Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
EOst
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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby EOst » March 4th, 2021, 1:34 pm

On the contrary, I think that's asking for collisions between vehicles and buses.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby Trademark » March 4th, 2021, 2:34 pm

On the contrary, I think that's asking for collisions between vehicles and buses.
And mid block turning invites crashes from impatient people trying to beat a gap and makes the street more dangerous for pedestrians. Versus a left turn only on green signal that will only allow u turns once the bus lane is clear at the beginning of the light cycle after the cross traffic goes there won't be buses in that lane to collide with.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby MNdible » March 4th, 2021, 5:19 pm

I think you all are underestimating how much space most cars need to do a U-turn (let alone delivery trucks).

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby Trademark » March 4th, 2021, 6:06 pm

I could be underestimating it but I think from personal experience 2 lanes at slow speed is usually enough. And I think delivery drivers on any alignment will be tough. But having them turn mid block with a bunch of cars stacked up for what could easily turn into a whole mile behind it isn't a good solution either.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby alexschief » March 5th, 2021, 6:42 am

Think more important is the issue brought up by our friend Chet Wedgley where the bus lanes disappear south of the Uptown Transit Center in favor of a lot of turning and more general purpose travel lanes.

That seems like a really crummy trade off in a number of respects. Obviously it means that a number of buses don't get the benefit of bus lanes, right at one of the corridor's most congested segments. It also means the blocks with the most pedestrian activity on the corridor now have longer and more dangerous crossings. It also brings the bikeway closer to car traffic, without that buffer furnishing zone.

It's unfortunate what happened there, it's like the city's modal priority framework completely went out the window in this area, after being applied pretty faithfully throughout the rest of the corridor. It's clear that the consultant and city engineers are still in the thrall of accommodating high traffic volumes instead of trying to shift them.

I hope that people commenting urge them to give rethink their design south of the UTC as well.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby tmart » March 5th, 2021, 8:15 am

Think more important is the issue brought up by our friend Chet Wedgley where the bus lanes disappear south of the Uptown Transit Center in favor of a lot of turning and more general purpose travel lanes.

That seems like a really crummy trade off in a number of respects. Obviously it means that a number of buses don't get the benefit of bus lanes, right at one of the corridor's most congested segments. It also means the blocks with the most pedestrian activity on the corridor now have longer and more dangerous crossings. It also brings the bikeway closer to car traffic, without that buffer furnishing zone.

It's unfortunate what happened there, it's like the city's modal priority framework completely went out the window in this area, after being applied pretty faithfully throughout the rest of the corridor. It's clear that the consultant and city engineers are still in the thrall of accommodating high traffic volumes instead of trying to shift them.

I hope that people commenting urge them to give rethink their design south of the UTC as well.
This is one of the biggest drawbacks of bus lanes/BRT as a mode IMO: the "flexibility" means it takes very strong-willed planners to resist the pressure for the transit advantages to vanish in the most congested (and therefore most necessary) spots. (This is absolutely a risk with LRT/streetcar too, but for whatever reason, maybe the fact that it's all pavement, it seems in practice to be an especially big problem for buses.)

Since all the planning momentum in the region seems to be behind enhanced buses right now, it seems particularly important that we break this culture, and create the expectation that bus advantages not disappear at the most challenging places, where they would also be the highest impact.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby Trademark » March 5th, 2021, 10:06 am

Think more important is the issue brought up by our friend Chet Wedgley where the bus lanes disappear south of the Uptown Transit Center in favor of a lot of turning and more general purpose travel lanes.

That seems like a really crummy trade off in a number of respects. Obviously it means that a number of buses don't get the benefit of bus lanes, right at one of the corridor's most congested segments. It also means the blocks with the most pedestrian activity on the corridor now have longer and more dangerous crossings. It also brings the bikeway closer to car traffic, without that buffer furnishing zone.

It's unfortunate what happened there, it's like the city's modal priority framework completely went out the window in this area, after being applied pretty faithfully throughout the rest of the corridor. It's clear that the consultant and city engineers are still in the thrall of accommodating high traffic volumes instead of trying to shift them.

I hope that people commenting urge them to give rethink their design south of the UTC as well.
I mean a lane might be nice for the one block northbound but there is no need for it southbound. Either way tho I get why they did it. They don't want cars backing up and blocking lanes in that small block there. Still sucks but it makes sense.

I would like to see stairs and an elevator down to the Greenway on either side of uptown transit station. It would allow a much safer crossing of Hennepin for people transfering from the E line south to the rest of the buses.

Correct me if I'm wrong the B line isn't stopping at the transit center? Maybe to help both of these problems we could put a contraflow lane on Lagoon for buses. That way the B line would have much closer to the transit station and the E line (and other buses) could turn left into the bus lane on Hennepin and avoid that one block stretch that is a nightmare (Plus traffic on Lake street). And if we're taking a lane from Lagoon. It would be an opportunity to take a lane on Lake for a protected bikeway.

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Tcmetro
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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby Tcmetro » March 5th, 2021, 10:15 am

Yes, the B Line plan is to stop on Lake/Lagoon at Hennepin. So far the plan for the E Line is to stop at the transit center which makes those transfers difficult.

They could probably easily put a transit lane on the block that is missing it. It really only needs a right turn lane and a straight lane.

Alternatively, a bus only lane might not even be necessary if the transit center gets a queue jump for buses to be first through the intersection at Lagoon.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby tmart » March 5th, 2021, 10:47 am


I would like to see stairs and an elevator down to the Greenway on either side of uptown transit station. It would allow a much safer crossing of Hennepin for people transfering from the E line south to the rest of the buses.
This always struck me as a silly oversight as well. IIRC there was some vague note in the Hennepin plans suggesting they'd work with Parks to improve access, so at least it seems like they're aware of the need.

Correct me if I'm wrong the B line isn't stopping at the transit center? Maybe to help both of these problems we could put a contraflow lane on Lagoon for buses. That way the B line would have much closer to the transit station and the E line (and other buses) could turn left into the bus lane on Hennepin and avoid that one block stretch that is a nightmare (Plus traffic on Lake street). And if we're taking a lane from Lagoon. It would be an opportunity to take a lane on Lake for a protected bikeway.
Yeah I've been thinking for awhile now that the B Line would be a great opportunity to rethink Lake/Lagoon a bit--rather than having the buses split with the rest of the traffic, we could have a two-way busway on one street and then better ped/cycle improvements on the other. Or we could make Lake a 2-way and Lagoon a brief transit mall. (This would even create a natural opportunity to turn half the overbuilt Lake St speedway by Lake of the Isles into a busway, but I digress.)

In my head it was always Lake hosting all the buses, but actually using Lagoon would fix the E line transfer problem quite elegantly, allow bus lanes to easily extend another block.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby Trademark » March 5th, 2021, 11:10 am


I would like to see stairs and an elevator down to the Greenway on either side of uptown transit station. It would allow a much safer crossing of Hennepin for people transfering from the E line south to the rest of the buses.
This always struck me as a silly oversight as well. IIRC there was some vague note in the Hennepin plans suggesting they'd work with Parks to improve access, so at least it seems like they're aware of the need.

Correct me if I'm wrong the B line isn't stopping at the transit center? Maybe to help both of these problems we could put a contraflow lane on Lagoon for buses. That way the B line would have much closer to the transit station and the E line (and other buses) could turn left into the bus lane on Hennepin and avoid that one block stretch that is a nightmare (Plus traffic on Lake street). And if we're taking a lane from Lagoon. It would be an opportunity to take a lane on Lake for a protected bikeway.
Yeah I've been thinking for awhile now that the B Line would be a great opportunity to rethink Lake/Lagoon a bit--rather than having the buses split with the rest of the traffic, we could have a two-way busway on one street and then better ped/cycle improvements on the other. Or we could make Lake a 2-way and Lagoon a brief transit mall. (This would even create a natural opportunity to turn half the overbuilt Lake St speedway by Lake of the Isles into a busway, but I digress.)

In my head it was always Lake hosting all the buses, but actually using Lagoon would fix the E line transfer problem quite elegantly, allow bus lanes to easily extend another block.
The thing that makes me want to put the bike infrastructure on Lake instead of Lagoon is that the Lake is farther away from the greenway

This got me thinking which would be a tougher sell as a replacement. A two-way three lane road on lake or one lane eastbound on lagoon and maybe two lanes westbound lake or just one with an extended sidewalk.

My gut tells me that maintaining two lanes in each direction is probably necessary since the current reality is 6 lanes in each direction. And the bottlenecks that it could could cause would be terrible.

If Lake Street is reconstructed with bus lanes farther down towards the blue line this makes the bottleneck less noticeable though.

You've given me a lot to think about!

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby kellonathan » March 5th, 2021, 11:41 am

Lagoon Ave Transitway and turning Lake back to 2-way is such good idea! That really helps with the B/E Lines transfer issue and make Uptown TC in general more accessible.
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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby gopherfan » March 7th, 2021, 11:17 am

Add your feedback to the project map! https://www.publiccoordinate.com/#/proj ... nsouth/map
There are two layouts, option 1 and 2 - so make sure your comments are reflected in both layouts.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby COLSLAW5 » April 5th, 2021, 12:04 pm

was reading this biz article about this project and at the end it randomly has a quote from a city project manager saying the lake to 36th street design "has not worked well".

Then is says the city plans to return parking to the heart of uptown this spring. Anyone know anything about this?

Unlocked
https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... rking.html

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby uptownbro » April 5th, 2021, 12:08 pm

I did not know that parking was coming back. I think it hasnt worked well on that front only due to the price of parking in the ramps around that area. There isnt a shortage of parking in uptown.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby DanPatchToget » April 5th, 2021, 2:21 pm

Also this: https://www.startribune.com/hennepin-av ... 600042190/

For me personally, when I'm driving to a business on Hennepin or Lyndale in the Uptown area, I always park on a side street. I don't want to deal with parallel parking on a major street and fear for my life getting out of my car.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby COLSLAW5 » April 6th, 2021, 8:13 am

I never understand the people that have the courage to parallel park on hennepin or lyndale. I always just prefer to park on the side streets and walk.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby rhettcarlson » April 6th, 2021, 9:42 am

was reading this biz article about this project and at the end it randomly has a quote from a city project manager saying the lake to 36th street design "has not worked well".

Then is says the city plans to return parking to the heart of uptown this spring. Anyone know anything about this?

Unlocked
https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... rking.html
Listening to the city's design presentations last month, I remember the engineer acknowledging that Lake to 31st has not worked well, not that the entire stretch south of Lake hasn't worked... and that they do plan to bring some parking back to Hennepin between Lake and 31st.

I would agree that Lake to 31st has not worked well and would support bringing back a handful of short-term spots for delivery pickup/Uber drop off. It will be interesting to see how they plan to make the near term improvements with the current setup.

I think one relatively cost effective option would be to move the bike lane up behind the curb and restripe the roadway with parking on alternating sides. This would necessitate moving a few street lamps and signs but would get us a protected bike facility and parking-created chicanes. I think the more likely scenario we see is the city cutting up concrete to open up parking for vehicles while leaving the bike lane unprotected on street level.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby COLSLAW5 » April 6th, 2021, 1:58 pm

I think the more likely scenario we see is the city cutting up concrete to open up parking for vehicles while leaving the bike lane unprotected on street level.
This is what I hope doesn't happen. I do think there should almost always be short term spots that allow for deliveries and pick up but if we are going to do that the bike lane needs to be way better than the after thought it seems like it is.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby blo442 » December 8th, 2021, 10:27 am

City staff recommend street design including two-way bikeway for layout approval. I'm not sure exactly what the process is to gain approval under the new strong mayor system and if Lisa Goodman has any means left to stop the project.

https://www.minneapolismn.gov/governmen ... resources/

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Postby xandrex » December 8th, 2021, 10:59 am

Overall, this looks like a pretty good layout for Hennepin.

My assortment of random thoughts:

-I love that they are continuing the bike path north of Franklin rather than forcing a right and crossing at Bryant. This was something I'd commented on while they were collecting feedback. I only wish they'd made the connection to the Loring Greenway bike bridge rather than dumping you onto Bryant for a small stretch - both for safety and for continuity.

-It's interesting to see they're cutting off left turns on NB Hennepin to Franklin. It seems the alternative there is taking a left at 22nd. Similarly, they're making NB access to Kowalski's via 24th and converting that one-block stretch of Fremont back to two-way traffic.

-I'm glad they're including small loading/parking bays near small businesses along Hennepin, but the one between 27th and 28th by Ace Hardware is an odd one, given that it'll be right in front of a parking lot.

-I'm still annoyed that they're forcing SB bikers to cross Hennepin/Lake twice just to continue going south. It seems an oversight to do this at a rather busy and dangerous intersection. The least they could do is redo the failed Lake to 31st portion of Hennepin with the same cycletrack and force the crossing there. But this will be an ongoing issue since the city's preferred method of protected bike lanes appears to be cycletracks - as evidenced by this project, the Whittier-Lyndale protected bike lanes, and Bryant Avenue's upcoming reconstruction.


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