urbanMSP

What do you even gain by doing that though? Besides punishing drivers, which I admit feels good to the social justice crowd. But that's bad policy. This design has bike lanes, doesn't massively constrain vehicles, and likely won't impact the sidewalk much. It's a good compromise. Put aside the bloviating and used up rhetoric for a second. Hennepin has always been a main thoroughfare through the city, that's why the founders built it and Washington with 100' of ROW. Constraining that unnecessarily isn't going to change that, the building faces were built at that line a long time ago so there's no development incentive for the city. Face it, even though this is a very vibrant and multi-modal street already, the majority of users of the street are still cars. That's been the case for a century, and before that it was horses and buggies. Again, this is already a vibrant street, probably the best in the entire city. The goal should be first and foremost to not screw that up.

So, playing hypotheticals for a second: if you were in charge of the world, where would you put the portals for a Hennepin tunnel? I can imagine finding some land in the bottleneck on the south end, but I don't see a lot of great options near the bridge.

There are already 2 pull-ins for buses along the north end of the bridge. Could easily put them there.

Are the majority of users actually in cars? I can't imagine that's the case. And I have no problem with the current design - if the outside lanes were reserved for transit. But the proposed design significantly expands lane space for motorists while causing significant harm for transit users. That's not bloviating.

Until we're willing to put them in a tunnel, buses will be subject to the same delays as cars, which negates any value in using time cost against the more space-intensive users. Of course, bus lanes are an option, but then you're back to allocating a minimum 4 lanes for vehicles (2 for cars, 2 for buses) with bikes/peds sharing the rest. The obvious problem is that 100' (let alone 90') is not wide enough to accommodate all 4 major modes of transportation at their current volumes at ideal levels of service (which mean different things to different users, and mean something different in America vs elsewhere in the world).

On that point, I think it's fair to ask why and how a street like this in London in the middle of their theater/office/etc district with tons pedestrians (I'd wager more per block than Hennepin, but there's no data to confirm), 10-14k vehicles a day (DfT data), and over 1,000 buses a day can make do with 10-12' sidewalks and 2-3 barely 10' wide lanes all fitting in a ~60' right of way. Do cars and buses just move slower on the surface than we expect here? Maybe! Do they make up for that with a killer regional rail system? Yeah, and I guess I would think that's kinda what we're trying to offer with all our light rail/BRT projects, right? Is a component of the answer that London doesn't get the snowfall we do in Minneapolis? Maybe.

In the end, we do have the power as a society to come out and say "maybe this street should only handle X cars a day (or at peak hours) instead of 2X like we're planning" and design/build accordingly. For most places in the MSP region, that's not really reasonable. But for Hennepin Ave, a street that's not even on the county/state major system (only a MSAS street), running through a downtown where already 50% of users arrive by transit/foot/bike in a given day, at the center of a bunch of built and planned high capacity transit lines, I wouldn't think it'd be so hard for CMs to just say "Let's design this street for <8k cars a day, an they're gonna move slowly, and we might even charge more for municipal ramp parking. And if drivers have a problem with that they can come earlier or later or change modes. But that's not the city we live in. So a 4-lane street that barely reduced vehicle LOS, adds a protected bikeway, does its best to maintain sidewalk width, and calms traffic with narrower lanes seems like an overall win.

Long-term, we're going to need 2 N-S tunnels (Hennepin and Nicollet) and an E-W tunnel (maybe 6th st). We've already botched Nicollet, since we're reconstructing it without a tunnel and with other cutbacks, while still being over budget at $50M. We missed the boat on 5th/6th St immediately, so we'll deal with that later when we have capacity issues.

Now we're talking about reconstructing Hennepin, one of our busiest transit corridors, which currently has plans for 2 kinds of higher-capacity transit (streetcar and aBRT), and a premium on ROW space.

I'd much rather have us build a transit tunnel for buses in the immediate future that we can run a higher capacity mode in sometime down the line (like what happened in Seattle). Cut-and-cover while reconstructing Hennepin in 2020 would save us tens of millions of dollars while improving every mode's mobility. Raising the levy and maybe some small starts funds should be no problem for the city.

Getting back to the funding, I've asked this before but why can't a city or local municipality pay for transit improvements on it's own in this state? Whether by a levy or some other tax? My understanding was this was normal up until ~2002 when some kind of deal was struck with the state to prohibit this. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong and Minneapolis absolutely could do this now but if so I would have thought we would have heard about the city trying it a long time ago.

I've said this before, but you really don't want cities backfilling the regional transit funding. It gives the legislature/CTIB an excuse not to do anything. Sure, cities should be able to contribute funding but I'd like to see some regional skin in the game. After all, people throughout the region are going to use it.

Then I guess the city shouldn't spend any of its own money on regional parks, neighborhood parks, streets, or any other amenity that people from across the region are going to use. The state or Met Council could realize the city has $ and choose not to give us as much money. The legislature is already bound to give 40% of the MVST to transit (most of that to MT, with the Met Council determining service levels), and CTIB is already bound by regional spend rules (that already favor capital and operating expenditures outside Minneapolis anyway). I'm not sure what we stand to lose.

Anyway, I'm the first person to advocate for a downtown tunnel. But I'd rather not clutter this thread up with hypothetical talk of design or funding anymore since it's not anywhere near the project's scope.

So, playing hypotheticals for a second: if you were in charge of the world, where would you put the portals for a Hennepin tunnel? I can imagine finding some land in the bottleneck on the south end, but I don't see a lot of great options near the bridge.

Topography and block sizes support a tunnel on the south end at 16th St.

At the north end, if you close off northbound access to/from 2nd St, you could put the north end portal at 1st St.

Face it, even though this is a very vibrant and multi-modal street already

You clearly have never tried to bike it.

the majority of users of the street are still cars.

Is that right? There are a lot of buses and pedestrians. Certainly the majority of vehicles are cars, but I would actually be a little surprised if it was a majority of users.

Again, this is already a vibrant street, probably the best in the entire city.

Despite the cars, not because of them.

Face it, even though this is a very vibrant and multi-modal street already

You clearly have never tried to bike it.

the majority of users of the street are still cars.

Is that right? There are a lot of buses and pedestrians. Certainly the majority of vehicles are cars, but I would actually be a little surprised if it was a majority of users.

Again, this is already a vibrant street, probably the best in the entire city.

Despite the cars, not because of them.

I've biked it. It's horrible.

Also, I hate the argument that "We shouldn't put in bike lanes because no one bikes there". It is similar to the argument that "No one crosses the street there so we don't need a crosswalk/streetlight", or "My street doesn't need a sidewalk because no walks down it".

Build it and they will come. It worked for the cars.

Why the hell did we build the Midtown Greenway if there was no one biking down there before? What a failure by silly hall AGAIN!!!!

Just a thought, curious what y'all think:

Install dynamic signage similar to what's on Marq2 above the middle two lanes that show the no left turn sign during rush hours and events. Make the outer lanes buses and right turns only.

Or if not that, dynamic signage to mark the outer lanes as buses only during certain times. I feel that were at a point where we should really take full advantage of technology to help the street work properly.

Also, this would allow the city to experiment with different options. I keep trying to come up with rigid layouts in my head and just realized that with dynamic signs, the City would be able to customize the street based on the needs of the moment, rather than being stuck with something that's not ideal.

Surprised there isn't a main thread for this. Next to Nicollet, Hennepin has to be one of the most important streets downtown. I am almost more excited for this reconstruction that I was for Nicollet. I think the design really hits all the right points and will look just as good if not better than Nicollet. Surprising how much less the cost is for this - I guess if you don't have a big name designer attached....

What a perfect year for them to be working on it too! Think if they had worked on it with the normal traffic, it would have been a nightmare. I can't wait to see the finished product!

Two things still need to be improved.

First, I'm hoping the City Council and Public Works establish the outer lanes for buses only, before the whole street opens. It's time to put the city's modal priority into action. If you want to put a transit (including a bunch of bus routes and the future E Line) ahead of car traffic, then you need to start making tough choices. Otherwise, the bus congestion of the old Hennepin will return immediately to the new Hennepin.

Second, the street design doesn't have enough places to sit. The city embarrassingly caved to local property owners who wanted to keep the homeless away from Hennepin by denying them places to sit. It's short-sighted and cruel, and a lot more furnishing is needed.

I believe in the design there are movable seats that will be included and some benches. Once things improve and more businesses fill in all the vacant spaces along the street, they will place their own tables/chairs for outdoor seating. Was really sad when Cityworks removed their outdoor seating, but can't blame them considering the safety concerns.

City works closed a while back. I think its much improved even if there are still issues with the design. I do like it better then Nicollet mall and it should help improve the street life immensely. Even the 8th street reconstruction has helped the walking experience downtown.

I don't have any pictures, but this has made some great progress. I've glanced at it while biking through the intersections. Areas seem close to completion.