Washington Avenue (reconstruction, restriping, etc.)

Downtown - North Loop - Mill District - Elliot Park - Loring Park
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mister.shoes
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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby mister.shoes » January 8th, 2013, 12:44 pm

Sounds like the County's survey garnered a good number of responses.
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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby mister.shoes » January 8th, 2013, 12:49 pm

Ideally, the tracks would slide south to where the current street is east of Chicago, then the new street wouldn't have to be so close to 3rd... but that sounds spendy.
More spendy than telling Valspar that they have to give up a portion of their newly remodeled building? (Note: I might not have the right building) :)
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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby mattaudio » January 8th, 2013, 1:03 pm

Well honestly I wish the trench west of 35 was removed when LRT was built. Instead, they invested in fixing up the rail bridges once (for Hiawatha) and then widened one of them recently for the third track and switch to the Green Line. It would have been much better if the LRT hugged the dome site, and eastbound 4th was positioned to the north of it.

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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby MNdible » January 8th, 2013, 1:43 pm

I'm all for fantasy speculation about future transportation improvements, but it's getting to the point where we're spending a lot of time on the board criticizing current decisions by planners because they don't conform to the fantasy speculation of some board members. It's confusing and frankly sort of weird.

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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby Viktor Vaughn » January 8th, 2013, 10:40 pm

I'm all for fantasy speculation about future transportation improvements, but it's getting to the point where we're spending a lot of time on the board criticizing current decisions by planners because they don't conform to the fantasy speculation of some board members. It's confusing and frankly sort of weird.
I disagree. I like to hear the current decisions of planners contrasted against creative ideas. Hopefully, openly debating everything from the small details to the grand vision will limit the groupthink that plagued yesteryear's urban planners.

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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby jet777 » January 9th, 2013, 6:59 am

Isn't that the point of this board?

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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby mattaudio » January 9th, 2013, 9:14 am

You'd think :) and maybe if more thought went into an end-state vision, then piecemeal projects could at least conform to that vision. Instead, we waste new infrastructure when it ends up getting in the way of other projects. The first example that comes to mind is how half of the 169/610 ramps/grades were redone as part of the conversion of that <5 year old interchange from a parclo to a cloverleaf. I think the Green Line 21st St station would be the same. And on and on.

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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby mister.shoes » January 9th, 2013, 11:39 am

I tinkered around a bit with swapping 4th Street and the LRT. I realize that it is expensive to move LRT tracks, but this change would run just three blocks—from 11th to Chicago—and most of the work could be done without shutting down the line. Fill in the trench, tear up 4th, build the new ROW parallel to the current, shut down the line for a week *cough* to splice the ends. Ta-da! 4th no longer has any grade crossings, nor do the Aves north of 4th Street. And someday, if the combined traffic of the Blue and Green lines is too much for one platform to handle, there'd be room next to the new Vikings Stadium to do a second DTE platform, much like the twin platforms at the Target Field end of the line. In fact, it might be smart to do that right away if this whole street realignment idea were to ever happen. Requisite mockup below:

Click to embiggen.
[thumbnail]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/16815944/dte-redone-rev2.jpg[/thumbnail]

Note: I also reconjiggered the SB 35W exit to have a ramp go directly to Washington, preserving that current movement. I then removed the ramp to 13th at 3rd, but kept the inside ramp to 3rd directly.
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Nathan
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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby Nathan » January 9th, 2013, 11:52 am

This might be crazy, but what if 5th and 4th just ran under the new stadium? What you have drawn as 4th now is just accessed from Washington and the N/S streets? Maybe it's just not even feasible, but if we're tearing out the area why not make everything line up and go right under? Then you'd get closer to the core of DT a lot fast for commuters and the streets around can be more neighborhood oriented?

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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby MNdible » January 9th, 2013, 12:08 pm

I'm all for fantasy speculation about future transportation improvements, but it's getting to the point where we're spending a lot of time on the board criticizing current decisions by planners because they don't conform to the fantasy speculation of some board members. It's confusing and frankly sort of weird.
I disagree. I like to hear the current decisions of planners contrasted against creative ideas. Hopefully, openly debating everything from the small details to the grand vision will limit the groupthink that plagued yesteryear's urban planners.
As I said, I'm all for hearing the fantasy ideas. What I think crosses the line into absurdity, and what I think we've been seeing more and more of on the forum are comments like, "How could they be so stupid to build this street this way!? Don't they know that it won't work with the roundabout that I think they should build?"

As for groupthink, I'd point to this forum, that seems to believe that the reconstruction of this whole interchange is imminent (in the vision of a fetishized google map) clearly qualifies.

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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby mister.shoes » January 9th, 2013, 12:10 pm

This might be crazy, but what if 5th and 4th just ran under the new stadium? What you have drawn as 4th now is just accessed from Washington and the N/S streets? Maybe it's just not even feasible, but if we're tearing out the area why not make everything line up and go right under? Then you'd get closer to the core of DT a lot fast for commuters and the streets around can be more neighborhood oriented?
Well, we certainly have experience in this city shoving transportation underneath sports stadiums!

I respect the idea, but I don't agree with it for a few reasons. For one, the new stadium's playing field will likely be significantly below grade, just like the Dome's. Similarly, locker rooms, operations areas, and other crucial parts of the stadium would also be deep down, limiting the places that the streets could run. Secondly, doing so would also cut off any left turns from 4th to the Aves on the north, essentially creating a superblock between Chicago and 11th between 3rd and the LRT—exactly what we currently have. On the south side, I'd argue that the barrier between 5th and 6th needs to go away, making that three-block stretch between 11th and Chicago a 2-way street and enabling left turns south from 5th.

Really, it all comes down to this: while 4th and 5th are commuter-oriented racetracks now, the entire point of extending the street grid across 35W is to tame those roads and integrate them back into the city as streets. Burying 4th and 5th beneath the new stadium preserves the racetracks.
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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby mister.shoes » January 9th, 2013, 12:11 pm

(in the vision of a fetishized google map)
:lol:

::turns down the lights::
::fires up Photoshop::
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Nathan
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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby Nathan » January 9th, 2013, 12:23 pm

This might be crazy, but what if 5th and 4th just ran under the new stadium? What you have drawn as 4th now is just accessed from Washington and the N/S streets? Maybe it's just not even feasible, but if we're tearing out the area why not make everything line up and go right under? Then you'd get closer to the core of DT a lot fast for commuters and the streets around can be more neighborhood oriented?
Well, we certainly have experience in this city shoving transportation underneath sports stadiums!

I respect the idea, but I don't agree with it for a few reasons. For one, the new stadium's playing field will likely be significantly below grade, just like the Dome's. Similarly, locker rooms, operations areas, and other crucial parts of the stadium would also be deep down, limiting the places that the streets could run. Secondly, doing so would also cut off any left turns from 4th to the Aves on the north, essentially creating a superblock between Chicago and 11th between 3rd and the LRT—exactly what we currently have. On the south side, I'd argue that the barrier between 5th and 6th needs to go away, making that three-block stretch between 11th and Chicago a 2-way street and enabling left turns south from 5th.

Really, it all comes down to this: while 4th and 5th are commuter-oriented racetracks now, the entire point of extending the street grid across 35W is to tame those roads and integrate them back into the city as streets. Burying 4th and 5th beneath the new stadium preserves the racetracks.
The underground logistics totally make sense, but 5th would never re-connect anyways (in your lay-out) going under would free up a lot of space for development around 6th creating more neighborhood space, and I just thought going under could help prevent multiple intersections with the LRT on 4th. I'd figure people would use 4th to race track around the stadium no matter what as it's mostly dead space, just thoughts, I'm not expert :)

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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby mattaudio » January 9th, 2013, 1:04 pm

Also I think the existing Access Mpls / MnDOT studies indicate downtown traffic from 94 will dump onto 7th Street instead of 5th Street. I'm trying to find the official MnDOT Minneapolis Freeway Access Study fetish maps on their FTP server, so stay tuned.

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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby mattaudio » January 9th, 2013, 1:19 pm

I did find a Minneapolis comment doc on the Minneapolis Freeway Access Study, and included is this:
The Industry Square area has the widest spacing between local streets crossing the freeway of any portion of the study area. Washington Avenue is the only local street which crosses the freeway between Cedar Riverside and Downtown. The area also has some of the highest traffic volumes on local streets at Washington and Cedar Avenues. This lack of connectivity, coupled with high traffic volumes on local streets, and significant changes to local streets in the vision scenarios raises many concerns which need to be further evaluated. Mn/DOT, Hennepin County and Minneapolis should work together to comprehensively evaluate the interrelated needs of the freeways and the local transportation system in this area.
No wonder the mayor's staff has shown interest in these ideas and their associated fetishized Google maps.

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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby Nick » January 9th, 2013, 5:39 pm

No wonder the mayor's staff has shown interest in these ideas and their associated fetishized Google maps.
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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby jet777 » January 9th, 2013, 6:53 pm

I heard Brent Musburger had to apologize for his comments about wishing there was an easy way to get to 35w north from 94 west.

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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby fehler » January 10th, 2013, 10:17 am

One more fantasy change: add the #9 bridge bikeway connection to the currently walled tunnel under 35W. We paid for it, Mill District is lively enough to need it, open the damn thing up already!

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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby beykite » January 10th, 2013, 7:01 pm

Weren't there plans for a snazzy new pedestrian bridge under 35W at one point?

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Re: Washington Avenue

Postby mister.shoes » January 10th, 2013, 7:40 pm

There's a tunnel, but it's blocked off. Landscaped and everything.
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