Orange Line / 35W@94: Downtown to Crosstown Project

[mattaudio]

*more* turn lanes?
I used to spend a lot of time around this intersection and it is very hostile to pedestrians. And traffic seems to move well even at peak periods (although I could see a double left from EB 98th to 35W). If we're going to invest in a BRT station, we should be making the node more walkable not less.

Ramps, even "free right" corners, are very dangerous to pedestrians because motorists are focused on the open road ahead of them and not the crosswalk immediately in front of them. I can't tell you how many near-misses I've seen on the "free right" from southbound 35W to westbound 98th St... It should really be a hard right where you have to stop and do a slower turn unless you have ROW due to a green light. This is repeated at 3 corners of 98th and Lyndale (they get a pass since its 80s street geometry) and Old Shakopee and France (no pass - this is very new and trying to be new-urban but the free rights make it miserable).

Burger Bros would be fine if someone just created an entrance on the corner. Some small curb reconfig, getting rid of the double left from 98th to south Lyndale, and you could have parallel parking with bumpouts on the Burger Brothers blockface. Right turn lane on northbound Lyndale could also be modified into parallel parking.

Even though Clover Center is an ugly 80s mall (remember when REI was there?) it can be triaged much easier than demoing the whole block. Think of the tax revenue that exists there with relatively low infrastructure investments. There could be an outlot development against 98th St, and it would help screen the strip mall feel fairly well.

[mattaudio]

Also given the extra space on the east side of the existing 98th St bridge, it would likely be possible to bow the northbound lanes out slightly and build an online center BRT station at that location.

[mattaudio]

Also Lyndale is a great candidate for long-term conversion to a multiway boulevard. It could be done at the blockface level and most street trees could be retained. Similar layout to what I've proposed for Washington downtown: http://streetmix.net/-/14268

The current six lane arrangement of so many Bloomington streets is complete overkill.

[kellonathan]

<rant>

- Service now projected to begin in 2019.

While I understand there are complex steps we need to follow and lots of jobs need to be done to 'build' this project, but I still don't think I quite understand why it should take 5-6 years to make this happen. (And cost, too!) Why is it so hard to make buses run in the middle of highway?

For my non-government-personnel point of view who might not fully understand the bigger picture of the project, this seems super slow, costly and inefficient. Just like any other infrastructure projects in this country.

</rant>

[twincitizen]

I sympathize with your frustration for sure. It feels like we've already been talking about the Lake Street station forever, and it stinks that Orange Line service is 5.5 years away still.

Unfortunately, this entire project is held up by long timelines of the two freeway projects involved:
Lake Street/Transit Access project
35W/494 interchange / American Boulevard Station

Neither of these projects are fully funded yet. Another depressing thought: how much dedicated transit funding (CTIB) will be stolen to pay for non-transit improvements as part of these projects?

I just don't think Metro Transit would be hip to rebranding the current Route 535 service to the METRO Orange Line without those improvements, especially Lake Street.

Here's one thing I don't get though: If the Orange Line is going to be a success, why don't they increase service levels on the 535 now? It currently operates only Mon-Fri and service tapers off pretty quickly outside of peak periods.

[Mdcastle]

I drive 98th and Lyndale just about every time I need to go someplace, and it's miserable enough without trying to impose urban ideals on a suburban intersection. During rush hour It usually takes two cycles to make a left turn from Lyndale onto 98th so my opinion we need an additional turn lane there, not to cripple the existing traffic capacity of the intersection by taking out turn lanes. I never had any problem with turn lanes as a pedestrian there. France and Old Shakopee was terrible before the turn lanes and free rights. A lot of people would have been happy with just the traffic fixes without the fancy lights and nice benches like the city council wanted (I was at the city council meeting when they were discussing the improvements.)

Traffic is a lot better than it was since they timed the signals on 98th street, before there was a 100% chance you'd be stopped by at least one going from I-35W past Grand. And some streets really are overbuilt, I live right of 102nd street which has only a couple of thousand cars a day, they converted it to 2 lanes with bike lanes (although since I don't use bike lanes I would have much preferred cycletracks).

Since the Burger Bros building isn't going anyplace, my suggestion would be a flashing yellow arrow for Lyndale combined with making the middle lanes an option lane, which would make better use of existing lanes and there's no sight problem there. A new signal configuration has been approved for that exact lane arrangement.

I do remember REI being there (as well as Snyder Drug, Hardware Hank, a Hallmark. I liked it better before the 1980s remodeling. I'm not so much Anti-Clover Center as pro- having a loop on I-35W. REI was fun to visit but way too snobby and expensive.

[mattaudio]

The Oxboro area was developed as an original station stop on the Dan Patch interurban line that went from 54th Street in Mpls to Northfield. The current stroad configuration wasn't there until the early 80s. Not sure why we think it has been or should be a suburban intersection. Especially if we're going to sink some major CTIB dough into a BRT station.

If we're not going to "impose urban ideals" onto a suburban intersection, then there should be no bus "rapid transit" stop at 98th.

Also, Bloomington follows a grid pattern just as Minneapolis and Richfield do, so there's always the option to bypass the corner via 94th, 106th, Penn, Nicollet, etc.

[Mdcastle]

Fair enough then. Normally I support transit, but if my neighborhood has to get a "walkable" anti-car makeover then I oppose it, for all the good it's going to do. If I wanted to live in a walkable neighborhood I would have bought a house in one.

One thing as I thought of when I was driving back from shopping tonight- if free-rights are such a problem for pedestrians, what about an extra vehicle signal to stop traffic on them if there's a pedestrian phase present. Intersections with free-rights are likely to have sensors (either beg buttons or the upcoming video and microwave detectors).

[RailBaronYarr]

Just a point of clarification, cars, people, bikes, and transit can successfully co-exist, safely. With reasonable throughput for all modes.

[sdho]

@Mdcastle:
I think you're underestimating the inefficiency of the "stroad lights" on 98th Street today. When every movement has its own, protected cycle, it significantly reduces the capacity of the intersection. I bet if you cut things down to single left-turn lanes (at least for cars exiting Lyndale) and flashing yellow arrow, you could get a lot more cars through with less space wasted and less street for pedestrians to cross. The Oxboro area is an important transit node, and one of the more walkable commercial areas of Bloomington, so I certainly don't think we're crazy to "impose urban ideals" on it. This is a dense and mixed-use area. It won't kill drivers to slow down to 30 mph and have to wait a little while to make a turn.

As for the interchange: I would hope for a conventional diamond interchange in the future, as it is the friendliest to pedestrians, bicycles, and transit. The current structure is very bad, and the free rights are terrible (especially the two free rights entering the freeway -- you actually have to walk past the PEDESTRIANS PROHIBITED sign to access the "crosswalk" across the ramp at one of them). If more capacity is absolutely needed, a SPUI would still be an improvement over what's there today, and could still have a transit station access like the 46th Street BRT station.

[Mdcastle]

Reverting back to a diamond would be a traffic apocalypse for cars- even at 1980s traffic level a diamond didn't function well there, which is why the current layout was built. I believe a loop in the southeast was planned, but wasn't built at the time because it was full of occupied buildings. A gas station, a sub shop, and Pannekuken Haus resteraunt, all which have been replaced by the transit station and parking lot. SPUIs have a little less capacity than a "half cloverleaf" like I'd like to see, but I do think one is workable given that the major left turn movements are west to south and east to north, which wouldn't interfere with each other on a SPUI. Ideally they'd do something about 94th street too, a SPUI could also be built at 90th, with one way frontage roads and still provide reasonable access while eliminating the weaves on I-35W

I don't think a single lane flashing yellow arrow left turn is workable for 98th. Because of the huge volume non-turning traffic you'd still have to operate it in protected mode part of the time, and the amount of additional cars that could fit through on the permissive phase I think would be minimal. The turn lanes on Lyndale are single lane and are the main problem with the intersection, traffic doesn't make it through on a single cycle and piles up blocking the through lanes, which is why I think at the minimal a flashing yellow arrow should have be implemented on Lyndale, or more drastic improvements.

I recall some people wanted to build a "walkable" area on France and Old Shakopee. The city council rejected that flat-out because if they didn't accomidate auto traffic at that intersection, traffic would divert to 98th street instead which couldn't handle the capacity either, and then they'd have an additional problem to fix. What was built was a compromise between people that wanted a "walkable" are and people that wanted them to just "take out the gas stations and put in turn lanes". with no further streetscaping or redevelopement.

[mattaudio]

I bet it wasn't accommodating existing traffic, but rather 2030 traffic projected to grow at 0.5% per year (and not shrink, which is what is now happening).

[woofner]

- Knox Ave bridge is being considered for stations at 76th St and American Bl. This would also help keep the grid structure of the bus system in the area.

I certainly support a ped bridge at Knox, but I don't understand why this routing is preferable to online stations at 76th and American (or between American and 82nd). It adds travel time and by serving Best Buy HQ really well (instead of just kind of well) it moves out of the range of the apartments and businesses at Lyndale.

France and Old Shakopee was terrible before the turn lanes and free rights.

I think 'terrible' is hyperbolic, and what problems this intersection had were due to the mindless four through-lane configuration on France. This street sees 12,000 cars a day north of Old Shak, which is easily handled with two through lanes and a left-turn lane. South of Old Shak it's half that, which can be handled with just two through lanes. Instead of doubling the number of lanes at the intersection, they could easily have just restriped for 3 southbound lanes, one dedicated right, one through, and one dedicated left. The porkchop right turn from SB France to WB Old Shak was totally unnecessary, since that movement already has a wide radius because of the overall geometry of the intersection. I believe there was already a porkchop for EB Old Shak to SB France, but the bloated merge lane is beyond the bounds of sanity for a road with 6k cars a day. I believe Old Shakopee was roughly the same before the rebuild, and only the porkchop right from WB Old Shak to NB France was added, which is justifiable due to the tight turning radius, although characteristically overbuilt (again, you don't need a merge lane when you're merging onto a road with 6k cars a day). I think the double left turns used to be there as well, but the entirety of the SB traffic on France would have to be turning from Old Shakopee in order to justify it.

The France/Old Shakopee intersection epitomizes the suburban bloat that will infamously represent the end of the 20th century in the USA. Our great-grandparents had the Roaring 20s and we had the Gas-guzzling 90s.

If I wanted to live in a walkable neighborhood I would have bought a house in one.

As someone who's spent a good chunk of his life walking around Bloomington, I find this statement very insulting. Did you ever think that there might be some people who have to walk in your neighborhood? Did you ever think that maybe some people don't have the choice to spew particulate matter into other people's lungs for transportation?

[mulad]

I feel like these intersections being talked about should be compared with some of those along University Avenue in St. Paul -- The volumes are pretty high at Snelling, Lexington, and Dale, and none of them have double left-turn lanes. There used to be a few free-rights, but they've been removed in CCLRT construction. Snelling still has that funky bypass via Fry and Spruce Tree Ave, though I don't know if that really gets used very much.

[Mdcastle]

Of course I've thought about the people that had to walk around my neighborhood. In fact I had to walk around my neighborhood before I had a car. I just never thought I should force the close to 30,000 cars a day that drive down 98th to slow down just because 100-200 (wild guess) pedestrians a day didn't want to cross a double turn lane or a free right.

Snelling and University is roughly comparable to Lyndale and 98th in traffic volumes, and even on a Saturday it doesn't seem to function well. I am shocked how little traffic actually uses Lyndale, so I admit 6 lanes might be a bit much here. So maybe as I suggested having the center lane be an option lane would fix the problem rather than adding an additional lane on Lyndal through the intersection .

[woofner]

Think about the trade-offs when you're introducing delay to motorists to improve safety and comfort for pedestrians. The motorists are inconvenienced, yes, but the pedestrians avoid mortal danger. I know that some people like to pretend that cars are bigger and everyone drives them so they're the only thing that should matter, but think about how callous that is. Particularly with channelized right turns, you are literally killing people for your convenience.

[Mdcastle]

Yes it's callous, and yes there are trade-offs, but you have to figure out when the value of the drivers time outweighs the value of pedestrian lives saved (and I don't recall a single fatal pedestrian accident at 98th and Lyndale). Otherwise you could say we should have a 5 mph speed limit and only a single 9 foot traffic lane everywhere because it would save pedestrian lives. (Mn/DOT puts the cost of a fatal crash at $10,4000,000 and the benefit at $15.00 an hour.) (With those figures it's easy to see how only 1 or 2 fatal crashes can justify the costs of making road improvements)

I do think the free right off northbound I-35W is dangerous. Not because it's not "walkable" or pedestrians aren't watching for cars there, but because you can't really see traffic coming because of the wall on the bridge, and I've seen several traffic accidents there.. That would be fixed by building a loop or converting to a SPUI.

[woofner]

It's tempting to translate one person's life and one person's convenience into dollar values to compare them, isn't it? Are they really comparable?

If you find it intolerable to wait two minutes to get through an intersection, there isn't much use in the two of us talking, because that is part of my daily reality as a bus rider in a city that doesn't value transit. But please know that waiting two minutes to get through an intersection is much more common globally for vehicular transportation than waiting 30 seconds. You may see it as a victory that 30 seconds is more common in the USA, but you should also know that globally people look at what we trade for that time and pity us or think us foolish.

[Mdcastle]

Yes, good thing I'm not in Europe. That's where I differ from everyone else on this board too, I see Europe, or even Boston or Portland, as horror stories that I'm glad I'm not part of, not places to aspire too. As much as I'd like to say I'd sell my house and move farther out if my neighborhood ever became "walkable", I know I won't because I can't afford anything farther out, and the the value of my time lost in traffic forever would be less than the cost of moving.

[woofner]

I'm not just talking about Europe, I'm talking about everywhere outside the USA. They would laugh about the seconds in delay that are fretted about over across dozens of pages in these mammoth tomes we pay consultants to write and no one ever reads. The process in other countries is just as politicized but rarely as pseudoscientific (although the Germans in particular have a passion for this), and certainly sometimes the outcome is just as carcentric but not nearly as consistently as here.