Street, Road and Highway Projects

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
Anondson
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby Anondson » June 19th, 2015, 9:49 am

I find myself needing that ramp too often. With so much traffic coming off eastbound 494 towards Normandale Lakes I wished the off ramp from eastbound 494 not loop around onto E Bush Lake Road but instead directly connect to American.

mattaudio
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby mattaudio » June 19th, 2015, 9:59 am

It would be much cheaper to just build a ramp from the end of West 78th Street (at 100's frontage road near the Sheraton) to combine with the existing ramp from southbound 100 to westbound 494.

Anondson
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby Anondson » June 19th, 2015, 10:42 am

Maybe right off Picture Dr. the way downtown has a ramp from behind the Convention Center linking to the ramp from NB 35W to WB 94?

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mister.shoes
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby mister.shoes » June 19th, 2015, 10:55 am

Reposted from the 77th/76th thread
...like Bloomington's absurd E Bush Lake Rd interchange improvement.
I am impressed/gobsmacked (not a compliment) by the solution. That's a hell of a lot of infrastructure for such a minor movement. I mean, sure, it'll make my evening commute home easier by reducing the number of cars going EB on Edina Industrial at MN100, but it's also going to jack up the number of cars going 45mph WB on Edina Industrial right at E Bush Lake Road. Can't wait for that mess.

That entire interchange is stupidly designed. The exit from WB 494 has a double-left turn lane, that never has more than 2 or 3 cars in each in the mornings. The right turn lane, by contrast, is packed. Ditto the exit from EB 494, the few times I've used it: why are there two left turn lanes? Did Bloomington convince everyone that SB E Bush Lake Road is soooooo important it requires that many lanes to hold all the people desperate to go that direction?
The problem with being an introvert online is that no one knows you're just hanging out and listening.

Mdcastle
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby Mdcastle » June 19th, 2015, 1:00 pm

It kind of looks like what was originally proposed for Crosstown and Portland.

It seems like a lot of bridge, but I'm not sure how an entrance off Picture Drive would be much of an improvement to the ramp right on the other side of Industrial Blvd. My own thought was somewhere west of the railroad tracks off 78th, but this would also be a roundabout way to attract traffic from Normandale Lakes. Bloomington had been pursuing an interchange at 84th for years, but is now backing away from it, so this is an alternative to deal with the traffic.

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sdho
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby sdho » June 19th, 2015, 1:38 pm

It kind of looks like what was originally proposed for Crosstown and Portland.
And much as I would love to be able to go west on Crosstown at Portland, life goes on, and I can use Lyndale or Cedar instead.

Similarly, I'm just not sympathetic to the need here. If I wanted to avoid congestion at 84th & Normandale, I'd take 78th to the on-ramp by 169. But having seen the congestion at 84th & Normandale, I'm not sure that justifies a change. It's less-than-optimal, but I have never had to wait more than two full light cycles there, even in rush hour.

Anondson
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Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby Anondson » June 24th, 2015, 10:44 am

Plymouth got funding to build a bridge for Vicksburg Lane over Canadian Pacific railroad.

http://sailor.mnsun.com/2015/06/24/foll ... education/

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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby Mdcastle » June 28th, 2015, 8:15 am

With the Hennepin County plan to eliminate the last of the incandescent traffic lights, I noticed that after 84th and 82nd / Nicollet intersections were converted the walk signs would go on for the cross streets. I asked the county engineer and he said "no we're not enabling ped recall. 84th had a stuck button and thanks for telling us, we'll go check out 82nd now."

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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby FranklinAveFixation » June 28th, 2015, 10:40 am

With the Hennepin County plan to eliminate the last of the incandescent traffic lights, I noticed that after 84th and 82nd / Nicollet intersections were converted the walk signs would go on for the cross streets. I asked the county engineer and he said "no we're not enabling ped recall. 84th had a stuck button and thanks for telling us, we'll go check out 82nd now."
Hmm..
This gives me an idea.

Anondson
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Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby Anondson » June 28th, 2015, 11:37 am

I think I know what you're thinking... ;)

mattaudio
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby mattaudio » July 6th, 2015, 8:06 am


David Greene
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby David Greene » July 6th, 2015, 10:51 am

Ramp meters are simply another example of urban subsidy to suburban living. If you choose to live out in the boondocks, you deal with the traffic. Why should we halt the flow of traffic on urban streets so exurban dwellers can cruise along at top speed?

Yes, urban freeways would get clogged. But I'm more concerned about the backups on urban streets caused by these things.

froggie
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby froggie » July 6th, 2015, 11:38 am

One could counter-argue that urban streets are better off with ramp meters than without. The primary purpose of ramp meters is to break up platoons of traffic coming down the on-ramp at the same time. This makes it easier (and less crash-prone) for those vehicles to merge in. If the freeway is moving faster and with fewer crashes (with the inevitable traffic diversions that crashes bring as drivers seek to escape the backup), there's less enticement for drivers to divert onto urban streets.

David Greene
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby David Greene » July 6th, 2015, 11:59 am

That's a fair point.

RailBaronYarr
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby RailBaronYarr » July 6th, 2015, 2:57 pm

Yeah, haven't ramp meters been proven to actually lower travel times for those furthest in and using them as well as the folks from further out who don't see a meter? Maybe I'm misinterpreting a study I read (and too lazy to look it up).

But the counter-counter point is that making freeways enticing to drive on further entrenches collector roads in urban areas as high-traffic, multiple turn lanes, impactful viaducts/ramps, and unsafe. A street like Lake Street, Hennepin, Lyndale, etc primarily serves people hopping on 94 or 35W, not making an in-city trip (especially during the all-important peak hours). This makes traffic calming or re-claiming space for bikes or bus lanes or whatever especially difficult. Making freeway travel in cities easier allows companies (or retail, etc) who might otherwise locate in a more central location choose suburban spots. There are tons of offices out in the burbs that would make great sense in some under-utilized, transit/bike-accessible neighborhoods of Minneapolis, St Paul, and a few inner-ring suburbs.

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Re: Public Transit News and Happenings

Postby nordeast homer » July 9th, 2015, 10:11 am

The St. Anthony Parkway Bridge reconstruction will have its own webcam. stapbridge.com
Construction is supposed to start yet this month.

Anondson
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Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby Anondson » July 10th, 2015, 5:38 pm

The city of Hopkins has installed a temporary cycle track on 8th between the Cedar Lake trail and the future LRT station and Lake Minnetonka regional trail in Downtown Hopkins. The city WANTS FEEDBACK before they build. It's open a day early, today, but looks like it'll be operating all weekend.

All you cycling infrastructure advocates, I hope you can get out to Hopkins to put in your voice for good cycling infrastructure.

http://www.hopkinsmn.com/events/artery/index.php

Anondson
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby Anondson » July 10th, 2015, 7:59 pm

Zipped over to take a quick snap.

ImageHopkins temporary cycle tracks by Eric Anondson, on Flickr

Looking north on 8th towards downtown using the approach from the LRT station and the Cedar Lake Trail

ImageHopkins temporary cycle tracks by Eric Anondson, on Flickr

Looking south from the Lake Minnetonka trail towards. You can see the LTD Brewing taproom and its parklet.

I didn't stop at the points of interest in the middle and take any photos. It was open a day early here, no city staff nor Three Rivers staff were around this late at night. They will be around tomorrow. But it is a long line of city street parking that will be eliminated for this. No overarching loss, the downtown has abundant municipal parking. What you can barely see is the stretch between 1st and Mainstreet is a single lane, one way going north. 8th's southbound lane is proposed to be eliminated for the cycle track and the northbound remaining lane narrowed significantly.

Janette Sadik-Khan, NYC's transportion commissioner made waves when rather than study something forever and vanish in bureaucracy, she slapped some paint to try something out. With some planters and paint two and a half blocks of Hopkins will test out a cycle track to fill in a gap between two regional trails. I hope it works out well enough the city decides to implement the cycle track on Blake Road instead of the multi-use trail the design calls for.

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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby mamundsen » July 14th, 2015, 3:14 pm

The current 394 construction project (and lane closure) is getting people angry... I just saw this Tweet and it made me laugh. :)

https://twitter.com/tpirkl/status/621056582219075585

Right... nothing on new interstate lanes, cause that's what we need.

Anondson
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Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby Anondson » July 14th, 2015, 3:41 pm

The entitlement over highway maintenance must never inconvenience in the slightest is bizarre. The potholes on 394 literally killed motorcyclists, did they forget that? Is fixing the pavement so it isn't a seasonal pothole factory not worth it?

Maybe MNDoT should have saturated media with warnings about how bad it would be so enough people could make plans to be elsewhere.

Plus, we are getting additional lanes right next to this on TH 100. So that complaint fails.


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