610 Corridor - Brooklyn Park

[Rich]

MnDOT really needs to go in and rework their ridiculously wide on-/off-ramp configurations. It's 900 to 1200 feet between the north and south sides of the interchanges at Noble, Zane, and Broadway

Weren't the Noble and Zane ramps intentionally made extra wide so that they might someday accommodate cloverleafs?

[Mdcastle]

No. There's not enough room for a loop. The reason the are built that way is having the ramps closer would require a much wider bridge (8 lanes instead of 6) because there'd have to be left turn lanes in both directions on the bridge, and in some cases tight diamonds need retaining walls. A bit more land is a lot cheaper than more cement, and longer ramps allow for acceleration / deceleration.

[mulad]

I'm pretty amazed that they built a cloverleaf at MN-610/US-169 in 2010-2012. Aren't they considered bad form these days? But fewer bridges at the expense of consuming more land. Also, there's very little reason to have the Broadway interchange serve all directions -- it's only about 1400 feet between the ramps there and the entrances/exits for US-169.

The Zachary Lane interchange shows that a lot less land area can be consumed by using roundabouts instead of traffic signals. The bridge is narrower (only 3 lanes, a median, and -- unfortunately -- a single-sided walking/biking path). It's still a long distance to walk end-to-end, particularly because of the folded piece of the interchange on the south side, but they did manage to reduce the land area significantly, and . The area used for the interchange outside of the main right-of-way for 610 is about 15 acres -- compare that to 25 acres at Broadway, 30 acres at Zane, and 27 acres at Noble (and a massive 66 or so for the 169 cloverleaf). Property values near Zachary appear to be in the $500,000 to $800,000 range per acre, so that adds up to several million worth of land value that gets wasted per interchange.

[mattaudio]

MnDOT still builds cloverleafs... 14/35 was changed from a trumpet to a cloverleaf when the new freeway was built from Owatonna to Waseca. 169/694, 100/494, 212/494 and possibly more have survived reconstructions of those freeways.
I think snow storage/plowing has something to do with it.... flyovers are no-wake zones for plows and make snow removal challenging in our climate.
Also, in the last decade, new/rebuilt cloverleafs feature a double-aux lane setup which helps buffer the mainlines from the weaving at the bridge. The new Owatonna interchange is the best example of this. Before the exit to the cloverleaf ramp, there's a new right lane that allows traffic to decel/accel. This is in addition to the aux lane that exists right at the bridge where the two circle ramps join.

[Mdcastle]

There's no money to build anything fancier there, and cloverleafs are still a valid choice it's not acceptable to have signals on one of the roads and traffic volumes aren't extreme. The Parclo B4 was planned there originally because MN 610 was conceived a long time before the decision was made to convert US 169 into a freeway up to there.

[lordmoke]

This has broken ground a couple blocks south of 610:
http://finance-commerce.com/2014/06/top ... klyn-park/

[mattaudio]

Lots of emerging research suggests that suburbs and the geography of nowhere cause depression and a variety of other mental illnesses, so I guess it makes sense to put in a facility to help folks.

[Mdcastle]

Calling the suburbs "nowhere" isn't the least bit insulting, condescending, and judgmental... But leaving sarcasm behind, the backstory is that all the local hospitals tried to prevent this from being built because it's competition, but they haven't invested in psych wards themselves because it's a big money looser. NIMBYism and opposition from hospitals got this bounced around several places before they finally got it built.

[Anondson]

"The Geography of Nowhere"

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geography_of_Nowhere

[Mdcastle]

Judging from the Wikipedia page a pretty insulting and condescending book, and referencing it rather than coming up with something original doesn't make the post less so. I'm not about to move to the city and I don't want not "credible human habitat" "fixed" so I'm not going to waste my time reading the book.

[mattaudio]

I don't think he was writing it for you. But Kunstler is hilarious and poignant, worth the read.

[a_tribe_called_chris]

1- The reason for the expansion was that the old lot across the street was running above capacity for at least a few years. The ridership from this location is actually one of, if not the, highest across the entire metro. I was told this by Metro Transit. Also, the new facility gave us many enhancements including a heated waiting area and doubled capacity. They built it with an array of solar panels and geo-thermal heating to boot.
2- The 610 corridor is finally seeing growth. Target built there campus, Prairie Care is opening a facility along with many of the other projects mentioned. The most active housing development is actually a combination of row-style townhomes and Single Family Homes that are very dense compared to the existing housing styles.
3- I would disagree that the overpasses and exits for 610 are ridiculously big. They are good and meet modern standards. They utilize crosswalk technology for pedestrian safety and I have biked across this many times and it isn’t so bad. The most pedestrian unfriendly crossing I have personally walked was actually across I-94 in the heart of Chicago, so go figure, there was no signage or traffic control.
4- While Brooklyn Park came of age during the suburbanization of the metro it is hardly suburban by characteristics outside of housing and land use in the northern half. Specifically it is more diverse than Minneapolis and St Paul. While most people who have been outside of Minnesota will find it quite safe it does have a higher incidence of crime than many other suburbs and also faces more urban issues such as gang activity, robberies, occasional shootings and higher concentration of poverty than say Maple Grove or Plymouth.
I personally love living in Brooklyn Park. It was a good fit for my family since it has the diversity that we need to be around and affordable housing. Also, living 1 block away from one Express / Local Bus route and being within 1 mile to another route serving the Noble Park and Ride were critical factors in our decision to buy here as well. I wish there was more density and I have been advocating for it with elected officials. It would be great to be able to walk to more retail but that was the tradeoff I made. The house I was able afford here was far greater than I could have bought in the city. There is great potential with the Blue Line Expansion coming as well as the realization that gas will not be cheaper and our current sprawling land use patterns are not the best usage of the city’s remaining undeveloped areas. Now the north end will continue to see larger homes built although the lots are not as large as they were in the 90’s. I hope they do update the plan to build mixed use neighborhoods around the Blue Line and 610 areas to increase density.

[twincitizen]

Always great to get other perspectives, but how can one even dispute the assertion that the interchanges on 610 are too big? Compare them to any others around the metro, and you'll see that the size of the loops on the cloverleaf at 169, and the length of the acceleration lanes on the diamond interchanges at Zane and Noble are all way too generous. It's wasteful, by a magnitude of at least 10%. It's actually doubly wasteful because it will cost more money to maintain, plow, etc. and eliminates land that could be collecting taxes to pay for the infrastructure in the first place.

[a_tribe_called_chris]

Always great to get other perspectives, but how can one even dispute the assertion that the interchanges on 610 are too big? Compare them to any others around the metro, and you'll see that the size of the loops on the cloverleaf at 169, and the length of the acceleration lanes on the diamond interchanges at Zane and Noble are all way too generous. It's wasteful, by a magnitude of at least 10%. It's actually doubly wasteful because it will cost more money to maintain, plow, etc. and eliminates land that could be collecting taxes to pay for the infrastructure in the first place.

I really don't see your point. If anything I would say that these interchanges are some of the better designed ones around the metro. They may seem huge compared to the horribly designed and undersized ones on Highway 100 in St Louis Park but the 610 ones you mention remind me of ones I have used in both metro Denver and Atlanta. If what you mean is that they are different from others around the TC metro then sure I think I get that. Personally I have found that the metro has some of the worst exit designs which lead to a horrible merging experience. I moved here from Denver and almost every exit along 225 had 2 lanes and similarly sized exchanges.

[a_tribe_called_chris]

If anyone wants to offer suggestions and feedback the City of Brooklyn Park has the following site set up.
http://brooklynpark.mindmixer.com

[go4guy]

^ Agreed. Most interchanges in the metro are horribly designed and inadequate. This costs MORE money to rebuild all of these interchanges to make them safe, instead of doing it right the first time. Glad to see them do these right the first time instead of wasting our money in the future.

[mattaudio]

What exactly does "horribly designed and inadequate" mean? A design that takes up too much precious real estate? A design that is not compatible with transit or walking? A design that costs too much money to build? It seems to me that interchages on 610 are some of the worst designed in the metro.

[go4guy]

The interchanges at Broadway, Zane and Noble are actually good and safe interchanges for car traffic. Tight cloverleaves cause congestion and are not efficient. They dont give traffic enough space to speed up to traffic, which causes slow downs and are dangerous. And yes, that takes space. But space is what is needed for safety.

So you are saying these nice big interchanges are worse than on 100 in SLP? Interesting.

[EOst]

The interchanges at Broadway, Zane and Noble are actually good and safe interchanges for car traffic. Tight cloverleaves cause congestion and are not efficient. They dont give traffic enough space to speed up to traffic, which causes slow downs and are dangerous. And yes, that takes space. But space is what is needed for safety.

So you are saying these nice big interchanges are worse than on 100 in SLP? Interesting.

matt here doesn't believe in freeways, interchanges, or indeed cars, so you're not going to have a very productive conversation with him about them.

[Mdcastle]

Yeah, there's different approaches what a well designed interchange for pedestrians is (to the extent such a thing exists ), and what a well designed interchange for cars is. To some degree they are mutually exclusive. The best designs for cars- 6 ramp partial cloverleaves, diverging diamonds, and SPUIs, are the worst for pedestrians.

But I share your opinion that a well designed interchange has ramps long enough to get up to the design speed of the freeway in something less than a Ferrari. You can of course pull the ramps closer together in a standard diamond, but then to make it well designed for cars you need a wider bridge because more turn lanes are on the bridge.