Walker Library

[Wedgeguy]

Does anyone know why they closed down the inner right turn lane from southbound Hennepin to Lagoon? It's made traffic on Hennepin horrible. My bus ride home from Downtown is averaging 10 minutes longer than before. I hope this lane will reopen when demolition is over because it's really having a negative effect on the rest of the street.

Probably so buses, cars, and pedestrians don't get hit by errant flying debris

[seanrichardryan]

It's been horrible. Traffic backs up 2 blocks mid-day, several blocks during the rushes. Add snow and it's pandemonium.

[Wedgeguy]

It happens on both Hennepins and Lyndale with snow. The last Monday snow storm had me on a north bound bus from 27th to downtown for over an hour. Why I had my emergency routes that were off the beaten path to get around the backups when I had my car.

[Nick]

And this

[mplser]

It looks like they are doing ahead with construction before demolishing the current library? interesting way to do things...

[seanrichardryan]

Actually, quite a bit is going on underground. They are packing the old library full of sand. The new wedge newspaper has a photo.

[lordmoke]

Say goodbye!

Some photos:
http://www.hclib.org/pub/info/buildingp ... PostID=132

[lordmoke]

This is also a large hole:

[Didier]

Just a reminder of the rendering.

http://finance-commerce.com/files/2012/ ... 7_r300.jpg

[mplser]

why does the hole look so much bigger than the building in the render?

[ECtransplant]

Probably because they had to clear out everything from the old bunker of a building

[lordmoke]

It's above ground! OurUptown has a recent photo:
http://www.ouruptown.com/2013/03/walker ... struction/

[Nick]

IMG_2993 by UrbanMSP, on Flickr

[woofner]

Regarding chatter above about traffic tangle caused by the 2nd right turn lane from Hennepin to Lagoon being closed, why not redbag the parking spaces between 28th & the transit station and allow buses to bypass the queue? There are less than 10 spaces here, and none of them seem to be used very often (when I was there Friday night there were only 3 or 4 spaces occupied the two times I passed by). This would at least save the thousands of bus riders a couple minutes a day.

[ECtransplant]

I really wish they would do something about the mess this is creating on Hennepin. Buses were skipping stops during rush hour today it was so bad

[twincitizen]

I saw reports on Twitter last night of westbound Lake being backed up past Lyndale. Southbound Hennepin was supposedly at a standstill.

As late as 6:30pm, Westbound 31st was pretty snarled as well, extending well beyond Lyndale to the Blaisdell-area.

Was there a specific event yesterday that was making things even worse than usual (crane movement, car accident, etc)?

[lordmoke]

From what I understand, it actually had something to do with that sewer work they're doing over by the Calhoun Beach Club. I think all but one lane of westbound traffic was closed on Lake in that area. Brilliant planning.

[Drizzay]

I don't know what happened, but it took me 1 hour to get from Lake & 4th Ave to Lake and Henneppin.

[min-chi-cbus]

From what I understand, it actually had something to do with that sewer work they're doing over by the Calhoun Beach Club. I think all but one lane of westbound traffic was closed on Lake in that area. Brilliant planning.

No way -- all but ONE lane is open on Lake Street Westbound near Calhoun Beach Club?! That area is jammed without the lane closures....I can only imagine how attrotious the traffic would be if they closed all but one lane!! It'd have to be a solid 1-2 hours to pass through Uptown from Lyndale Ave to Excelsior!

[thatchio]

The issue seems to stem from sewer work in the area. They closed WB Lake down to one lane just west of East Calhoun Parkway all the way through Dean Parkway. All the stacking ability of that stretch was removed, thus extending congestion for miles east and northeast. No work appeared to be going on for 99% of that area.

There have been daytime non-rush hour closures both EB and WB in this area with typically it down to two lanes but each day during rush hour they have been opened back up. Unsure if it was forgotten or if they really did need the space.

With no notice of the closures, people were pissed.

No events were taking place.