urbanMSP

I remarked about this being a black mark because of the 11' bus in a 10'9" lane. It will be tough to get down to 10' lanes if we're running 11' buses down them.

From everything I can tell, the newest New Flyer models are 102" wide (same as before) with mirrors extending that to 128" ( 10.66').

Thank god for our fleet of perfect metro transit drivers that operate within 1/100 of an inch.

Now if we put that bus on rails ...

Now if we put that bus on rails ...

Novel idea!

Bike advocates lobby for protected lanes in 2015
http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/284510991.html

Is there any plans to build a bike trail next to 35w between downtown and uptown? the space does exist however the sound barriers are not in places that would allow it to be built easily but perhaps when they are replaced in the distant future the space could be used?

Is there any plans to build a bike trail next to 35w between downtown and uptown? the space does exist however the sound barriers are not in places that would allow it to be built easily but perhaps when they are replaced in the distant future the space could be used?

Given the air pollution of being right by a very high-volume segment of 35W, plus the very close routes on local streets (Portland/Park, Blaisdell/1st, and Bryant), I'm not sure that would be a very useful facility. They might be able to move sound walls in slightly, but they do tend to want to leave a good amount of space on the freeway side for disabled cars, reaction distance from freeway for crashes, and snow storage.

I think trails that follow freeways are actually more beneficial in rural and exurban areas, where traffic volumes are lower and fewer alternatives exist.

Is there any plans to build a bike trail next to 35w between downtown and uptown? the space does exist however the sound barriers are not in places that would allow it to be built easily but perhaps when they are replaced in the distant future the space could be used?

A Downtown-->Uptown route utilizing 35W would be quite a roundabout way to biking to the area. Bryant Avenue bike boulevard and Cedar Lake/Kenilworth Trail would both be better options.

2014 bicycle and pedestrian counts released:
http://www.minneapolismn.gov/bicycles/d ... S1P-088370
Southwest Journal's take:
http://www.southwestjournal.com/news/ne ... nual-count

Basically slight growth in both.

These may take the cake for the most ridiculous sharrows I've ever seen. https://goo.gl/maps/o6t0g

These may take the cake for the most ridiculous sharrows I've ever seen. https://goo.gl/maps/o6t0g

Unnecessary sure, but they don't seem ridiculous to me - it looks like somebody spent a little money for bike infrastructure running east-west along 95th, including access to the bus station. Should the sharrows be necessary in a parking lot? No. But they also cost like $50 to paint, they make it clear where cyclists belong to get between the trail and the bus platform, and maybe they'll cause some cell-phone-wielding distracted driver to not honk at a bike for "not belonging there" when they come upon it.

I saw some interesting graffiti on the way into downtown today. Sprayed on the rail bridge that goes over E Hennepin Ave just west of 35W was something along the lines of "Go bikes! F**k cars!" Note that this is about 1/2 a block from the new signage for the bike/ped crossing. It definitely made me laugh. Haha.

The Old Cedar Bridge project has been developing.
http://oldcedarbridge.com/

*Basic configuration will be similar to what the Stillwater Lift Bridge will be, with bicycle and pedestrian areas marked by paint, with a 10 foot bicycle lane in the center and 4.5 foot pedestrian areas on either side

*Everyone knew the deck was basically trashed. The discarded the original idea of trying to save the old stringers and instead all of them will be replaced. The new deck will be a special lightweight concrete, and the stringers will be reduced to what it technically needed.

*They didn't realize how bad the piers were. Trying to save what they could would still result in most of the visible concrete being replaced and might even be dangerous to construction workers, so all the piers will be replaced.

+The basic trusses are just fine, only one of the chords needs to be replaced and some gusset plates reinforced.

*Old Cedar will be reconstructed, with a northbound bicycle lane added.

*They want to add modern restrooms and a picnic area to the north end of the bridge but need to wait for the bids for the bridge to come in first to see how much money they have.

*The bridge, along with the rest of the Wildlife Refuge, will be closed from sunset to sunrise and no lighting installed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SWVwOMrH1g

Apparently we're hosting the winter bicycling congress in 2016

Nice little video from Lucas Santtana featuring bicycles,

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yFn7oJSUh9M

The city is looking at restriping 31st St from Hiawatha to Bloomington and adding in bike paths. I guess I'll be dragging myself to more community meetings, since this is literally my street. This event invite has a rendering of what the street will look like. The plan is to take away parking on one side of the street to make room for the bike lanes.
https://www.facebook.com/events/343337019210376

With the highest traffic volume on this stretch being ~5500 AADT, I'd really prefer to see centerline removal with advisory bike lanes striped. Generally removing a lane of parking for a bike lane just makes the road feel wider and probably encourages speeding. See 42nd and 24th Streets. With the low traffic volumes here, MUTCD suggests centerline removal anyways. http://www.bikewalktwincities.org/how-g ... gh-space-0

I'm a big fan of advisory bike lanes. They generally feel just as safe as regular bike lanes, and they seem to have more of a calming effect on the street. I probably won't attend any meetings for this one, but suggest that you push for that, Peter.

So looking at the Minneapolis Mike Master Plan, which this route is (sort of) a part of, it's classified as an Arterial. The Advisory bike on 14th Ave is part of a Collector. Does the master plan have any influence of specific design of facilities?

I'm also wondering how much chance there will be to influence anything at this meeting, it seems mostly informational. I'm not really sure at what level of city government this kind of thing is decided.

With the highest traffic volume on this stretch being ~5500 AADT, I'd really prefer to see centerline removal with advisory bike lanes striped. Generally removing a lane of parking for a bike lane just makes the road feel wider and probably encourages speeding. See 42nd and 24th Streets. With the low traffic volumes here, MUTCD suggests centerline removal anyways.

Not entirely true. While the MUTCD doesn't require a centerline along urban streets with less than 6,000 AADT, it does recommend a centerline if the average daily volume is over 4,000.

From my (limited) experience with this road, it seems like traffic is rather "peaky" so advisory bike lanes may not work very well in practice. There may not be very many cars that use it, but when they use it they all use it at the same time.

But I think people are going to go crazy over the loss of parking either way, and the advisory lanes do keep parking.