Lyndale 4-3 Conversion and Bryant Avenue Reconstruction

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
EOst
Capella Tower
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby EOst » July 9th, 2021, 10:09 am

There's just no way that a 4-3 conversion of Lyndale is going to be able to handle the volume of traffic that the street has to handle. Take an honest look at the car queuing needs at lights throughout this stretch. It's going to make people livid.
I think you're completely right here on the effects of a 4-3 on Lyndale (and the planned changes to Hennepin, for that matter). The question in my mind is less whether it happens and whether people will be livid, but whether the city and the county will be able to handle that heat when it comes.

StandishGuy
Nicollet Mall
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby StandishGuy » July 10th, 2021, 10:37 am

Lyndale will be fine, as it isn't the only route motorists can take. I care about the "heat" politicians feel when human beings are struck by vehicles and injured or killed anyways. Both the intersections with Lake and Franklin are some of the most dangerous in Minneapolis for pedestrians. So f off, if it takes an extra 3 minutes to drive the route at rush hour.

Plus, commuters from the south suburbs and Minneapolis should get on the newly rebuilt I35W if they want to drive fast through the City. It may be an arterial, but actual people live, work and recreate along it and it should be safe and comfortable to do those things particularly for human beings that walk, bike and take transit. Minneapolis is a City that wants to become even more urban, dense and people oriented. That means fewer cars and more walkable places. Absolutely everywhere else is the state is completely welcoming to moving and storing cars so go there if you want to drive fast.

Trademark
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby Trademark » July 10th, 2021, 2:49 pm

Lyndale will be fine, as it isn't the only route motorists can take. I care about the "heat" politicians feel when human beings are struck by vehicles and injured or killed anyways. Both the intersections with Lake and Franklin are some of the most dangerous in Minneapolis for pedestrians. So f off, if it takes an extra 3 minutes to drive the route at rush hour.

Plus, commuters from the south suburbs and Minneapolis should get on the newly rebuilt I35W if they want to drive fast through the City. It may be an arterial, but actual people live, work and recreate along it and it should be safe and comfortable to do those things particularly for human beings that walk, bike and take transit. Minneapolis is a City that wants to become even more urban, dense and people oriented. That means fewer cars and more walkable places. Absolutely everywhere else is the state is completely welcoming to moving and storing cars so go there if you want to drive fast.
Okay. Then be prepared for much more cut through traffic on the side streets unless we put bus lanes there to provide real alternatives.

Trademark
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby Trademark » July 10th, 2021, 4:09 pm

With a bus lane and getting rid of left turns on 22nd and 25th and 27th (and pedestrian crossing only lights on 25th and cars and pedestrian crossing light on 27th) You can keep a lot of the parking. Except right up to the street corner. Where you just get rid of like 3 spots and shift the lanes a bit to add a left turn lane. No need to reconstruct the street. Still give plenty of pedestrian advantages. Discourage car use by taking away a lane and doing 4-3 conversion, and still keeping the vast majority of the parking. All the while speeding up local service without having to wait to construct the stations and bumpouts for an aBRT line. Just repainting. And adding crosswalk lights.

StandishGuy
Nicollet Mall
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby StandishGuy » July 11th, 2021, 11:36 am

Agreed. Use the extra space gained from removing a traffic lane to add red bus 'jump' lanes at intersections to speed up that alternative.

As was mentioned earlier, car traffic isn't some natural phenomenon like water that needs to be continuously accommodated at all costs. Automobiles are driven by human beings who make decisions about the best option to take. Some will "need" to drive using Lyndale at rush hour despite the congestion. Others will make a decision to alter their trip time or route, use an alternative like riding a bike or taking the bus, or even decide their trip isn't actually necessary.

Story Time
The City of Minneapolis used to own Lyndale Avenue until the late 1990s when they transferred ownership to Hennepin County. Before then, in the early 1990s Minneapolis Public Works announced a plan to reconstruct Lyndale south of 31st Street that included widening it to accommodate projected traffic in 30 years. That would have resulted in most of the tree-lined boulevards being removed to create parking lanes, four wide traffic lanes and turning lanes. Hundreds of citizens showed up to a public meeting decrying the plan and it got dropped. Hennepin County engineers really wanted to implement a similar plan when the County took over ownership. However, they were forced by neighborhood associations and policy-makers to find an alternative... the current three-lane design. Well, it is nearly 30 years later from when that original, awful plan was announced and Lyndale south of 31st Street is fine. It has been stressed a bit the last few years due to the I35W reconstruction with traffic rising from 14,000 to 21,000 cars per day. Yet, it functions well and should get some relief once the parallel freeway is finished later this summer. The "cut-through" traffic on nearby streets is pretty modest IMO, an shows that we need to build the streets we want rather than relying on meaningless traffic projections.

grant1simons2
IDS Center
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby grant1simons2 » July 22nd, 2021, 3:44 pm

Observing Lyndale and 24th today. It's loud and unpleasant. Cars are impatient to get around people who are trying to turn. The traffic flow is spaced enough that people could be using one lane, but cars use the right lane to go 10-15 over the speed limit. A 4-3 here is long overdue and I can't wait for it to happen. Lyndale splits through some of the highest density in our city and we should hold it to a high standard of safety.

twincitizen
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby twincitizen » July 23rd, 2021, 8:24 am

I think most of Lyndale will be fine going to 3 lanes. I do worry about stacking in the northbound direction, due to the congestion upstream in the bottleneck and high volume of cars heading for the freeway. I guarantee there will still be two northbound lanes at the Franklin stoplight to accommodate stacking, likely extending the entire block to 22nd. Hopefully that's enough to do the job and the rest will be a true 3-lane.

My other immediate thought on a 3-lane Lyndale: while a center turn lane certainly accommodates safer left turns into mid-block parking lots, I would still like to see some of those turns disallowed completely - southbound traffic should be banned from turning left into the Wedge co-op! Idk why anyone driving in from the north needs to shop here anyways - there are so many other grocery stores! But if they must, they can go around the block (Franklin to Garfield to 22nd then right on NB Lyndale).

Best-case design for the Franklin-22nd block is 1 lane southbound, 2 lanes northbound, and a northbound bus/bike shoulder lane with a queue jump signal for buses at Franklin. That would all fit within the current 4-lane profile and leave room for a southbound bike lane with the removal of parking. No center turn lane would be necessary because left turns are banned (hopefully with a full median to actually prohibit them).

The city needs to address the "bike gap" north of Franklin at the same time the County implements the 4-3. https://streets.mn/2014/11/06/the-case- ... onnection/

Image

Trademark
US Bank Plaza
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby Trademark » July 23rd, 2021, 9:11 am

Observing Lyndale and 24th today. It's loud and unpleasant. Cars are impatient to get around people who are trying to turn. The traffic flow is spaced enough that people could be using one lane, but cars use the right lane to go 10-15 over the speed limit. A 4-3 here is long overdue and I can't wait for it to happen. Lyndale splits through some of the highest density in our city and we should hold it to a high standard of safety.
I could see the second lane starting at 24th going north with the right turn lane allowing you to go straight.

grant1simons2
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Re: Lyndale 4-3 Conversion and Bryant Avenue Reconstruction

Postby grant1simons2 » July 23rd, 2021, 9:14 am

Yes it does! The city needs to address a lot of bike gaps, but this one is by far the most frustrating. If someone is heading from the West, they could take the Bryant flyover and drop down, but if you're East of Lyndale, good luck.

This with the addition of making Harriet a bike boulevard would help fix some of the logistical issues of riding a bike through Whittier.

Bob Stinson's Ghost
Landmark Center
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Re: Lyndale 4-3 Conversion and Bryant Avenue Reconstruction

Postby Bob Stinson's Ghost » July 23rd, 2021, 9:38 am

Is it premature to consider how removing the obstruction from Nicollet would affect Lyndale?

uptownbro
Rice Park
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Re: Lyndale 4-3 Conversion and Bryant Avenue Reconstruction

Postby uptownbro » July 23rd, 2021, 9:44 am

Assuming they reconnect Nicollet I don't see a reason from a car perspective to have Lyndale anywhere near its current design. Make it a road with a real pedestrian and transit experience and have one lane each way with a center turn. Is there any word of when the city will start this process? I know its after the post office moves out.

Trademark
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Re: Lyndale 4-3 Conversion and Bryant Avenue Reconstruction

Postby Trademark » July 23rd, 2021, 11:12 am

Yes it does! The city needs to address a lot of bike gaps, but this one is by far the most frustrating. If someone is heading from the West, they could take the Bryant flyover and drop down, but if you're East of Lyndale, good luck.

This with the addition of making Harriet a bike boulevard would help fix some of the logistical issues of riding a bike through Whittier.
A 4-3 conversion on Franklin from lyndale to Nicollet also seems like a no-brainer. And have a flashing crossing on harriet or something for a future bike blvd. While also having bike lanes continue to 1st avenue to connect with the future bike path going on 1st.

I feel like 4 lanes might be needed on Franklin from 3rd avenue to Park though. One alternative to that though could be converting the 5 lane franklin bridge into having one lane of traffic on each side and then 2 left turn lanes onto 35w/94 going eastbound. Using the additional ROW for bikes.
Also having a median at clinton avenue and getting rid of that light might be a decent idea. Make traffic turn onto 4th or 3rd. As someone who lives over here there are so many crashes in this section. Including a really bad 5 car crash a week ago.

Also about franklin. With the D Line construction they added a little refuge island near Columbus this makes franklin have one lane in each direction east of park. It blows my mind why they didn't turn the eastbound left lane into a left turn only lane onto park. That merge right after the traffic light from 2 lanes of traffic into one in a short block is not a good one.

bubzki2
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Re: Lyndale 4-3 Conversion and Bryant Avenue Reconstruction

Postby bubzki2 » July 23rd, 2021, 12:48 pm

And recall Nicollet at some point will add another gridded N-S route in the area.

Mdcastle
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Re: Lyndale 4-3 Conversion and Bryant Avenue Reconstruction

Postby Mdcastle » July 23rd, 2021, 8:18 pm

And recall that Hennepin is going to lose two lanes. So the net through lanes through the area will be a wash, and Nicollet doesn't have freeway access.

Looking at this, factors working against it are the number of traffic signals and presumably peak hour volume. Factors in favor are space available to provide informal or official right turn lanes and the "de facto two lane" status, where the previous posters have noted an excessive amount of left turning traffic blocking that hot lane.

All things considered I have a hunch it would work if two lanes are kept through Franklin and then the taper is immediately south of there. In normal times traffic drops off rapidly after Franklin as it disperses into the neighborhood and is actually under the 20,000 number on the south half of the corridor. Contrary to other people opinions in normal times I don't think this is a major commuting route to Bloomington. At least I never thought "maybe I should drive all the way down Lyndale instead of taking the freeway" no matter how bad traffic is.

Trademark
US Bank Plaza
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Re: Lyndale 4-3 Conversion and Bryant Avenue Reconstruction

Postby Trademark » July 4th, 2022, 2:19 pm

https://twitter.com/h_pan3/status/15435 ... gHuWQ&s=19

4-3 conversion beginning July 18th. Still wish they would've done bus lanes here instead. But something is better then nothing.


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