Washington Avenue (reconstruction, restriping, etc.)

[mattaudio]

Here's my preferred outcome: 3B between Hennepin and 5th Ave, but without the third westbound lane.
Then, this is compatible with a multiway boulevard approach east of 5th Avenue, which would align perfectly with 3B.

[MNdible]

I was just proving it can be done with oversized (IMO) lanes - I think all driving lanes can be 10', the parking could be 7' (not 8, why design for our largest personal vehicles instead of the middle 68%), and the right turn lane could even be trimmed down.

7' parking lanes would work great, if everybody f'n nailed their parallel parking, if the snowplow drivers always plowed right to the curb, and if people didn't have to open their doors to get out of their cars. Using the same logic, I could say that all bike lanes should only be 2' wide, because that's how wide a bike is. In the real world, you need to factor in some wiggle room.

[RailBaronYarr]

7' parking lanes would work great, if everybody f'n nailed their parallel parking, if the snowplow drivers always plowed right to the curb, and if people didn't have to open their doors to get out of their cars. Using the same logic, I could say that all bike lanes should only be 2' wide, because that's how wide a bike is. In the real world, you need to factor in some wiggle room.

It's just amazing how cities in other parts of the world make do. I like that we feel the need to over-design even our parking lanes to ensure that bad drivers who can't parallel park in the biggest cars have enough wiggle room to park. Furthermore, the beauty of the slip lane is that you're not rushed in busy traffic where a bad park job is 'good enough' to not give it that final go, you open your driver door in to a 5' median, and you're not at the mercy of bad plow jobs because it could easily be an at-pedestrian grade (or only 3-4 inches down) space that is handled by separate snow removal (incidentally, I wonder why parking lanes are 8-10 feet wide in cities like Houston and Phoenix). But even with all that said, the proposal I gave above had 8' parking, even in the slip. So it's a moot point, really.

[woofner]

Instead why can't we narrow the sidewalk "chatting" space outside the cafe? Or would that result in bloodied, maimed, screaming hipsters?

Of course we can narrow the "chatting" space, but then you are eliminating the walking space. This is because, unlike a lane of traffic, no one designates space for informal public gathering; instead people just take it. It is an empirical fact of healthy urban environments everywhere, and you can observe it for yourself in the rare examples of healthy urban environments in the Twin Cities. Think about the areas where the storefronts are all full and there are people walking around: Dinkytown, Uptown, Cedar-Riverside. The businesses want to take advantage of that activity so they set up tables outside or racks of books or other wares (this was illegal until recently I guess), taking up 4-6' of sidewalk space. The people walking around bump into friends and start chatting in the middle of the sidewalk, taking up 2-4'. Dinkytown and parts of Uptown have wide enough sidewalks that for the most part you can just slalom through the trees, newspaper boxes, and electrical boxes in the boulevard space. But in Cedar Riverside or on Lake St, you end up either stopping and waiting for others to pass or stepping into the roadway. Again, the chatters and businesses aren't taking up this under-awning space because it was provided for them; on the contrary the DOTs provided it specifically for people to walk on. It will happen regardless of how wide or narrow your sidewalks are as long as there is a reason for people to walk somewhere (typically retail businesses in our culture).

Again, I don't expect Washington between Hennepin & 5th to ever become a healthy urban space. The only block where that might happen is the parking lot between 3rd & 4th, which on all of the bike facility layouts is sort of an amazing display of incompetence on Hennepin County's part. On the bike lane option they show the sidewalk disappearing altogether, which leads me to believe they'll be seeking an easement, but then they really should have shown something to that effect on these layouts. On the cycle track options they show the sidewalk slimming to like 4 feet, and even in the modernist blandscape this area will likely always remain, it will probably end up being a shitty space both for cyclists and pedestrians, possibly akin to this gif only without the appealing built environment (and with much less pedestrian traffic):



By the way, here is a link to a page about lane widths by that radical urbanist group, the FHWA, in which they state that there is basically no difference in safety between 10 and 12 foot wide lanes on urban arterials:

http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/geometric/pu ... ewidth.htm

[RailBaronYarr]

By the way, here is a link to a page about lane widths by that radical urbanist group, the FHWA, in which they state that there is basically no difference in safety between 10 and 12 foot wide lanes on urban arterials:

http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/geometric/pu ... ewidth.htm

Radical urbanists

I think the biggest challenge is breaking the barrier of all the assumptions made in the traffic study. Is Washington a CSAH or a street? Is it a collector/arterial between 394 and 35W or a street that should primarily handle 'local' traffic? Is Washington Ave a place to be at or a road to drive through? The traffic study and proposals try to shoehorn in good bike facilities to what is still a high capacity road (and in doing so saving peak AM/PM commuters all of 90 seconds from 35W to Hennepin Ave). This is evidenced by the sidewalk thinning down as redisciple notes and the fact that even 6-10 ft of sidewalk can get very cramped at times if you have natural street life. We can and should do better.

The other side to this is that even if they pick an option not shown here that truly focuses on pedestrians first, bikes and transit second, and PM peak traffic last, will the city put in any changes along this corridor to property tax, zoning, or anything else to take advantage of the space?

[Rich]

Thanks for the thoughtful responses to my rather snidely worded question. Good info.

[woofner]

To be clear, I thoroughly enjoyed your snidely worded question, Rich.

[mattaudio]

As I drove Cedar Avenue this weekend on my way back from a meeting about Washington Avenue with RailBaronYarr (it was too windy to bike), I noticed something:
Cedar's right lane between Lake and 38th Streets is probably 7 feet. North of Lake, it's not much wider (maybe 8-9 feet). Ahem, this is ALSO County Road 152. And this received a mill/overlay and new paint as of 2013.

[twincitizen]

Anyone going to this tonight?

I'm going to try to get there by 5:15, mingle for a bit, then probably hop on the 94 over to the Capitol for the whole bill signing and "Love is the Law" concert thing.

[gpete]

And if you can't attend tonight (even if you can), don't forget to email your county commissioner about this project, and the HC project contact:

Jennifer Lowry, Project contact: [email protected]

District 4: Peter McLaughlin: [email protected]
District 3: Gail Dorfman: [email protected]
District 2: Linda Higgins: [email protected]

[RailBaronYarr]

I'll be there, probably about the same time. I'm just curious to see how open to other ideas they are or if it is really much more of a "we're taking public opinion in to account; the views of those that show up or respond online will get a 20% weight in the decision making process" type thing.

[mattaudio]

Oh, and one more comparison to Cedar:
CSAH 152, as they call it, between Hennepin and 5th Ave sees 22,000 ADT and needs a third westbound lane. But CSAH 152 (Cedar) at Lake Nokomis sees 17,500 ADT on a TWO lane street and people survive just fine. Granted, it backs up during certain points at rush hour, and it's not friendly to adjoining land uses/neighborhoods. But people survive just fine. And us locals know plenty of other side streets in the grid to get us where we're going.

[RailBaronYarr]

Oh, and one more comparison to Cedar:
CSAH 152, as they call it, between Hennepin and 5th Ave sees 22,000 ADT and needs a third westbound lane. But CSAH 152 (Cedar) at Lake Nokomis sees 17,500 ADT on a TWO lane street and people survive just fine. Granted, it backs up during certain points at rush hour, and it's not friendly to adjoining land uses/neighborhoods. But people survive just fine. And us locals know plenty of other side streets in the grid to get us where we're going.

And once again, the problem statement is backed up cars. One solution is adding lanes. Another is changing land-use in Minneapolis to allow for more residents while changing up the design of the streets to accommodate pedestrians, bikes, and transit better to up total mobility options.

[PhilmerPhil]

I'll be there, pedicab and all.

[gpete]

Hennepin County posted a new survey on the Washington Ave project: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Washingto ... ignConcept

Responses accepted until May 31.

[mattaudio]

Here's my feedback:
4. Sidewalk Cafes - It is critical to create buffer space between general traffic lanes and sidewalks (3A and 3B) to create hospitable sidewalk space. Additionally, future developments can provide pocket space or use creative setback design to provide for sidewalk seating area... it is not critical to have sidewalks wider than 10' so long as there's a proper buffer (unlike the existing condition).

5. Bumpouts - Please consider slip lanes and bumpouts/bus bulbs for slip lanes to reduce the thru-lane crossing distance. Multiple carriageways create buffers and a sense of local space.

7. Bicycle Facilities - Slip lanes would work very well on blocks where on-street parking is planned. On street parking on the left hand side of a slip lane reduces dooring potential AND creates a wider people-scale envelope between buildings and traffic. Bollards can be used to provide a curbless transition between sidewalks and slip lanes.

8. Urban Art & Sculpture - Let the neighborhood direct this. Please set up a parking revenue district as suggested in Donald Shoup's "The High Cost of Free Parking" and allow for Washington Avenue stakeholders to use parking revenue do improve their neighborhood as they see fit.

9. Furniture - Furniture is good, but please do not place benches on the buffer median between a cycletrack and the traffic lanes. This is people-hostile space, so close to traffic.

10. Street green - Buffer medians in a multiway boulevard or cycletrack arrangement (as shown in the 3B drawings) help widen the people-scale sidewalk envelope without actually widening the sidewalk, and create more of a canopied boulevard aesthetic. Please place these trees on buffer medians between thru lanes and cycletracks/slip lanes.

11. Lighting - Shorter lights are better, and lower intensity lights are good.

12. Pavement - Please consider slip lanes for the 120' section east of 5th Ave S, where the pavement treatment could match the sidewalk and provide a wider people-scale space between buildings and through-traffic.

13. Medians - Buffer medians between thru traffic and outside lanes (cycletrack, slip lane, or sidewalk) are crucial to create people-friendly spaces on the street. Medians between eastbound and westbound traffic are NOT helpful and should be eliminated (as I believe is proposed in all drawings) to afford more ROW for people-oriented uses on the edges of the ROW.

[Nick]

I'll be at the meeting, wearing a tie with Spring colors.

[gpete]

Any updates on the open house? Was it just an exhibit of their proposed layout, or was there a forum for offering thoughts on the proposals?

[woofner]

There was a moderate amount of interaction, primarily involving post-it notes that may be immediately discarded or possibly kept in a file for a while and then discarded. I asked a Hennepin County engineer in what circumstances he would consider dedicated bus lanes, and he said he might consider them if Metro Transit asked for them (I'm not aware of any situation in which Metro Transit has asked for dedicated lanes). I asked what he thought the threshold should be in terms of buses per hour before a dedicated lane was warranted and he said something like 1,000 to 3,000 per hour.

When I asked a consultant why most of the bus stops were in right turn lanes, she said she thought that it was a conscious decision to minimize the impact of transit on the car traffic. She said it had the advantage of being safer for transit riders, and when I pointed out that in fact right-turning traffic is the number one safety issue for transit riders, and that requiring the buses to pull out of general traffic and block the right-turn lanes would not only delay the buses but would encourage this dangerous behavior, she looked sheepish and agreed.

Never attend open houses on transportation issues. You will go home feeling terrible every time.

[MNdible]

...and when I pointed out that in fact right-turning traffic is the number one safety issue for transit riders, and that requiring the buses to pull out of general traffic and block the right-turn lanes would not only delay the buses but would encourage this dangerous behavior, she looked sheepish and agreed.

To be clear, do you prefer far-side bus stops to avoid this situation?