Cedar - Franklin - Minnehaha Intersection

[eluko]

I'm sure every engineer who's ever worked for the city has had their own fantasy plan on this but I thought I'd share my thoughts too and maybe start a discussion on this forum. I rerouted the LRT to follow the present day Cedar and brought Cedar back to its original alignment as well as connect Minnehaha north to 20th Av to act as a bypass for the locals.
This would open up a lot more land for development and help de-suburbify this intersection. I know we dont really have the money and all but I drew this "before and after" a while back and was wondering what you guys thought of it.

[mulad]

Seems like a good idea. Did you think about whether the light-rail line would be grade-separated at all, particularly at Franklin and at Cedar? Traffic can back up a bit on Cedar near that entrance ramp to EB I-94. There's also a bike path along the LRT line to consider, but that might not be too big of a deal.

I'm not sure if there's a whole lot of value in 19th Avenue/Snelling Avenue being a regular street near Franklin -- it might be good to design that as a transit mall, or to have no real street at all, though that might depend a bit on whether the tracks are elevated at that spot or not.

[min-chi-cbus]

Good idea! Especially since the CIty wants to make Washington a "gateway" of sorts to downtown, and having Cedar Ave run directly to Washington would facilitate that reality.

[Tcmetro]

It would be nice to underground the light rail line along Cedar Ave with stations at Riverside and Franklin. The line would turn into the 122 trench (with traffic removed) with CCLRT and continue into a new downtown tunnel. I would also like to see Hiawatha changed into a surface alignment like the southern part, with 35W undergrounded or elevated for surface street connectivity.

Maybe it'll be possible once everything falls apart.

[seanrichardryan]

Good idea! Especially since the CIty wants to make Washington a "gateway" of sorts to downtown, and having Cedar Ave run directly to Washington would facilitate that reality.

That sould also involve reopening Cedar and Washington to the North. 19th ave SE/ 10th ave se.was once the Cedar back when 7 corners had 7. Tear down that ugly ramp and put a road where it ought to be!

[web]

hey it was still 5 corners in the early 80s

[eluko]

Seems like a good idea. Did you think about whether the light-rail line would be grade-separated at all, particularly at Franklin and at Cedar? Traffic can back up a bit on Cedar near that entrance ramp to EB I-94. There's also a bike path along the LRT line to consider, but that might not be too big of a deal.

It could go either way I guess. It all depends on how much the city wants to spend on it. I think it would be best to have a bridge over Cedar if cost prohibited the rest from being elevated.

I'm not sure if there's a whole lot of value in 19th Avenue/Snelling Avenue being a regular street near Franklin -- it might be good to design that as a transit mall, or to have no real street at all, though that might depend a bit on whether the tracks are elevated at that spot or not.

If it's going to be at grade then those streets can be nixed, but if it's elevated I think it would be kinda cool to drive underneath them.

It would be nice to underground the light rail line along Cedar Ave with stations at Riverside and Franklin.

I would support this. It would open up the row that the LRT uses now and allow for a future commuter route that could go underneath the intersection and use the old Short Line row to connect the downtowns.

[mattaudio]

I like the idea of changing this, but I'm not sure if the expense of moving the LRT station and so much track would be justified. Additionally I think this freeway segment has the most potential for TOD along Hiawatha by turning Hiawatha into some sort of European-style boulevard with express lanes in the middle and local/parking on the edge.

[Nathan]

Well, I'm sold. Really great idea to simplify the area and restore a bit of the grid. I can't say anything of the feasibility, but I like.

[FISHMANPET]

It looks like this keeps the big apartment buliding (Minnehaha 94) in tact, but possibly lose the daycare next door (but I think you could get around this depending on how the tracks are aligned), but otherwise looks like you don't have to take any buildings.

[PhilmerPhil]

So there has been a bunch of heavy construction materials and machinery on the median near the LRT station for the past 6+ months. I know there was going to be a walkway built here and the street itself is supposed to get a bike lane and reduced to one lane, but that was all supposed to be done last year. Anyone know what's going on?

[twincitizen]

Someone posted information about it a while back in the Street, Road, and Highway Project thread:
https://forum.streets.mn/viewtopic.php?f=18& ... ian#p46761

[PhilmerPhil]

Yep, I thought I remembered someone posting about it recently. Anyone have any ideas what the timeline for the sewer rehab is? Does it usually take this long? The lane reduction can't come soon enough. I'm not sure where the delay is on that since the sewer project doesn't appear to be using the street space at all.

Sidebar: If there aren't bike lanes on Franklin Ave between here and Hennepin by the end of this summer, I'm moving to Portland.

[froggie]

I took Eluko's idea from 2 years ago and expanded upon it on Streets.MN.

[Anondson]

Nice.

I'd love to see this in a larger context of a fantasy imagining of the Hiawatha/35W/94 where Hiawatha is made back into a boulevard, land is recaptured to redevelop, highways are capped, and grids are reconnected. whenever my fantasy brain reimagined the Hiawatha/35W space it always grew to the Cedar and Franklin area.

What do you think are the biggest negatives of your idea?

[FISHMANPET]

At OpenStreets this weekend, Hennepin County is going to have a booth to solicit suggestions on how to improve the Franklin Cedar Minnehaha Triangle.

[PhilmerPhil]

From another thread:

Hello again everybody! This is Tyler again from the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition. You may have heard that Hennepin County will be reconfiguring the notorious Franklin/Cedar/Minnehaha intersection next year. To go with that, we're gathering input on 3 concepts for how to improve bike safety in the intersection.

Please take our survey about the three concepts here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3SRWGWZ

The concepts are explained in detail in the survey.

We will be passing these responses onto the County and will work with them to find safe solution for this intersection.

Let's keep discussion related to this project here.

[twincitizen]

Have we seen this yet?
http://www.hennepin.us/~/media/hennepin ... educed.pdf
(Large file warning)

Hennepin County should just buy the damn Taco Bell (assessed at just $442,000). One minute of staff time spent thinking about how to salvage vehicular access to Taco Bell's parking lot is a minute too many. Suck it up and buy them out, get the city to split acquisition costs, etc. After the intersection is completed, then Hennepin/Minneapolis can think about selling off a development parcel / combine it with the new plaza area (former M'haha Ave ROW), etc. The County is going to be paying them for temporary construction easements, access closures, etc. during construction. Might as well go all the way and just take them out.

[FISHMANPET]

That Taco Bell has been torn down to the foundation and is in the process of being rebuilt. They're reusing the foundation so it's only the walls that are getting rebuilt, but it would have been a perfect opportunity to throw some money their way and get them to really re-orientate that lot. As is they're going to be unwilling to do anything now that it's new and shiny.

[RailBaronYarr]

I wanted to make that suggestion during the PAC meeting, but felt it was too overreaching. Then like a week later I saw it was closed down for reconstruction. Seems like it would have been wise for the city/county to at least have prepared for working with TB in this case. The city had to have seen plans/permits come across someone's desk, right?