Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

[DanPatchToget]

Hennepin Avenue is the last place in this region I would expect to see an empty bus at any time of day.

[Bakken2016]

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/ask-m ... esign-now/

If you have not please fill this out ASAP, closing in on 5000 letters to Frey.

[Bakken2016]

Spineless Coward, the more I wish Kate or Shiela had been elected every day.


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[Tiller]

Now what?

[Bakken2016]

Now what?

Aisha tweeted that they will try to override the veto at the next meeting on 6/30. But I have no faith that 1 of the 5 that voted no will change their vote.


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[Didier]

As someone who hasn’t really followed this and doesn’t have any skin in the game, can someone explain why people are so worked up about this? On its face it doesn’t seem that unreasonable for transit to share the road with other cars during non-peak hours.

[Didier]

Or maybe I’m overstating the amount of worked up based on like two people I follow on Twitter who are very worked up right now.

[DanPatchToget]

Hennepin Avenue is a major bus corridor with a high frequency of buses running throughout the day in both directions. It's also where the E Line aBRT will operate. I don't know the exact stats, but I remember seeing a graphic showing buses account for a low amount of traffic on Hennepin while carrying more people than the general traffic (or something like that, maybe someone here knows the exact stats). Bus lanes would reduce travel time and improve reliability, which is very important if Minneapolis is keen on achieving climate goals that involve more people taking public transit and less people driving.

I don't know if the mayor is thinking of bus lanes only being open during rush hour or something else, but Hennepin is busy throughout the day, so even during off-peak times bus lanes would be a huge improvement for the routes that use it including eventually the E Line.

[Tcmetro]

I don't think it really matters to have bus lanes after a certain hour (like 10 pm-6am or something), but I suppose they might do something like peak hour/direction only by not mandating 24 hour restrictions.

There's a huge problem with bus lane enforcement here in Chicago (and NY from what I've seen online), so I hope Minneapolis can be better in that regard.

[Trademark]

When a bus lane is only open during certain parts of the day cars will park there. And towing them takes time and prevents busses from being effective. And hurts businesses too by people being less likely to go as they don't wanna deal with parking times they ain't memorize and worrying bout their car being stolen.

24/7 bus lanes in this corridor are much more important then bike lanes here or parking but once again necessary transit improvements are removed because capital projects get news, operations improvements get cut.

[Anondson]

If the city allows towing companies to tow from a citizen complaint that might make keeping it clear easier.

Or even “deputize” buses, bus drivers, or transit police to report bus lane parking violations for towing. Maybe by driver pressed camera on the bus?

[NickP]

What about bus-only lanes from 6 am - 8 pm, or something like that. As much as I support transit, and I support bringing back night bus service, I get that it’s difficult to sell 24 hour bus only lanes to the public when buses don’t run 24 hours a day on the route.

[DanPatchToget]

Looking at the Route 6 schedule there's only a four hour break between the last trip of the night and first trip of the morning. Also keep in mind Hennepin can get busy at night, especially on the weekend.

[NickP]

This is super rough math, but looking at the schedules for the 6 and the 17 (the two routes that use this part of Hennepin) after 9 pm, between the two routes, there appear to be about 6-8 busses per hour, in each direction. With this is mind, maybe a 6 am - 9 pm bus only lane would work. Again, I support a 24 hour bus lane, but, I can see how people may think a bus-only lane for this number of buses isn’t required, at least currently. Apologies if I’m providing unrequested solutions to the discussion, I just currently find myself in a problem solving mindset and wanted to type this up

[Tcmetro]

Hmm, I took a second look at the corridor and the plans and I have to say the 24-hour bus lane makes more sense than the "part-time" bus lane.

Limited bus lanes only make sense (for proponents) if they are kept to peak hours. Bus lane restrictions that cover most of the day (6 am to 8 pm) basically eliminate the use for businesses.

The concern about a bus lane being in effect in the middle of the night is really a non concern. The only significant use at 3 am would be residential parking, which would have to be out of the way for morning rush hour anyways.

My sense is that the proponents of part time bus lanes are going to push for the current peak hour, peak direction hours. Has there been any discussion in Public Works or by the Council about whether the hours are going to be kept the same as they are now.

One other thing to mention is that the bus lanes will have to be well enforced. I would imagine a lot of people will use the bus lane when there is traffic. In the evenings it could easily become the "Door Dash lane".

[icelake]

I would feel better about dynamic bus lanes if I believed the lanes would be dedicated to busses during hours of congestion and illegally parked car would be removed. Unfortunately, I believe that many arguing against dedicated bus lanes are not interested in the success of public transportation and this compromise will lead to busses stuck in ever worsening traffic.


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[Bob Stinson's Ghost]

If the Uptown Theater does, in fact, get redeveloped into a live performance venue with a capacity of 2500, it's going to take a LOT of buses to get all those people in and out.

[StandishGuy]

I heard the Uptown Theater project is much smaller than 2,500, something more like 1,200. They still have't applied for the liquor license.

[Silophant]

50 buses with 50 people each seems a lot more manageable than 1200 cars with two people each.

[Bob Stinson's Ghost]

This is all I've seen on it so far:

https://racketmn.com/uptown-theatre-min ... ert-venue/

When I look at those drawings it seems quite cramped for 2500, maybe about right for 1200. Even at 1200, that's a third more people than the previous maximum movie crowd. Maybe people will actually walk out of the show at 1AM and ride the bus home. Certainly that's the world I'd like to live in.