The Mayor Blog

Car share is a way for people to lead more sustainable and affordable lives — and we are moving closer to making it much more possible for more people to do so, right here in Minneapolis.

Why car share?

Much like bike share, car share can provide an on-demand service, meaning that people only use a car when they need it. Car share provides all the convenience of having a car with none of the hassle of owning one, like parking, maintenance and all the other costs involved.

There are many reasons that car share is an important public amenity to have and to grow in a vibrant, diverse city.

First, it allows people who can’t afford to own a car to be able to use a car when they need it.

Second, it allows people to downsize the number of cars they may own from two to one, or even from one to none. In cities that have extensive, successful car share systems, it has been demonstrated to do just that.

In both cases, car share allows people and families to put their money to uses other than owning cars: toward their homes, their daily expenses, their children’s education or any other priority that people may feel is more valuable and important to them than owning a car.

Third, car share allows all of us to live in a greener, healthier and more sustainable city with a greater variety of options for getting around.

Dramatically growing car share in Minneapolis

Right now, there are two private, subscription-based providers that operate car share in Minneapolis.  Between them, they make a total of 33 cars available to their subscribers in our city.

But the demand for car share is far greater than that, and car share has not been growing fast enough in Minneapolis to meet it. In addition, there are many neighborhoods that car share still does not serve. To my way of thinking, that’s not good enough, which is why for the past two years, I have been advocating that the City think creatively about how we encourage car share to expand dramatically.

Earlier this year, the City’s Department of Public Works put out a request for proposals to implement a citywide car share program in Minneapolis, on a two-year, pilot-project basis.

The proposal process was open, data-driven and competitive. After a selection committee reviewed all four proposals received, including from the two companies who currently operate car share in Minneapolis, they recommended that the City select Car2Go to be the City’s partner in implementing this system.

Car2Go proposed a dramatic expansion of car share in Minneapolis, with 250 new SmartCars. Moreover, they are proposing a unique delivery model whereby most cars will not be tied to specific parking spots, but instead can be picked up and dropped off at any legal on-street parking space.

Other  reasons that the selection committee cited for recommending Car2Go are:

• No monthly fees, a low cost to join, and best value for short trips around the city.
• A large number of cars available at curbside, not just in off-street spaces.
• Cars constantly redistributed across the city to meet demand, like bike share.
• Memberships available to those 18 and up, which opens up service to young people.

No change for car share companies already operating in Minneapolis

Here I want to be completely clear: the selection committee’s recommendation to move forward with Car2Go as our partner on the two-year pilot project — which the City Council’s Transportation and Public Works Committee has accepted and has forwarded to the full City Council — does not in any way choose who gets to provide car share service in Minneapolis. The companies that are currently in Minneapolis’ car share market can stay in Minneapolis’ car share market and continue to operate as they currently do. No action that the City has taken changes that, and in fact, these companies have signaled their intention to stay and expand in Minneapolis. This is good news, because our goal is ultimately to serve every neighborhood and community in Minneapolis.

Stay tuned

There are more steps to come in this process, so stay tuned as we move forward with dramatically expanding car share in Minneapolis, which will make living in our city more affordable and more sustainable.

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Minneapolis in 2025 will be a growing, vibrant and connected city with more people and more jobs, for every person in every place — if in 2013, we continue run the city well, grow the city, strengthen the common ground and build a path for the next generation. That’s what I said in my 12^th and final State of the City address yesterday.

Now, I’ll admit I had some fun with the speech: I delivered about half of it “in character” — in the role of mayor of Minneapolis in 2025, delivering my 2025 State of the City address. I did that way because I thought it would be more interesting to talk about Minneapolis’ next 12 years than to get all nostalgic about the last 12. (You can read the speech here.)

Here are some of the scenes I sketched of what Minneapolis will look like in 2025, if we do things right today. So join me in 2025, when:

• We are in the throes of deciding when, and how quickly, to build a third high school on the Northside, for two reasons: 1) Patrick Henry and North are bursting at the seams because their academic achievement is at the top of all national rankings, and 2) there has been a population explosion on the Northside as people have realized it’s the most affordable and desirable neighborhood in the whole metro area.

• The Northern Greenway, a bike connection across the river between what we used to call 26^th Avenue North and 18^th Avenue Northeast, has led to a real-estate boom that has dramatically reshaped the northern half of Minneapolis, just as the Midtown Greenway reshaped South Minneapolis.
• The Nicollet–Central streetcar line connects the Shoreham Yards Brewery District in Northeast Minneapolis through Nicollet Green (once known as Nicollet Mall), down Eat Street and across Lake Street, through the back of what used to be K-Mart.
• Nicollet Green, which connects the Chain of Lakes to the Mississippi River, is now widely admired as one of the world’s great urban boulevards and is the centerpiece of a green downtown of pocket parks, trees and mobile pop-up green zones.
• Armory Yard, which along with thousands of housing units replaced the former sea of surface parking lots between the stadium and City Hall, includes a skate park, rope courses, a soccer and lacrosse field, a croquet pitch, a dog park and other four-season features.
• Minneapolis’ vibrant economy dominates the sectors of high tech, green chemistry and green building materials sectors.
• Minneapolis’ population has grown to 450,000 without putting a single additional car on the street, because of the explosion of transit options and intentional growth along transit corridors.
• We are more than a decade into the “Era of Stable Budgets” that began in 2013 when the Legislature finally made Local Government Aid sustainable, and which is supported in 2025 by population growth, a building boom and rising property values.
• The STEP-UP Generation — the first wave of youth of color that we brought into the workforce through America’s most successful and longest-running summer-jobs program — has stepped up into leadership of every company, nonprofit and government office in our city.

Read more detail here about what Minneapolis can — and I believe will — look like in 2025. (I, for one, can’t wait to get there.)

Now let’s come back to 2013. This vision of Minneapolis of 2025 — a growing city of 450,000 of more people and more jobs, for every person and every place, a city where disparities in economic and academic achievement have been eliminated — can become our reality if in 2013, we focus our work in four areas:

• Running the City Well: The two pillars of managing the public’s money well and keeping property taxes down, and making Minneapolis a safe place to call home. We’ve made great progress on both fronts and will keep it up.
• Growing the City: More people and more jobs — for every person and every place. This means eliminating the economic disparities that divide our city by race and neighborhood — which is all the more important because our future population growth will come almost entirely among people of color. Minneapolis is #1 on a lot of lists, but we must stop being #1 in the disparity between African American and white employment.
• Strengthening the Common Ground: Minneapolis will add 65,000 more people by 2025 without adding a single more car to our streets — because a city on the move can’t be stuck in traffic. So we must grow intentionally along transit corridors, aggressively build out a complete transit system — especially including modern streetcars and bus rapid transit — improve our bike infrastructure, and make it easier than ever for people to live in our city without owning a car.
• Building a Path for the Next Generation: We are dead last in America when it comes to achievement gaps between white students and students of color. It is a crisis that right now, children of different races in our city have different futures, and everyone needs to act like it. I support Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson’s efforts to get high-quality teachers and principals in every building, and to increase high-quality in-school and out-of-school time for our kids.

Although it’s more fun to look forward than to look back, we’ve accomplished a lot in the past 12 years:

• We’ve solved our most intractable financial problems and put the city on a firm financial footing.

• We’ve brought down violent crime to levels not seen in three decades.
• We’ve strengthened our economy and weathered the Great Recession better than almost any other city.
• We’ve dramatically improved the ways we get around our city.

Of course, there’s much more to do and we’re not done by a long shot.

But the accomplishment that I’m most proud of is STEP-UP, our summer-jobs program that has placed 16,000 youth in high-quality jobs and helped set them on the path to success. And talk about closing gaps: they are 86 percent youth of color, 93 percent from families living in poverty and 50 percent from immigrant families.

Now join me one last time in looking forward 12 years, to 2025. In that year, STEP-UP alumni are the CEO of General Mills, a justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court and the president of a peaceful and democratic Somalia, among other things. And all the candidates in the 2025 mayoral election are STEP-UP alumni.

If we do the right work today, this will be Minneapolis’ future. And we will all be in very good hands.

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Landmark Third Avenue South bridge over I-94 to be rededicated to former mayor, along with new public art honoring her historic accomplishments

February 7, 2013 (MINNEAPOLIS) — Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak today announced a special project to honor former Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton.

At Mayor Rybak’s initiative, the City of Minneapolis will renovate the landmark, Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired bridge on Third Avenue South over Interstate 94 and rededicate it as the “Sharon Sayles Belton Bridge.” The plaza at the foot of the north side of the bridge will feature a new public artwork that will honor Mayor Sayles Belton’s historic accomplishments.

A formal rededication of the bridge, along with the unveiling of the public artwork in Mayor Sayles Belton’s honor, will take place in the fall.

Mayor Rybak also announced that the RFP for the public artwork has been released, with proposals due by February 28, 2013. The RFP is available at http://www.minneapolismn.gov/finance/procurement/procurement_professional-services.

“Rededicating this iconic Minneapolis landmark the Sharon Sayles Belton Bridge is a fitting tribute to our former mayor, who was, and continues to be, a bridge builder on so many levels,” Mayor Rybak said.

Mayor Rybak continued, “I proposed this project not only because this beautiful bridge was first built under her leadership, but because the Sharon Sayles Belton Bridge connects sites of great importance both to her and our city. On one side of the bridge is the Minneapolis Convention Center, which was also built under her leadership and which is one of Minneapolis’ most important assets, and on the other side is the Minnesota African American Museum.

“I hope the renovated and rededicated Sharon Sayles Belton Bridge, along with the public art in her honor, will inspire the community to become even more engaged in the vision of this important museum.”

Former Mayor Sayles Belton said, “Public art is a wonderful way to tell a story about the values and aspirations of a community. The goal of the vision behind Avenue of the Arts was to share the culture and heritage of the people of Minneapolis through public art, beginning at the Mississippi River and stretching north along Central Avenue and south on Third Avenue. Connecting people and the diversity of our neighborhoods, and leveraging our common bond, hopes and aspirations, is the power of the arts. I am delighted that the City is committed to the power of public art to connect us.”

“As Mayor, Sharon Sayles Belton believed deeply in the power of art, especially public art, to transform Minneapolis. This project will stand as a tribute both to her many historic accomplishments and to that conviction,” Mayor Rybak concluded.

Bridge renovation

The Third Avenue South bridge over Interstate 94 is scheduled for renovation in 2013. This scheduled renovation will include rehabilitation of the unique pedestrian-style lighting, repainting of the railing and restoration of the colored sidewalk.

The City of Minneapolis first built the now-iconic bridge in 2000, under Mayor Sayles Belton’s leadership. It is designed to reflect the prairie-inspired design principles of Frank Lloyd Wright.

New public artwork

Mayor Rybak personally proposed to the Minneapolis Public Art Advisory Panel that the City dedicate a new public artwork to Mayor Sayles Belton. In November 2012, the panel selected Mayor Rybak’s proposal to be part of the City’s regular 2013 public-art program.

The City of Minneapolis has released an RFP for the public artwork, to be installed on the plaza at the north side of the bridge. Proposals are due on February 28, 2013. From among those proposals, three artists will be invited to submit full designs, with the winning design selected during the week of April 8, 2013.

Each year, the City of Minneapolis dedicates two percent of its total net-debt bond program to creating and installing original public art.

Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton

Sharon Sayles Belton served as Mayor of Minneapolis from 1994–2001, and was the first woman and first African American to hold the post. Before serving as mayor, she represented the residents of Ward 8 on the City Council for 10 years, the last three as City Council President.

Among her many accomplishments, Mayor Sayles Belton was a champion of the arts and urban vitality. During her tenure, the City renovated the historic theaters on Hennepin Avenue, creating a regional venue for national theatrical and musical productions. She also spearheaded efforts to reconnect the city to the Mississippi River by revitalizing the blighted central riverfront and transforming it into a thriving area for housing, entertainment, recreation and culture.

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Mayor: President’s proposal pulls everyone who can contribute to our success out of the shadows

January 29, 2013 (MINNEAPOLIS) — Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, along with City Council Vice President Robert Lilligren and Council Member Elizabeth Glidden, today expressed support for President Obama’s proposal for comprehensive federal immigration reform, saying that it is based in Minneapolis values and will strengthen the city’s neighborhoods and economy.

Mayor Rybak encouraged Congress to begin action on the President’s proposal immediately.

“We know in Minneapolis that in order to for our neighborhoods to prosper and our city to succeed on the global stage, we need everyone. Luckily for us, people have come to our city from around the world to help us do just that,” Mayor Rybak said.

“President Obama’s immigration-reform proposal today pulls everyone who can contribute to our success out the shadows and gives them a chance to work and to play by the same rules as everybody else. His plan lays the essential groundwork for our economic success and the future of the American Dream, not only in Minneapolis but in every corner of our country,” Mayor Rybak added.

“I encourage Congress to act on the President’s proposal immediately — not as Republicans and Democrats, but as fellow Americans. Everyone’s success depends on their success.”

On January 24, 2013, the Intergovernmental Relations Committee, which is composed of all 13 City Council members, unanimously added to the City’s federal legislative agenda a set of principles for federal immigration reform. Many of these principles are directly reflected in the comprehensive immigration-reform package that President Obama proposed in Las Vegas today.

The full City Council will vote formally on Friday, February 1 to include these principles in the City’s federal legislative agenda.

Council Vice President Lilligren, who chairs the Council’s Committee of the Whole, said, “The principles of federal immigration reform that the City Council will adopt on Friday reflect the dreams and vision of our newest city residents. They emerged from the Latino Engagement Task Force through a community-engagement process to empower people to influence City-government decisions to shape their city and their lives.”

Council Member Glidden, chair of the Council’s Intergovernmental Relations Committee, said, “I thank the President for taking a tremendous step forward on one of our nation’s most pressing issues: fixing our broken immigration system. In Minneapolis, we’re proud to have worked with a strong coalition of community members to identify the principles that are most important to us in comprehensive, fair immigration reform, and I’m pleased that the President’s proposal today reflects so many of these principles.

“President Obama clearly understands that respect for the dignity of all people and their families, no matter their origin, is at the core of making sure that we are not a nation divided, but a nation that builds on our strengths.”

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We have much work to do to turn our despair about gun violence into action, and we’re doing it. I’m writing to update you on two important steps forward: one we took last week, and one we’re taking this week.

Last week, and as I promised last month, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and I, along with our two cities, hosted a daylong Regional Gun Summit in Minneapolis. In the midst of a robust national debate, around 100 participants from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri — mayors and city council members, police chiefs and officers, prosecutors, sheriffs, state and federal law enforcement, judges and advocates, along with national researchers — gathered for an honest conversation to search for Midwestern solutions to gun violence that are rooted in Midwestern values.

We are not new to this work, and it’s important to note that this groundbreaking summit was a year in the making and not a quick reaction to the terrible events of recent months. Every participant at the summit has been engaged in the fight against gun violence for many years, but it was the first time that so many people from our region met face to face to share information, best practices, common opportunities and challenges.

Mayor Barrett framed our motivation in powerful terms: “We are fighting for the freedom of a grandmother to sit on her porch and watch her grandchildren play safely. We are fighting for the freedom of people to attend church on Sunday morning safely.

“Unfortunately, people’s freedoms are being taken away by gun violence and those who commit it. We are fighting to win those freedoms back.”

At the end of a day of vigorous and honest discussion on many topics, we settled on three areas that require action immediately:

1)      Congress must amend or end the restrictions on the ability of federal officers to share information about guns with local law enforcement. These limits make it more difficult to solve gun crime and to answer the critical questions, where did the gun come from and who is arming our kids? When a mother asks those questions as she stands over the body of her murdered child, we must be able to answer them for her — but highly politicized congressional regulations still stand in the way.

2)      Congress must confirm a permanent director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). Some in Congress, aided by pressure from the outside, have kept that critically important agency without a permanent director for almost 10 years — and have kept it chronically underfunded, which has limited the ATF’s ability to collect the data we need to fight illegal guns and solve gun crime.

Nothing should stand between law enforcement and the need to make our communities safer. Frankly, we could save many more lives if politics in Washington would get out of the way and let us do our jobs.

3)      We need a coordinated strategy to gather more information about the mental-health challenges that people who buy guns or seek gun licenses may be facing, and to set higher mental-health standards for gun permitting and ownership.

On top of those action items, we committed to even deeper collaboration across our borders between policy makers, law-enforcement partners, advocates and community.

That’s an important thing we did last week. On Wednesday of this week, I will be joining more than 50 other mayors from around the country — who, like me, are members of Mayors Against Illegal Guns — to push Congress to make these sensible reforms. In addition to the ones above, we will be fighting for:

• Requiring a criminal background check for every gun sold in America.
• Making gun trafficking a federal crime, with real penalties for so-called “straw purchasers” who knowingly buy guns for people who are legally barred from doing so.
• Banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. There is no reason on earth for these weapons of war to be on our streets.

I am very encouraged by the effort to put an end to gun violence that Vice President Biden is leading on President Obama’s behalf, and look forward to the White House’s proposal later this month.

We are at a critical juncture and are making progress. Now, I know that if you turn on talk radio or cable news channels, it’s easy to believe that despite all the tragedy around us, nothing will change. But I believe this: the only way that we can guarantee that nothing will happen is if we assume that nothing will happen. And since we have no choice but to make change, we must believe that we will. That’s why we keep pushing forward.

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Temporary service will be in place for six buildings until permanent repairs can be completed

Jan. 6, 2013 (MINNEAPOLIS) Water service will be restored for all customers who were affected by Thursday’s water main break around 10 p.m. this evening. Repairs to the broken water transmission line are ongoing, but a backup service using temporary lines is being put in place for the six buildings that have been without water since the break. The water will be available for household tasks, however, it will take about 24 hours to test the water to ensure it’s drinkable, so anyone who wants to drink the water in those buildings is advised to boil it first. City staff are notifying people in the affected buildings about the restoration of water service, and they will receive an update once the water testing is completed and it is confirmed to be safe to drink. Again, this advisory only applies to the six buildings that have been without water since the break, and other folks who experienced water issues on Thursday do not need to boil their water– it is safe to drink.

Approximately 14 million gallons of water flowed out of the system following a break in a water transmission line at a construction site Thursday afternoon. Crews have been working around the clock since that time to repair the break and restore normal water service. By Thursday evening, all but three blocks of 2nd Street North had water service fully restored, including every bar and restaurant in the area. The buildings that will be placed on a temporary water service are on 2nd Street North, between 3rd Avenue North and Hennepin Avenue.

Meanwhile, the City has reopened most streets affected by the water main break. In addition to removing water and ice, crews are also made sure the streets themselves were not damaged by the excess water. All streets are now reopened except two in the immediate vicinity of the break. While northbound Hennepin Avenue is open to traffic, two blocks of southbound Hennepin Avenue are closed, from 1st Street to Washington Avenue. A block of 2nd Street North is also closed, from Hennepin Avenue to 1st Avenue North.

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Today I stood with Police Chief Janeé Harteau and top Minneapolis Police command staff as we released statistics that show that violent crime in 2012 was at the second-lowest level since 1983, and only slightly higher than the recent low of 2011.

In addition, violent and property crime together — called Part I crime — remains at low levels comparable to the mid-1960s.

Now as Chief Harteau said, while these numbers are good, we’re not satisfied with them, because even one crime is too many. We all have to remember that behind these numbers are not just crimes, but victims.

Some of the highlights of the statistics we released today are:

• The number of violent crimes committed in 2012 was lower than any year since 1983, with the exception of 2011.
  • Violent crime rose 4% citywide in 2012 compared to 2011.
  • The largest decline in violent crime took place in the Fifth Precinct, where it fell 17.7% compared to 2011.
• Violent and property crime combined (Part I crime) remained flat — rising only 1.3% compared to 2011 — and stayed at levels comparable to the mid-1960s.
• Burglary, an enforcement priority of the Minneapolis Police Department in 2012, fell 6% citywide compared to 2011.
  • The largest decline in burglary took place in the Second Precinct, where it fell 12% compared to 2011.
  • This decline in burglary in 2012 erases a rise in burglary in 2011 and brings it back to the lower levels of 2009 and 2010.
• The numbers of youth diverted or arrested for curfew and truancy violations increased 34% in 2012 compared to 2011.
• The number of guns recovered increased 27.5% in 2012 compared to 2011.

Now it takes a whole city to keep a whole city safe. While there’s not just one thing we do to prevent and fight crime, but rather many things, much of our progress in 2012 in keeping crime at historically low levels is due to effective partnerships between police and community.

And that’s the story of the success in the Fifth Precinct this year, where violent crime fell almost 18%. Strong partnerships with neighbors there — particularly around so-called “hot spots,” where we specially target enforcement, prevention and engagement efforts — led to violent-crime drops of 28% in part of the Whittier neighborhood and 57% in Stevens Square. Representatives of those neighborhoods today praised the “ongoing commitment” and “multiyear partnership” between police and residents.

The story is similar in downtown Minneapolis. In the first part of last year, we were met with an upswing in crime — first from so-called youth “click mobs,” then later from a few problem bars and clubs. We responded with partnerships on multiple fronts: law enforcement, legal and regulatory staff, youth-service organizations, business organizations and others came together to reverse that trend and cut violent crime downtown during the second half of 2012 below levels recorded during the same period in 2011.

To me, the effectiveness of this partnership illustrates that even when we can’t predict or prevent crime, once it hits, we know how to come together to attack it and bring it down.

Preventing and reducing property crime is no less important: that’s why reducing burglaries was a police priority in 2012. The story of how that happened in the Second Precinct, where burglaries fell 12% last year, is similar: smart policing and community partnership. But some neighborhoods are still struggling with burglary, so in 2013, we will expand these effective burglary-reduction tactics to them.

It has indeed been a multiyear process to build a culture of community partnership and service in the Police Department. I’m pleased that Chief Harteau is committed to building on this success and taking it to new levels. As she said today, we are not a drive-through police department. Our response to the people we serve will be not only quick, but thorough and good.

As we look ahead to this year, we will meet the challenges we face with the same kind of collaboration and partnership. We won’t reinvent the wheel, but we’ll build on our success, expand what works and fix what doesn’t.

But whatever our challenges and whatever our success, we must not be satisfied, and must never forget those whom we have lost. Chief Harteau keeps on her desk a picture of 3-year-old Terrell Mayes, Jr., who was killed by a stray bullet in his home two Christmases ago. His killer has not been caught, in large part because people who have information about his murder have not come forward. So the culture of partnership must go farther and deeper.

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