Street, Road and Highway Projects

[Wezle]

Got a response for my email to the project manager.

"Thanks for your email.

Based on the project goals, it was determined by the City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County and Metro Transit that transit lanes are heavily needed Monday – Friday from 6AM – 7PM.

This is based on data that shows transit use peaks during these times. Data also shows that parking is in highest demand in the evenings and weekend when transit use is less, and making parking more readily available at these times best supports the businesses and residents in the area."

I can't tell if this was something that they had planned from the beginning but it does feel very similar to the transit lanes on Hennepin in Uptown. As long as parking enforcement is strict between 6am-7pm, I don't really have too much of an issue with it. Otherwise, it'll be a huge hassle for busses to have to pull in and out of the lane every time someone is illegally parked outside of hours.

[thespeedmccool]

Sounds to me like a certain Boy Mayor's administration heard from a business or two about parking and intervened.

If the transit lanes really are A. bus-only for the entire work week and B. actually enforced then this isn't a serious problem. A shameful telegraphing of the mayor's and county's priorities, yes, but a serious problem, no.

Unfortunately, I seriously doubt there will be any enforcement whatsoever and kinda doubt that these will actually be all-day bus lanes through the whole work week. Seems possible to me that it will get watered down further yet to rush-hour bus-only lanes, which would make them essentially meaningless.

[Nick]

What are inside the red circles with the lines through them?

[COLSLAW5]

old timey cameras

[thespeedmccool]

What are inside the red circles with the lines through them?

I think those are rendering errors

[Wezle]

Regardless of the possible changes to the transit lanes, I'm really excited about this reconstruction. It narrows lanes, includes bumpouts, adds protected bike lanes, expands pedestrian space, reduces parking, adds part time transit lanes, and removes a slip lane and the 5th St crossing of Hennepin and Central to give space to pedestrians/cyclists. Plus there is a lot of green stormwater infrastructure being added to what is currently a lot of pavement!

This is going to be a huge upgrade in an area that sees a lot of pedestrian activity. I've personally found parts of this area to be a bit treacherous as a pedestrian so I for one can't wait!

[Nick]

old timey cameras

That’s what I thought but figured that couldn’t be right.

[DanPatchToget]

This might be a long shot, but does MnDOT or any other place have info on the timeline of freeway development in the Twin Cities? I'm curious how long it's taken to get to the freeway route mileage we have now, and for that matter what is the exact freeway route mileage in the Twin Cities.

[Tcmetro]

This table from the FHWA has freeway miles and freeway-lane miles. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformat ... 2/hm72.cfm

Note that this table uses Federal-Aid Urbanized Areas, which are different definitions than CBSAs. It's incredibly interesting to look at how different metros stack up - it also reveals how car-orientated the Twin Cities are. The Twin Cities provides more roadway per capita than any other metro, although freeway lane-miles are more in line with the population size.

Here's the stats for the MSP area, and ranked to 42 metros over 1 million population:

• 2.65 million population (16th largest)
• 1,022 sq mi (13th largest)
• 2,594 people per sq mi (26th highest)
• 68,079,000 daily vehicle miles traveled (14th highest)
• 23.1 daily vehicle miles traveled per person (16th highest)
• 14,612 miles of roadway (12th highest)
• 1.8 miles of roadway per 1,000 people (highest)
• 381 miles of freeway (12th highest)
• 30,390,000 freeway daily vehicle miles traveled (14th highest)
• 8.1% of all roadway miles are freeway miles (31st highest)
• 49.7% of DVMT are on freeways (19th highest)
• 79,845 annual average daily traffic on freeways (32nd highest)
• 2,010 total estimated freeway lane-miles (16th highest)
• 15,121 average daily traffic per freeway lane (measure of congestion) (29th highest)
• 7.6 miles of freeway lanes per 10,000 people (I added this measure to look at how much freeway is provided) (15th highest)

Here's the top ranked for areas over 1 million population for each of those categories:

• New York - 18.4 million people
• New York - 3,450 sq mi
• Los Angeles - 6,999 people per sq mi
• New York - 278,774,000 daily vehicle miles traveled
• Orlando - 29.2 daily vehicle miles traveled per person
• New York - 44,301 miles of roadway
• Minneapolis - 1.8 miles of roadway per 1,000 people
• New York - 1,254 miles of freeway
• Los Angeles - 122,798,000 freeway daily vehicle miles traveled
• Kansas City - 16.4% of all roadway miles are freeway miles
• San Francisco - 64.1% of DVMT are on freeways
• Los Angeles - 190,845 annual average daily traffic on freeways
• New York - 7,347 total estimated freeway lane miles
• Riverside - 22,026 average daily traffic per freeway lane (measure of congestion)
• Kansas City - 14.4 miles of freeway lanes per 10,000 people

[gopherfan]

Highway 10 in Coon Rapids 3rd lane freeway expansion project presentation & public comment notice before April 18 https://destinyhosted.com/coonrdocs/202 ... 4Mar20.pdf

[Multimodal]

Regardless of the possible changes to the transit lanes, I'm really excited about this reconstruction. It narrows lanes, includes bumpouts, adds protected bike lanes, expands pedestrian space, reduces parking, adds part time transit lanes, and removes a slip lane and the 5th St crossing of Hennepin and Central to give space to pedestrians/cyclists. Plus there is a lot of green stormwater infrastructure being added to what is currently a lot of pavement!

This is going to be a huge upgrade in an area that sees a lot of pedestrian activity. I've personally found parts of this area to be a bit treacherous as a pedestrian so I for one can't wait!

That's all great, but if we want to reduce cars, improve walkability & equity, and not have the planet catch on fire, we need to prioritize transit & reduce car infrastructure (parking, etc.) everywhere we can.

This is clearly the work of the new anti-transit Mpls Public Works.

[Wezle]

I agree, fortunately part time vs full time transit lanes are a policy decision rather than an infrastructure change. A future more transit and climate friendly mayoral admin/city council could make the change back to full time lanes.

The bike lanes here are going to be a really big positive change as the area acts as a gateway to Northeast and will further connect safe cycling areas. Especially for people who are less comfortable biking in mixed traffic.

[angrysuburbanite]

I am fed up with Frey caving to business owners complaining about parking removal in favor of transit lanes. If I remember correctly one of the reasons stated for the "part time" thing was because lack of parking would effect BIPOC businesses, which is super shallow in my opinion because many BIPOC people rely on transit and not having transit lanes hinders their mobility, which I think is more of an equity concern.

Also, is public works stupid? Without lots of enforcement, part time transit lanes are going to be really difficult to manage since it isn't a consistent rule, and many people are too lazy to figure out whether or not it is "peak periods" or whatever.

Finally, an open note to Minneapolis: PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD move on from prioritizing cars over transit. In places like Hennepin Avenue, transit has a modal share of around 40%. If these people were in cars, that would be enough traffic to probably warrant some dumb "mobility improvement project" aka road widening. This modal share is more than enough to warrant dedicated space on the roadway. You have a pretty good transit system that is hindered by your reckless decisions to prioritize the worst form of transportation---cars. If you want to meet your climate and modal share goals, you need to do more to reach them, not just rely on Metro Transit to get there on their own.

[MNdible]

There are a lot of ADA ramps being reconstructed around town this spring. Purely anecdotal, but it seems like rebuilds done over the last couple of years featured a continuous, radiused ramp serving both directions. With this year's projects, it seems like most (but not all) ramps have two perpendicular ramps serving the two directions of travel. Any insight into this difference, or what criteria go into making a decision on this?

[Wezle]

I've heard that the facing of the tactile strips towards the crosswalk helps guide those who are blind better than one that faces directly into the middle of the intersection. I'm not sure if that's the reasoning behind the change though. In terms of decision making, public works has a lot of leeway in deciding on the minutiae of programs like sidewalk repair and ADA ramps and such as long as it fits into the funding and guidelines set by larger council/committee agendas.

[MNdible]

I've heard that the facing of the tactile strips towards the crosswalk helps guide those who are blind better than one that faces directly into the middle of the intersection.

Intuitively, that makes a lot of sense to me -- but then why would they use the fully radiused ramps in some instances?

[thespeedmccool]

I've heard that the facing of the tactile strips towards the crosswalk helps guide those who are blind better than one that faces directly into the middle of the intersection.

Intuitively, that makes a lot of sense to me -- but then why would they use the fully radiused ramps in some instances?

I'm not an engineer, but I imagine it has to do with the slope of the pedestrian ramps and geometry of the intersection.

The nearer to the intersection the ramp, the harder it is to achieve the proper grade and directional ramps. Thus, the closer the ramp to the intersection, the more you see omnidirectional ramps.

Just a guess though

[MNdible]

The nearer to the intersection the ramp, the harder it is to achieve the proper grade and directional ramps. Thus, the closer the ramp to the intersection, the more you see omnidirectional ramps.

I can definitely imagine cases where that would be true, but I also know of a number of instances where geometry wouldn't have dictated it, which makes me think that the radiused design was a public works preference that they may have changed based on feedback (from blind users? from snow clearers?).

Just speculating, and I may be mis-extrapolating based on limited data. But if there's anybody from public works lurking here, I'd love to hear the backstory.

[rhettcarlson]

I've never been a fan of the continuous radial ramps. They seem to have a wider more generous radius, and they're an invitation for cars to take corners faster with no consequence of hitting a raised chunk of concrete - the whole benefit of grade-separated sidewalks in the first place. I hope they are switching back to the traditional directional ones.

[StandishGuy]

Not an engineer. Just a blind guy who travels independently around Minneapolis. My understanding is that the new ramps are meeting the ADA guidance while having the benefit of orienting visually impaired people to the crosswalk. The previous versions were almost certainly a cost saving measure and the design likely worked well due to the rounded off geometry of corners to facilitate faster car turning movements. IMO the new designs are great and I really appreciate them.