urbanMSP

I'm mostly confused that it's 2015 and the city posted a city-created document to its own website, and they couldn't be bothered to just use the original pdf with selectable text and better resolution.

That was 2013. Things have since improved

Good review by Sam Newberg on Streets.mn -- Kensington Park, Ten Years Later. (Kensington Park is on 77th at Lyndale.)

https://streets.mn/2015/04/09/kensington ... ars-later/

The good news is Kensington Park, when viewed in isolation, is an attractive, successful project that mixes uses well and adds tax base to the city. Where it falls short is adding to the walkability and multi-modalism of the city, but this can be mostly blamed on its surrounding context and ongoing decisions that favor automobile use

On the renaming front... an article in today's Sun-Current (not online for some reason) indicates that the Richfield City Council is zeroing in on "International Boulevard" (suffix to change, possibly) as the new name for 77th and 76th Street.

No substantial progress has been made on getting Edina on-board with the name yet, but the preferred outcome is a single name for the entire stretch from E Bush Lake Road to 24th Ave. I assume the MTC stub, Cedar-24th, would be an easier negotiation, if/when the underpass comes to be.

I like it, fits well with American Boulevard.

For extreme corniness (and post 9/11 patriotism), Bloomington should've gone with "American Way".

And yeah, if they're going with "International" (which I like), they need to pick something shorter/simpler than "Boulevard". Way too many syllables.

International Street doesn't sound right. International Road? International Drive?

If this all pans out I have a funny story to tell you guys about this whole thing...

Canadian beats International. Canadian Way or Blvd. North of American Blvd. Canadian is less Bloomingtonian, and more civilized. It's not too late.

International Drive rolls off the tongue better, although it also sounds like it's part of the New World Order.

"International" is Agenda 21!!!1!

International Drive rolls off the tongue better, although it also sounds like it's part of the New World Order.

International Drive does sound right, but that's probably because there's a famous megastroad in Orlando called International Drive (not exactly something I'd want to mimick). See http://www.internationaldriveorlando.com/

There's also a short International Drive in Bloomington. It's insignificant in the street network, but does have the address for Hyatt Place and an office building at International and American (at ~33rd Ave S). Likely to be some degree of confusion either way, but probably worse if they also use "Drive".

Then again, bordering municipalities do have many crossover street names. Snelling Avenue in South Minneapolis isn't all that confusing, despite a much more major Snelling Ave in St. Paul.

I like International Street because it's short and maintains the S Mpls "street vs. avenue" navigational function.

It pains me to suggest it -- and ends up adding another syllable -- but International Parkway sounds okay too. "Parkway" is pretty questionable for a freeway reliever, but 77th St E of 35W does have a very distinctive intensity of trees and green space that actually make it something of a (high-speed) parkway.

And since the point is to compete with American Blvd, it emphasizes a feature almost completely missing from barren, stamped-concrete American Blvd.

How about Internationale Prospekt?

International Strße.

Why do they gotta rename a street? Seems ridiculous

Why do they gotta rename a street? Seems ridiculous

City leaders and community development folks say that the existing street name changes are confusing to people. Although there's only one change in Richfield -- 76th curving into 77th -- it also curves back to 77th to the west in Edina (via Parklawn Ave), and then becomes Edina Industrial Blvd west of TH 100. They want to emphasize that it is one continuous route, from Edina Industrial Park to Mall of America/Airport area.

They also hope that a new, memorable name will be more attractive for businesses and create more of an identity for the area. I think it is true for most of the region, that most of the really significant commercial streets outside of downtown are named, not numbered.

Edina should go along with this change....77th/Industrial Blvd. happens to go through one of the only areas in the city where immigrants live.

Bonding for the 77th street tunnel.

http://current.mnsun.com/2015/06/state- ... ld-tunnel/

Shame on Rep. Linda Slocum for pushing this regressive road project, when Richfield has so many other needs for that $25 million.

It's the city's top legislative priority, and has been for many years. The tunnel might be totally wasteful (I'd agree), but you can't really blame her for listening to city policymakers who have been pushing for this for two decades.

What are Richfield's other needs for state bonding money? Are other critical needs being ignored or pushed aside? Bonding projects are supposed to be of "regional significance, etc."

The best question to ask about the tunnel at this point "How far down can we cut the budget?" With $12.5MM secured from the state, there's still way too big a gap for Richfield to cover locally. Met Council will chip in some, for sure. I'm not sure how involved Hennepin County will get, if at all. Either way you're talking about potentially up to $10MM coming locally, which is probably not possible for a city the size & tax capacity of Richfield. That $25MM price tag has to come down if this is going to get built.

I'd start questioning how wide a road they plan on putting under 77. Two lanes or four, how wide? You definitely want some kind of ped/bike connection...how compact can that be?

Ok then, shame on Richfield city leaders too. That's been their top legislative priority. That's sad.

Other than replacing the HUB, what are the other pressing matters for the city of Richfield? I'm curious.