Street, Road and Highway Projects

[MNdible]

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.

[Silophant]

I really like the roundabout proposal at Broadway. The weird skewed intersection requires a bigger change to be made safe, and there's space to do it with minimal property takings. I wonder if it could be shifted north or east a little bit to not interfere with the gas station tanks, if that proves to be a problem.

Lowry, though... yikes. I'd be curious to know what the state is using for a design vehicle that differs from what the county (or city?) used for the rebuilt part of Broadway between Stinson and Industrial. That's only 40' curb to curb by my google maps measurement, 4' narrower than Lowry or University, and has a three-lane profile that semis seem to navigate just fine. It's just not going to work to not have left turn lanes at that intersection.

That's a good point about the medians, though I really like them at the 18th Ave trail crossing and the 22nd Ave intersection. The latter isn't even so much about pedestrian crossings for me as to block drivers from doing dumb crossing maneuvers at the one offset intersection on the corridor.

[Wezle]

Found the what I assume to be 30% plans for Central Ave reconstruction coming in 2028 on the Minneapolis LIMS.

https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/download ... layout.pdf

[Nick]

Febuary

[COLSLAW5]

I really like that we are doing these road diets with better ped bike and bus infrastructure. But we need to move onto the next steps of better intersection design. Raised crosswalks and other treatments to better protect people from turning onto and off this road. Also raised intersection make winter so much better for pedestrians as you don't have to hop over slushy puddles at ever intersection.

This is only 30% so maybe more is to come as they get further into design

[Wezle]

I'm personally hoping that they go with the options that include raised medians for a lot of low traffic intersections, that'll really help out with removing a lot of conflict points. I do agree that raised crosswalks are the next step.

[wingedmolotov]

Hennepin County is seeking preliminary public engagement for reconstruction of Nicollet Avenue between American Boulevard and Old Shakopee Road in Bloomington: https://beheardhennepin.org/nicollet-bloomington

I personally would like this to demonstrate what high-quality infrastructure could look like so that it hopefully spreads to other parts of the city.

[COLSLAW5]

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

[Mdcastle]

I went in and said a few things (under my LivingGhost371 screen name that I'm transitioning to online after getting doxxed on Reddit under my old one).

As a dissenting opinion I'm OK with single lane roundabouts in a car. I absolutely hate multi-lane roundabouts in a car, or any roundabout on my bicycle or on foot.

[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.