We’re back after a short break with another Member Spotlight. This week, read how Will Coughlin learned to replace car trips with bike and bus, and how planting roots in St. Louis Park motivated him to join WMATA.
It was a few years ago, and not long after I moved to St Louis Park from the south metro, I started out cycling for transportation. I bought a commuter/urban bike and threw on a rear rack with some baskets and started just seeing where I could get around to. First, it was just Knollwood Cub, or restaurants like the Block, both along Walker/36th street. Pretty soon I was comfortable just cruising around almost anywhere in town. Eventually I became a regular user of the South Cedar Lake/SWLRT Trail to go to Hopkins or Minneapolis for visiting parks, businesses, or just having fun.
At the same time, I started getting comfortable with our Metro Transit buses. I was, what I considered to be, lucky enough to live right off the (once-an-hour) 615 to give me a nice ride right into downtown Hopkins. During the last stretches of fully-remote work, taking the bus to work from a coffee shop on Mainstreet became a ritual. I started thinking, why would I ever drive here anyway? (Well, there’s the poor frequency and lack of Sunday service.)
These days, I am in a different SLP neighborhood. I now have a kid, which makes this so much more personal. Oftentimes we consider ourselves lucky if things around the world and our communities improve within a time that we can still benefit from it, but it becomes crucial that they are better for future generations. We are in a wonderful neighborhood: nearby public schools, right off a higher-frequency bus route, right off the North Cedar Lake Trail, and we have sidewalks on nearly every street (remarkable for many suburbs). But, there are gaps. There are gaps here, and in neighboring cities, and any gap, of any size, in our transportation network is another reason someone may choose to drive instead of walk, bike, or take transit.
It was shortly after I moved to my current home here that I got involved with WMATA, where I was mainly looking for like-minded folks to chat (or complain) with. However, that grew into making connections and having opportunities to make a difference where I see gaps that can be filled. Here, I learned you don’t have to wish or work for any of these things alone.
Leave a Reply