urbanMSP

So I'm not sure if this is a road or a transit project, but there's been a bunch of construction equipment in the median of Franklin Ave for the past year, just west of the Blue Line station. It looks like they're making a walking path in the median, but it's really hard to tell, and also it doesn't seem like it would provide any actual utility. I don't see anything on the city's website, anybody know anything about it?

So I'm not sure if this is a road or a transit project, but there's been a bunch of construction equipment in the median of Franklin Ave for the past year, just west of the Blue Line station. It looks like they're making a walking path in the median, but it's really hard to tell, and also it doesn't seem like it would provide any actual utility. I don't see anything on the city's website, anybody know anything about it?

Yes, they are adding a walking path (and landscaping). No, it doesn't make sense.

The project at the Franklin Station is the Anpetu Wa'ste Cultural Arts Marketplace, which is being done by the Native American Community Development Institute. The vision is to create a programmable market space in the median of Franklin that would act as a linear park when the market is not in operation. This would be the gateway to the American Indian Cultural Corridor west of the station. They are coordinating with Hennepin County and the City to reconfigure Franklin through this stretch during next summers mill-and-overlay to one lane of car traffic, adding a parking lane along the median on both sides, and adding a bike lane to extend the Seward lanes.

Here's some project updates/info:
http://www.nacdi.org/default/index.cfm/ ... rketplace/
http://www.artplaceamerica.org/archive/#filter-153

The current construction equipment is actually an unrelated City sewer rehabilitation project.

Ugh, needs a connection to the LRT station. Really there just needs to be a crosswalk underneath the station anyways.

Adding a crosswalk at the street level at the bottom of the stair towers is part of the project. This is needed to access the median from the LRT and because people make bus transfers here and currently run across the street with no crosswalk. The proposed crossing is kind of a zig-zag since the stair towers are on different sides of the bridge.

Alright, then this sounds really great and now I'm excited for it, rather than wondering why the city was wasting money building a sidewalk to nowhere and also doing it in secret.

Also here's a story from KSTP news on the project:

http://kstp.com/article/stories/s3219749.shtml

Central Ave closing from 14th to 18th Streets on May 19th:

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/metro/projects/hwy65mpls/

The Saint Anthony Parkway Bridge (over Northtown Yard) project has a nice website. Unusually nice and modern for an infrastructure project, I might add.

http://stapbridge.com/

In other news, designs have been finalized- http://www.journalmpls.com/news-feed/lo ... y-approval

Here's a design I had proposed a few years ago. http://goo.gl/maps/ugXji
I still don't understand why MnDOT is considering a flyover from southbound 35W to eastbound 694 when they are nearly finished upgrading the Hwy 10 cutoff to serve this exact function.

I love the proposal and I too agree that the 35W southbound to 694 eastbound would no longer be needed. I do like that you kept the opposite action available because if you were to eliminate 694 westbound to 35W northbound you would loose access to CR96 which would be a huge headache for trucker since a lot of smaller businesses and commerical developments use 96 as an acess point. The only issue I see of why they may want to keep the fly over from 35W southbound to 694 eastbound is possible funding? I am not sure what funding or what the different requirements are on Highway's versus Interstates are.

Did they have to boot people out of those houses on the west side of 17th? Or did they just wait for them to sell?

By federal law and eminent domain they couldn't just boot them out of their houses unless they are fairly compensated for their land and helped with finding a similar location. I am sure you know that but just to clarify of course.

Apparently the city is looking to sell the Northtown Yard bridge?

http://finance-commerce.com/2014/03/any ... ss-bridge/

A list of a few random things going on
now or in the near future in my neck of the woods:

*4-3 lane conversions for Nicollet and Penn in Richfield coinciding with resurfacing, reconstruction of Portland and 66th from 4-3 lanes
*Adding turn lanes at Nicollet and MN 13. The idea of a pedestrian bridge to connect the transit station and heart of the city is being discussed.
* 2nd and final year of the new interchanges at US 169/ County 69 and MN 13 / County 5. All the preliminary work is done so this year County 5 will be completely closed and MN 13 down to two way traffic as one side at a time is dug down.
* Extending the Marschall Rd stroad another mile south from US 169 and a new signalized entrance to St. Francis Hospital
* Extending the Eagle Creek Blvd stroad from Canterbury road eastward to County 21
* Repainting a number of county maintained signals in Bloomington and the northwestern suburbs.
* 4 lane bridge with a bicycle trail above the floodplain for MN 101, which will be turned over to the county upon completion
* 2 to 3 lane conversion and a roundabout for Flying Cloud Drive eastward from the new bridge.
* The 94th street overpass, a Chapter 152 bridge, will be redecked.
* Stroad conversion on MN 101 from Lyman to Pioneer Trail

Good to hear that a ped bridge is being pursued at 13/Nicollet. It'll be a big help to get people to and from the transit station.

I still think the ideal would be to trench MN 13 to get it out of sight and out of the way, but the reality is that MN 13 east of I-35W it just isn't important on a metro-wide basis like MN 36 through North St. Paul or even MN 13 west of here. Since realistically it's not going to happen anytime soon with state money and Burnsville and Dakota County don't seem to be interested in pursuing (and helping pay for) a pop-up project, building another turn lane and a pedestrian bridge seems like a cheap way of dealing with the immediate issues for now.

Here's another Bloomington project, Normandale Bl reconstruction from Normandale Lake to 94th adding bike trails, turn lanes, medians.

http://bloomingtonmn.gov/cityhall/dept/ ... 016201.htm

Hopefully Bloomington puts their best effort forth on this one, as they have on many of their projects over the last decade or two. I look forward to such amenities as: Double left turn lanes, free-right porkchop islands (known as the "Bloomington Right" in planning circles), stamped decorative concrete boulevards (street trees are not good enough), etc. This will be an excellent stroad if done right.

Much as I'd like to see the Normandale and Popular Bridge intersection rebuilt with more turn lanes- I'm not sure if a double left is needed but a free right in the SE corner would be nice, I don't think it's going to happen. I'll probably be at the meeting on the 27th, but I get the idea it's to fix the gap in the stroad network between where the median ends north of Popular Bridge and where it starts south of 84th.

The one redeeming quality of the "Bloomington Right" excessive ROW is that they would easily transition to four-lane roundabouts.

I think that the purpose of the left turn lanes is for access to Toledo Rd and Mt. Normandale Dr. and other local streets. The median is a no-brainer to reduce head-on collisions. The bike trails that currently exist are very narrow and in poor repair. I believe that this project is quite decent, and is focused on fixing some inadequacies of the road.