urbanMSP

Remember, what WE want SWT to do from here in our urban liberal elite echo chamber is quite different from what the vast majority of Eden Prairie residents want from SWT. Ultimately STW is responsible to their customer base and not Metro Transit's.

SWT also has a duty to not duplicate service in the name of disagreeing with the Metropolitan Council. They are essentially waging a war with tax dollars because the leadership doesn't like the idea of light rail. In the end, money is wasted, and the people who need stable local bus service get the short end of the stick.

There will certainly be a need, and most likely demand for, peak hour express service from Eden Prairie. Off-peak express service already has low performance, and the low frequency of service will make it less useable than light rail. These resources should be refocused on connecting residents to light rail, so they don't have to drive to a massive parking ramp on congested streets.

West Lake Multimodal Transportation Study has a new survey out:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/2411289/C ... tion-Study
Identify Priorities for Proposed Improvement Concepts

A pretty amazing outlook of what the Kenilworth corridor could look like

http://www.metrocouncil.org/Transportat ... 81%29.aspx

And some more info:

http://www.metrocouncil.org/Transportat ... esign.aspx

Well. It does look pretty.

Slide 26 is hilarious. An LRT station in the middle of nowhere.

I like it, particularly the overlooks at tunnel portals. I'm sure the folks Loraxing about won't be satisfied.

I'm also still surprised there isn't a better connection to the N/W of the West Lake station. Also, upzone 21st Station Area.

The bike roundabout at the Kenilworth-Midtown split is going to blow people's minds.

That's a lot more bridge than I expected at Penn. Really makes me want to extend it (or leave open the option) up to the Kenwood Parkway/Douglas Avenue.

It would be nifty to have the bridge just continue across. I've had a fantasy of a bike/bus-only bridge, protected by those retractable London bollards, we could have the Penn BRT just continue on to Franklin across it.

Oh god slide 26 is basically the perfect illustration of how our transit planning priorities are so screwed up. An expensive train station in the middle of nowhere with land that will never be developed surrounding it and a long ass skyway as the only connection to anything. Great connection to the north side there. Really knitting the city together.

Oh god slide 26 is basically the perfect illustration of how our transit planning priorities are so screwed up. An expensive train station in the middle of nowhere with land that will never be developed surrounding it and a long ass skyway as the only connection to anything. Great connection to the north side there. Really knitting the city together.

#hottake

The bike roundabout at the Kenilworth-Midtown split is going to blow people's minds.

I predict a lot of bike/bike and bike/ped collisions here, as the only thing less likely to yield than a car driver is someone who only rides their bike for recreation on the weekends. Plus it's already a mess and the sharp turn it has now is the only thing that keeps people from plowing through. The separate pedestrian circulation is going to be completely ignored for sure.

It's also possible everything will be fine. Just throwing that out there.


The issue that people really ought to be paying attention to is this:

I'm also still surprised there isn't a better connection to the N/W of the West Lake station.

The residents immediately NW of the station (west of the corridor, south of Lake St) are getting absolutely f***ed here.
No connection to the station besides the Lake Street bridge (uphill, on a pretty dreadful sidewalk: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9484006 ... 312!8i6656)

There absolutely needs to be some kind of pedestrian crossing across the RR/LRT "Berlin Wall" west of the station area. Instead we get "intrusion poles".
At a minimum, I think you'd want a full ped crossing at Ewing Ave. Ideally, ped access at Ewing, Drew, and Chowen for maximum access for the residents of those complexes. (none of these streets actually meet the RR ROW today, obviously I mean along that axis)

It's also possible everything will be fine. Just throwing that out there.


The issue that people really ought to be paying attention to is this:

I'm also still surprised there isn't a better connection to the N/W of the West Lake station.

The residents immediately NW of the station (west of the corridor, south of Lake St) are getting absolutely f***ed here.
No connection to the station besides the Lake Street bridge (uphill, on a pretty dreadful sidewalk: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9484006 ... 312!8i6656)

There absolutely needs to be some kind of pedestrian crossing across the RR/LRT "Berlin Wall" west of the station area. Instead we get "intrusion poles".
At a minimum, I think you'd want a full ped crossing at Ewing Ave. Ideally, ped access at Ewing, Drew, and Chowen for maximum access for the residents of those complexes. (none of these streets actually meet the RR ROW today, obviously I mean along that axis)

I don't know who worked on them but the renderings are very promising if the intent is to illustrate what *could* be. I'll leave the parsing of the transportation impacts to the "buffs" out there.

Slide 26 IS hilarious/awful. Sorry, couldn't resist...

Closed circuit to MNDible:
I really like the fact that they are marking the "15 year growth" of the trees right on the renderings. It is an admission that what they are showing is a possible future and not a given at the time of installation. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about when I criticize the "truth in advertising" of renderings.

Closed circuit to MNDible:
I really like the fact that they are marking the "15 year growth" of the trees right on the renderings. It is an admission that what they are showing is a possible future and not a given at the time of installation. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about when I criticize the "truth in advertising" of renderings.

I saw that and was going to mention it to you. It's interesting, but I'm really not sure it's necessary (except probably in this case where people are freaking out about the loss of trees and will be hyper-sensitive to that).

Closed circuit to MNDible:
I really like the fact that they are marking the "15 year growth" of the trees right on the renderings. It is an admission that what they are showing is a possible future and not a given at the time of installation. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about when I criticize the "truth in advertising" of renderings.

I saw that and was going to mention it to you. It's interesting, but I'm really not sure it's necessary (except probably in this case where people are freaking out about the loss of trees and will be hyper-sensitive to that).

"Hyper-sensitive" might be at the root of a lot of my screeds...

The bike roundabout at the Kenilworth-Midtown split is going to blow people's minds.

No joke, my first thought was "Sweet! Can't wait to try that out." So, mind blown in a completely different manner.

This entire corridor will really get an improved landscape out of this project. What's there now is just a collection of weeds & invasive species that popped through neglect. I'd say 70% of the trees currently adjacent to the trail/ tracks are Siberian elms.

The bike roundabout at the Kenilworth-Midtown split is going to blow people's minds.

No joke, my first thought was "Sweet! Can't wait to try that out." So, mind blown in a completely different manner.

Aren't the traffic volumes heavily weighted towards the Midtown Greenway there? It seems like the roundabout would be better justified at the Kenilworth/Cedar Lake intersections, where there is a lot more turning traffic.

Also, the super long S curve on the Cedar Lake Trail at the prairie station is totally bogus. Why is it at all necessary?

[edited to remove redundancy]