Bill Dooley had been a lawyer and insurance industry lobbyist who retired at age 55 and devoted much of his time and know-how lobbying for his passions: cycling and transit.
Just four days before he died from thyroid cancer in December, he chaired a Zoom meeting of the legislative committee of the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota, talking about legislation that combined bike safety issues with funding proposals.
Now that bill — House File 677 and Senate File 912 — will be named the Bill Dooley Bicycle Safety Act should it pass the Legislature in 2023. It includes improvements to school bike safety programs, dedicates federal funds to bikeway projects, and makes changes to traffic rules including adding Minnesota to the dozen states that allows the “Idaho Stop” at stop signs and lights.
“From time to time we name bills in honor of someone who has made significant contributions to the topic of discussion,” said Rep. Frank Hornstein, the Minneapolis DFLer who chairs the House Transportation Committee. “Bill Dooley … was a real champion of the issue.”
Attending Tuesday’s hearing on the bill was Dooley’s wife Susan Dooley, daughters Laura Glenn and Shana York and son-in-law Duncan York.
[image_caption]State Rep. Frank Hornstein[/image_caption]
“The Bicycle Alliance feels that bike education and community engagement are essential investments needed to maximize the return on investment on infrastructure,” Grilley said. A curriculum called Walk, Bike, Fun was developed and is coordinated by the Minnesota Department of Transportation. About 100,000 children take that training each year, he said.
But Grilley said districts could do less than offer the full curriculum. Pedestrian safety is already taught as part of districts’ bus safety training.
“All we would be adding is a few minutes of bike training,” Grilley said. “A bookmark, a flier and a few minutes of school time once a year would be the minimum that you are requiring.”
There was some pushback on the mandate from legislators representing more rural areas of Minnesota. Rep. Bjorn Olson, R-Fairmont, said the school his children attend is a half mile from home, and Olson said he was five miles from a school when he grew up.
“How many students do you expect to ride to school in the country?” he asked. Grilley said it might not increase the number of children riding bikes to school “but they should learn how to use the existing infrastructure safely.” For example, the city of Wabasha has received a grant to build a trail that connects to a school there, he said.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Peter Callaghan[/image_credit][image_caption]Attending Tuesday’s hearing on the bill were members of the Dooley family, from left to right, son-in-law Duncan York, daughter Shana York, wife Susan, and daughter Laura Glenn.[/image_caption]
In addition, it provides specific designations of federal transportation funds that must be spent on nonmotorized transportation, not including transit. It would send $10 million a year to the safe routes to school program that provides grants for planning and bikeway projects and $25 million for the active transportation program that grants money to local communities.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Peter Callaghan[/image_credit][image_caption]State Rep. Steve Elkins and Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota executive director Dorian Grilley shown during Tuesday’s hearing.[/image_caption]
Grilley said the road rule changes match with national best practices from the National Conference of State Legislatures for how cyclists and drivers interact.
“I don’t think we should penalize bicyclists for doing the best practice and something that is widely accepted,” he said.
Hornstein called Dooley a “one-person clipping service” who sent emails to policymakers, advocates and reporters with any news article that related the bike policy, transit and urbanism. He was also an active member of the state affiliate of the Major Taylor Bicycle Club, named for a cyclist who in 1899 became the first African American world cycling champion.
One of his last emails came on Dec. 7.
“In 2017, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and was able to defeat it with surgery,” Dooley wrote. “This summer, at the age of 73, I was hit with an aggressive form of thyroid cancer. After 30 radiation treatments and 6 chemo treatments at the University of Minnesota Cancer Center, I am home trying to regain my strength for additional chemo treatments.”
Dooley died Dec. 23.
Correction: This article was changed to remove a paragraph saying the bill would empower local governments to set lower speed limits around schools and on safe routes to schools corridors, whether those roads were under the jurisdiction of the city or not. That language was removed from the original bill.
Bill Dooley was indeed a one-man clipping service. I was the recipient of many of those clips back in the day when he worked in my industry. He was very good at finding out key important details buried away in obscure reports and articles. But more important he was a very kind and jovial guy. He was not a native Minnesotan but once he moved here he worked tirelessly to make Minnesota a better place. We need more like him. RIP Bill!
Interesting that this bill mandates bike safety be taught in public schools while adopting a law that bike riders do not have to stop at intersections just like the vehicles they share the road with.
This may be a non-issue since I’ve rarely seen a cyclist obey traffic laws such as stopping at stop signs or any enforcement of the laws for those who don’t.
This legislation amounts to a nothing burger other than finding a way to spend $35 million in transportation funding annually and create two bike trails with no mention of cost
As a regular bicyclist, I feel like I can’t win against attitudes like yours. If I do the legal thing and come to a complete stop, I’m usually forcing the car behind me to also come to a complete stop that they likely weren’t going to do had I not been there. So when we pass through the intersection, I’m glared at as if I gravely inconvenienced them when they pass me for just following the law. But if I slow down, treat the stop sign as a yield sign (i.e. an Idaho stop), use my wider field of vision to make sure there is no oncoming cross-traffic, and I safely proceed when confirming there is no conflicting traffic, I can also get glared at as if I kicked a puppy by any driver observing me.
This^^^.
The Idaho stop is SAFER for cyclists. We don’t have a ton of weight and seatbelts to protect us from vehicles! We DO have our maneuverability, which we lose the moment we give up our momentum. ESPECIALLY when we’re carrying cargo like backpacks, groceries, compost, or small children.
I’d urge anyone who doesn’t understand this to load up your bike with a twenty pound weight and force yourself to completely stop, feet-on-the-ground, at every stop sign in a residential neighborhood. Your lumbar muscles and hips will tell you pretty quickly just how stupid the complete-stop rule is.
I wasn’t familiar with Bill Dooley before this piece, and I wish I had been. I’m impressed that he was advocating for these sort of common sense improvements right until the end. Thank you Bill for your service!
I’m a bit confused by Rep. Bjorn Olson’s, (R-Fairmont) opposition to the bills for the reason that his children’s school is a half mile from their home. Walking a half mile does not seem to be unreasonable, much less bicycling a half mile.
Unfortunately, bicyclists have become something of a “pro” nature and have forgotten the manners we learned as kids. Coming up on someone with little or no time to react while walking is a major complaint of most walkers. It’s grown tiresome reading about all the money and loss of trees we need to endure for the sake of the spandex gods that ruin walks and trails. This is seasonal for the bulk of bicyclists, yet we are asked to endure year round aggravation for this accommodation.
It is good that actual money is finally going to dedicated to bike lanes- as we haven’t quite been able to follow where that seemingly endless war chest resides.
What I’m not seeing?
Money being used to study how effective what we’ve already got it being utilized/underutilized and what are the real carbon costs!
Are emissions up do to traffic back ups?
Will carbon soar when we rip out otherwise healthy trees to make room for bike lanes?
If bike lanes are to help us heal our planet ~ shouldn’t we be gathering some science to prove or disprove our assumptions?
The notion that Rep. Olson’s children can’t ride a bike 1/2 mile to school is laughable. It would take 5-10 minutes for them to ride to school, and provide some much needed exercise.
As for Mr. Taylor’s comments about cyclists not stopping at intersections, I invite him to come to my house and observe the traffic at the corner of Wheeler and Stanford. It is very rare for an automobile to come to a complete stop. The difference is that a cyclist who doesn’t stop isn’t in a 3000 lb vehicle, and is much more capable of stopping or swerving if something unexpected happens. But the law would require cyclists to treat the stop sign as a yield sign, so the must be able to stop.
I attended BikeMN’s education day at the capital yesterday. There was a lot of discussion about not only cycling, but pedestrian and transit mobility. One thing I had not thought about is the equity issues involved. Our society makes it difficult to live independently without an automobile. This true in rural parts of the state, and also in many urban areas. As we baby boomers age, this will be more of an issue
The point about being unable to get around when older is very relevant, and one of the reasons why we need more extensive transit options even in rural areas. People focus a lot on density which is important but even at low ridership transit is still essential.