Street, Road and Highway Projects

[Tcmetro]

Ah, my bad. Mixed up the Maple Grove BRT with the 3 stations + express improvements. The model showed that Maple Grove BRT would mean a 1,000 rider loss to the transit system overall, which doesn't make sense to me.

The local improvements are increases in service to the 721, 722, 723, 765, and 766. The first three have good ridership, but it's a stretch to say they are related to I-94/252.

Here's the slides that have more info on the transit analysis:
https://www.dot.state.mn.us/metro/proje ... -82021.pdf

[DanPatchToget]

Old Shakopee Road may be widened and left turn lanes added at the intersection with Xerxes in Bloomington. https://www.hometownsource.com/sun_curr ... ZlZ9sZH2F8

[Mdcastle]

Bloomington evidently thinks 100% of the bicyclists will be going through the intersection northbound, considering the lack of a southbound bicycle lane. I've complained about this to city council and have gotten no or canned responses. Maybe it's meant to be a one-way pair with the southbound only lane that's being proposed on Portland through American.

[twincitizen]

My bigger concern with this project is for the future of Old Shakopee Road / CSAH-1. This corridor is on Hennepin County's 2040 Bike Plan as a planned on-street bikeway. Now, that plan may or may not ever come to fruition, but let's say optimistically it happens, either through a complete reconstruction or a mill & overlay restripe (just pretend for a minute that car lanes could be narrowed enough to provide space to stripe bike lanes within the existing curbs). Is there going to be a future bike lane gap around this intersection because they just acquired additional ROW to add LTLs here? Will they have to avoid touching the curbs & pavement in this area because they're only X years old and the project was built using federal grant money or whatever?

All hypothetical, but we've seen this exact scenario play out over and over again.

[Mdcastle]

I haven't seen the Hennepin County plan, but the Bloomington 2040 plan and all the chatter I've gotten from our engineers indicate plans for a MUP on the south side rather than painted lanes, and this wouldn't preclude that. You can see this at 86th where they built a MUP in front of the fire station but no on-street lanes.

This is something I support since I doubt many parents would let their kid ride their bicycle on Old Shakopee, painted lane or no, and something I certainly wouldn't do. I'm just now getting used to the idea of riding on them on much lower volume, slower streets this summer when I got my E-scooter, which isn't allowed on the sidewalks like my bicycle is.

I wouldn't object to Richfield style cycletracks on Old Shakopee, but that's in neither agencies plan...

[DanPatchToget]

I'd rather have bike lanes on the road, but preferably with good protection like jersey barriers. Motorists can't grasp the concept of stopping before the crosswalk, and engineers can't grasp the concept of removing blindspots, so it makes trails and cycle tracks not ideal for those who want to keep a steady speed while biking. Also with bike lanes you can separate more experienced bikers from bikers who are inexperienced (like kids) and/or want to go at a slow and casual speed.

[Trademark]

A good project that I wanted to shine a light on in case people didn't know.

The new 2-way 1st avenue S bike lanes are really nice. They still need dividers between 24th and Franklin. But concrete will come to make it a true protected bikeway when they redo the road in a few years. They have already added concrete on 28th Street.

I'm not sure if they've started on blaisdal from 28th to 40th yet.

My favorite part is north of Franklin to 17th Street. The extra lane of parked cars makes the area so much more walkable and easy to cross in a car too. This section of road was very dangerous for everyone people constantly speeding. Now people are more tentative. This will help connect Stevens square to eat street much better then before.

Also this project was very quick to construct. They closed 2 blocks at a time for less than a week. So that the impacts to drivers wasn't that serious.

Sent from my G50 using Tapatalk

[Anondson]

Bunch of highways got faster posted speed limits including TH 62 from Minnetonka to Minneapolis now posted to 60.

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-li ... -increased

[SurlyLHT]

Bunch of highways got faster posted speed limits including TH 62 from Minnetonka to Minneapolis now posted to 60.

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-li ... -increased

They should be doing the opposite and enforcing our current speed limits. We have an epidemic of speed related traffic fatalities. 445 deaths thus far this year. That is 4X the number of homicides in Minneapolis and St Paul combined.

[MNdible]

The speed related deaths aren't because somebody is doing 64 mph in a 55 mph zone.

[SurlyLHT]

The speed related deaths aren't because somebody is doing 64 mph in a 55 mph zone.

Individuals have demonstrated they're unable to responsibly maintain current speeds, raising them is like giving someone with a spending problem another credit card. Lowering speed limits and enforcing them would elicit better behavior. If the kids in a classroom aren't behaving, you removing rules isn't going to create better behavior.

[Trademark]

The speed related deaths aren't because somebody is doing 64 mph in a 55 mph zone.

Individuals have demonstrated they're unable to responsibly maintain current speeds, raising them is like giving someone with a spending problem another credit card. Lowering speed limits and enforcing them would elicit better behavior. If the kids in a classroom aren't behaving, you removing rules isn't going to create better behavior.

We know that speeds are largely based on design speeds more than posted speed limits. If the roads are designed for more than 55 then keeping the speed limit artificially low will only increase the amount of people who are going different speeds. Which is the main cause of many freeway exits. And encourage more people to not respect the speed limit.

There are Metro freeways where the speed limit should be 60. And some (based on the distance between exits and straightness of the corridor where it should probably be 65. (Like 494 between 35e and 52, 94 between 252 and Broadway, the beltway as a whole between 212 thru the fish lake to Brooklyn Blvd).

Just like how no one follows the 20 mph city speed limits because many streets are still designed for higher speeds. The goal is to have most people driving around the same speed. Artificially lowering speeds by just changing the signs does nothing to change behavior.

[Tcmetro]

62 seems like one of the freeways where speeds should be lower because of the limited shoulders, 1/2-mile interchange spacing, and tight curves on some segments. Plus there are several stretches where one lane will be really slow or stopped and the other will be moving at a much higher speed, which is recipe for a rear-end collision.

[Trademark]

62 seems like one of the freeways where speeds should be lower because of the limited shoulders, 1/2-mile interchange spacing, and tight curves on some segments. Plus there are several stretches where one lane will be really slow or stopped and the other will be moving at a much higher speed, which is recipe for a rear-end collision.

Agreed of all the freeways in the metro. 62 is one of the last ones id raise

[Anondson]

Agree with many here, the on ramps to 62 can be relatively short to get up to speed to merge. Upping the speeds can make merged more challenging in those spots.

[seanrichardryan]

In particular at the Mendota bridge. I think the whole end should get parkwayed.

[alexschief]

Ramsey and Scott Counties have won RAISE grants for safety and multi-modal-focused highway improvements.

Ramsey County won $6.5 million for reconstruction of TH 5 (East 7th) and TH 61 (Arcade St) through St. Paul and Maplewood.
(Project Page)

The project will reconstruct approximately 3.7 miles of TH-5 and TH-61 through St. Paul and Maplewood in Minnesota, and will include pedestrian crossing upgrades, sidewalk gap closures, speed management tools, regional trail connections, streetscape and stormwater enhancements, and ADA improvements.

Scott County won $8 million for the reconstruction of part of the US 169 & TH 282 interchange.
(Project Page)

This project constructs a grade-separated interchange at TH-282/County Highway 9 and a bridge over the Union Pacific railroad line. The project also includes a roundabout intersection, a multi-use path and underpass of US 169, floodway improvements, stormwater improvements, and frontage roads.

In previous cycles, USDOT's grants (used to be named TIGER and BUILD) went overwhelmingly to projects designed to move cars. This year's RAISE grants went overwhelmingly to pedestrian, bicycle, and transit-focused projects. Both of these are pretty good projects but they are almost outliers this year because they are even associated with highways. I can't help thinking about the opportunity cost of not having projects like the Midtown Greenway Extension ready to go for this grant cycle. Competition will only get steeper in future years.

Regardless, the first term of the Biden administration puts a ticking clock on many of these projects. Midtown Greenway Extension? Great Northern Greenway Extension? Minneapolis Grant Rounds Missing Link? St. Paul River Balcony? Olson Memorial Highway Redesign? All of these projects would be worthy grant winners, and it's clear that there is money to partially fund them if local actors can move quickly within this term window.

[EOst]

Saying that the counties won these grants is not quite right. MnDOT applied for and won those grants, it's just that the projects are located within those counties. In fact the counties often have very little to do with MnDOT projects such as these, where the cities generally take the lead in partnering and planning.

[StandishGuy]

This is a fantastic idea- replacing Olson Memorial Highway through north Minneapolis with a surface boulevard bringing back 6th Avenue. https://kstp.com/news/activists-say-get ... s/6305281/

[Mister55408]

More on this:
https://www.ourstreetsmpls.org/olson