Street, Road and Highway Projects

[sdho]

Those Lowry options are all pretty terrible. I know it's not a landmark, but it would be a bummer to lose the old Stasiu's building and completely give up the street face here.

Also, medians serve a purpose for pedestrians, but it feels like the plan is leaning too much on them. Streets with medians lose all of their flexibility. Unexpected stuff happens (accidents, emergencies, utility work), and if you can't get around it because of a median, you've just put the street out of commission.

Apparently the seemingly-unnecessarily-long refuge median thing is to reduce immediate U-turns to make it a de facto full access intersection. County had that rationale on Nicollet in Richfield (still undergoing final design) and has also found that on Lyndale. I get that you wouldn't want like full modern suburbia access management, but this use of them seems like an improvement for peds and street aesthetics.

Roundabout at Broadway seems like a slam-dunk — and I'm impressed MnDOT is entertaining a single-lane roundabout given volumes. Lowry I feel pretty ambivalent about given the need to remove the building with Stanley's.

[wingedmolotov]

They should look to the Nicollet ave project they just finalized in Richfield. I know their city has a lot more interest in safe street design and they are putting up money for a lot of the street features but would be great to see this just copied down into Bloomington. Raised crosswalks, roundabouts and grade separated bike lanes

https://mc-379cbd4e-be3f-43d7-8383-5433 ... 47A77C601A

I imagine the sidewalk level bike lanes will get included. Nicollet is decent in terms of crossing it, there's a marked crosswalk about every two blocks, but it would be nice to see raised crosswalks. Someone brought up HAWK signals on the map. In my experience, most drivers will stop for an RRFB, but HAWK signals are better. Most drivers don't really seem to observe the stop on blinking red though, at least that's what I've observed at the one on American.

[Mdcastle]

I don't like how the Central lanes put bicyclists literally feet from buses by having them abut the curb rather than next to the sidewalk like 66th (But at least they go out to the sidewalk crosswalks rather than drop down to the street losing all protection like the Washington lanes- I'd be as terrified using them on my bicycle as I am using painted on-street lanes.)

I assume the proposal for Central is to preserve existing boulevard trees but that's not really a consideration on Nicollet.

Someone brought up HAWK signals on the map

Raises hand.

[mattaudio]

What's the appeal of HAWKs over RRFBs? RRFBs seem to garner high compliance, and pair well with median-refuged crossings. I'm not a HAWK fan.

[Wezle]

HAWKs really don't make sense to me. If you're gonna go to all of the work and expense to put up what is essentially a traffic signal, make it work like a traffic signal that doesn't have multiple confusing phases that average drivers don't understand. Green -> yellow -> red is already understood. The Wikipedia article for them writes out the issues with them better than I can.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAWK_beacon

[DanPatchToget]

From my experience using both the RRFBs are ignored more than HAWKs, though if regular traffic signals are an option I’d rather have that.

[Mdcastle]

RYG pedestrian signals are only allowed at mid-block locations because at an intersection they confuse drivers into thinking that the entire intersection is fully signalized.

[wingedmolotov]

I think mid-block RYG signals are being dropped, or at least the one at 86th in front of Cedarcrest Park was dropped in favor of signs and a refuge island.

"The signal that has served the pedestrian crosswalk to Cedarcrest Park for many years has reached the end of its life, and is being removed when the roadway is repaved this summer. Pedestrian signals of this type are no longer used for a crosswalk like this, and have been eclipsed by other types of safety treatments."

[commissioner]

Does anyone know why the Dale Street project by Ramsey County got pushed back a year?

[Wezle]

Found the first full project layout of the University and 4th reconstruction project in Thursday's Climate and Infrastructure Committee agenda.
The project will add raised bike lanes, curb bumpouts, some added boulevard space, and will fix a sidewalk gap between University and 4th on the I35W frontage road. The project will span from I35W to Central Ave and will begin in 2027. Exciting to know that there will be uninterrupted protected bicycle infrastructure from Central to Oak street (and beyond) by the end of 2027.

https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download ... chment.pdf

[thespeedmccool]

I generally like the looks of it. MNDOT could be less allergic to tightening those turning radii at 35W, but this is genuinely pretty good.

[COLSLAW5]

don't know how you would do it but i would love to see a city wide map with all these plans overlaid on it so we could see how the network is coming together over the next several years.

sorta like this

https://app.publiccoordinate.com/#/proj ... OBline/map

[Wezle]

Hopefully with the 2050 comprehensive plan, they at the very least update a lot of the city and county bicycle network maps. I don't think the city map has been updated since 2020 or so.

https://go.minneapolismn.gov/final-plan ... es-network

[Rube Dali]

One of the Jackson Street bridges in St. Paul(the one over the railroad tracks) closed unexpectedly last week due to faster deterioration than Ramsey County was expecting.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/06/0 ... inspection

[Didier]

Apparently Lake Street Bridge is now under construction of some sort, even though it’s already quite congested with the I-94 construction pushing people onto city streets. I believe there’s also construction on multiple downtown bridges. Seems like really great planning.

[Nick]

It has started to feel like an elaborate prank/performance art.

[kdo5581]

I generally try to give agencies the benefit of the doubt on construction stuff - things need to be fixed! But yeah it really does feel like there's been an unusual lack of coordination with some of these projects. I'd like to see more specifics on the whole "we're trying to fit in a bunch of projects that got federal money" line, because it seems a little "just so". I'm sure it's a factor but was there really no way to flex some of these closures? We justifiably get annoyed around here about the lack of coordination for eg bike route crossings, road closures also deserve some scrutiny.

[Nick]

Yes, complaining about traffic is a very low status behavior, and yet...........................................

[Mdcastle]

It's getting frustrating trying to get anywhere from Bloomington with road work on I-35W north and south and I-494 east and west...

[wingedmolotov]

Bloomington is seeking $4.4 million in state funding to reconstruct Old Shakopee Road/98th/CSAH 1 between Aldrich and 2nd Avenue. Highlights include a shrunken intersection with Lyndale: removing the double left turns, removing the free rights, and reducing the section of three thru-lanes near I-35W to two. Wide multi-use paths on both sides of the road, some median closures and turn restrictions and a ped crossing at Pillsbury. I'd prefer actual bike lanes and sidewalk as opposed to the multi-use trail, but it's a great step in the right direction. Total project cost is estimated $22 million.

https://d3n9y02raazwpg.cloudfront.net/b ... df#page=11 (page 11)