urbanMSP

Not like I-94 doesn't desperately need more lanes, but politicians should find funding for transportation, not designate what little money we have gets spent on.

It's too bad they had to lose the pedestrian bridge. I'm questioning what commuter traffic is doing on Robert Street instead of US 52 in the first place, unless US 52 isn't wide enough, but I get the impression they were only talking about moving it temporarily during construction. The article didn'...

Agreed on not using county roads to move through downtown, but the movements into and out of downtown are of regional significance, and should stay county roads. My feeling on Hennepin- if we make it car-friendly, then the county should pay for it because you'd have a lot of long distance traffic mo...

I've been to a number of the public meetings (and they're always surprised I'd drive from Bloomington to attend them) and have talked with the engineers about the difficulties of building piers. That's the engineering reason for selecting the extra-dosed design over a generic girder bridge (although...

I do think that's a good idea, especially if we're still planning on taking lanes away from cars on Washington. Maybe transfer Washington to the city in exchange for 3rd and 4th going to the county if we're going to try to encourage the bulk of the through traffic to use those routes.

Minneapolis isn't exactly cutting edge as far as traffic signal design. The ones on Lyndale south on Minnehaha went up last year and they still give a green arrow even if there is no traffic waiting to make a left, which tells me they didn't bother to put sensors in, as well as having no flashing ye...

Why were they talking about a station in Rice anyway? Do a lot of people live in the area that commute to St. Cloud?

Reminds me, I have to get up there sometime to see the interchange they're building.

LCD screens aren't close to being bright enough. LED panels as used in jumbotrons and newer variable message signss are brighter, but they still aren't as bright as a traffic signal and stop signs are a different shape. A better way of doing this with technology would be a conventional signal head, ...

When and why were those townhouses built in the first place?

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/71803_3179262617377_419511375_n.jpg Interesting new design from Dialite. This is the first non-programmable signal where the LEDs are integrated into the housing. It uses the same optics as their current retrofit module, a Fresnel inner lens an...

I actually enjoy living in "nowhere". It's a lot quieter and safer and roomier out here. It seems to me that even if people from Minneapolis don't want to go out to a parking lot in Eden Prairie that the line still benefits the city since the people that will ride rail but not buses will b...

Well, even though the glass lenses and reflectors have been replaced with LEDs, Minneapolis still has a lot of 1940s-1950s vintage Eaglelux signal heads. Near as I can tell Minneapolis sends the stuff it pulls out to the recycler, since I've never seen any of it for auction. Ax Man has a contact wit...

If traffic is actually that low what about just restriping the whole street to a two or three lane configuration?

San Francisco has basically declared war on cars- they thought dismantling part of the Central Freeway would force people out of their cars and into transit. Big Surprise. The traffic didn't disappear and has gotten worse in the area (and I get to drive through it in two months).

I'd be fine with automatic walk signals in dense, "walkable" areas since it could probably be done there without degrading performance for cars since the streets are likely to be narrow and there would likely be pedestrians anyway. But out in the outer suburbs I never saw what was wrong wi...

My father is married to a blind person and I collect traffic signal equipment so I know quite a bit about the issues. If you're blind or deaf-blind and approach an intersection, there's no way of a signal communicating whether it's showing walk or don't walk or exactly where the crosswalks are. The ...

I decided to try the Greenway for the first time yesterday since it was daylight and there were apt to be a number of people around. I did enjoy it and will probably do it again, my only suggestion would be a grade separated crossing of 28th- couldn't they have extended the Sabo bridge around the co...

And the city of Minneapolis has gotten special funding to "upgrade obsolete traffic controllers". So that mean the last of the electro-mechanical controllers (you can tell because of the massive chunk noise the solenoid makes during a color change) will be scrapped.

Also, the locations of the posts and the raised arrows indicate exactly where the crosswalks are (although of course this also be done with a sign)

A few notes on what's going on as far as signals: ADA upgrades: All new / rebuilt intersections need to be "accessible" This means curb cuts must meet specs and included those metal plates with bumps, beg buttons (custom programed with audible / tactile feedback are mandatory even if there...