboarding are only minimally served by public transit. In addition, as an expatriate and a person of color, the trails often don’t feel inclusive. For a newbie to the winter outdoors like me, it felt like there was a secret society of mostly white people who knew exactly the right kind of gear to wear and which paths to take. Often, I’d get reprimanded for being in the way by impatient skiers. This felt disheartening and isolating. However, this is changing. Today, there exist many more resources for people of color to access the outdoors. Programs like Melanin in Motion organize BIPOC only events where people are taught to ski and snowboard.
“For a newbie to the winter outdoors like me, it felt like there was a secret society of mostly white people who knew exactly the right kind of gear to wear and which paths to take.”
This is why investing in the right kind of transportation infrastructure is critical to making sure that Minnesotans can access our state’s destinations all year round. This means creating more walkable communities, high-quality public transportation infrastructure–including heated bus stops, slowing down dangerous and polluting highways through our communities, and connecting our natural destinations through means other than a car.
Today, I’m proud to say that I no longer dread winters as much. This winter, I’ve walked and taken transit to every part of the city, even on some of our coldest days. I’ve hiked through quiet trails, crisscrossed with sparkling streams. I’ve been cross country skiing. Maybe next year, I’ll even find the courage to bike.
Ash Narayanan is the executive director of Our Streets Minneapolis. He is a nationally recognized expert on building more just, sustainable and resilient transportation infrastructure.
He represents Minneapolis on the Metropolitan Council’s Transportation Advisory Board (TAB). He was appointed to the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Sustainable Transportation Advisory Committee (STAC) and co-chairs its VMT reduction workgroup.
Ash has authored or co-authored numerous reports, including The Road to Clean Transportation: A Bold, Broad, Strategy to Cut Pollution and Reduce Carbon Emissions in the Midwest, and Arrive Together: Transportation Access and Equity in Wisconsin. He authored the transportation section of the City of St. Paul’s Climate Action Plan.