Paul Drees displays some of the tools that are part of Luther Seminary’s bike repair station on Como Avenue. Photo by Kristal Leebrick
St. Anthony Park just went up a notch in the bike-friendly world thanks to Luther Seminary’s student Green Team.
A new bike-repair station was installed on Como Avenue just west of Luther Place this summer. The station is part of the Green Team’s ongoing effort to create a more “ecologically conscious” infrastructure at the seminary, said Paul Drees, a member of the team.
Drees commutes on bike frequently from his home on Selby Avenue to classes at the seminary and his internship as a chaplain at United Hospital in downtown St. Paul. A flat tire on the way to Luther one day was the inspiration for the repair station, he said. “I figured there was a bike station within walking distance of the seminary,” he said. There wasn’t. “If there was something like this, I could have patched it.”
The bike-repair station on Como joins another station at Hampden Park off Raymond Avenue in South St. Anthony. The repair stations are a small step forward in developing a better bike infrastructure in this part of St. Paul, Drees said.
“Biking is something that helps everybody,” he said. “For bikers, it’s fun; it’s exercise. It helps cars because there is less traffic and it opens up more parking—and it’s cheap, especially if you can do your own maintenance with something like this.”
