urbanMSP

If we had roundabouts every half mile to mile along Normandale, all the local streets and access could be RIRO with a narrow and people could loop back at the next roundabout. Even safer.

Looks like MnDot has made a decision on the Hwy. 77 managed lane project:

- From 138th St to Diffley Road, a new NB MnPass lane will be constructed as well as a concrete barrier, for a total of 3 through lanes.
- From Diffley Road to Old Shakopee Road, the NB bus shoulder will be converted to a traffic lane, allowing for the inside lane to be converted to MnPass. A total of 4 lanes will be provided in the northbound direction.

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/metro/projec ... boards.pdf

Yet, if we go to the project page for Alternative 2B (the chosen option), we will see:

Advantages:

Relieves bottleneck north of 138th Street and at the river bridge without overloading the I-494 interchange
Increases capacity over bridge - attracts trips away from regional system
Provides transit advantage for express buses
Provides congestion-free choice for general purpose traffic and carpools
Improves travel time reliability – except for station-to-station transit service

Disadvantages:

Requires concrete median barrier from 138th to I-35E
Lack of bus shoulder over bridge takes away transit advantage for station to station service and express buses out of Eagan – limited travel time reliability
Limited snow storage will require peak period lane closures during some snow storms

The MnPass project will actually become detrimental to the Red Line, as buses will have to weave from the outside to the inside to access the median station at Cedar Grove. Additionally, bus shoulders will be eliminated, so buses will spend more time in the traffic-filled lanes where the MOA access and Apple Valley stations are located.

Similarily, express bus riders from Eagan would see increased travel times.

The MnPass project will actually become detrimental to the Red Line, as buses will have to weave from the outside to the inside to access the median station at Cedar Grove. Additionally, bus shoulders will be eliminated, so buses will spend more time in the traffic-filled lanes where the MOA access and Apple Valley stations are located.

Similarily, express bus riders from Eagan would see increased travel times.

New Mn/DOT commish, same as the old Mn/DOT commish.

Typical cheap, lame fix because we have no money and I don't like when they take away safety shoulders. The right way would be to build another span for some more general traffic lanes and light rail.

The right way would be to immediately start tolling all metro freeways. The Minnesota River bridges would be an excellent starting point.

2014 MnDOT construction season announcement, $1.1 billion across 308 projects: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/newsrels/14/04/03wzs.html

This is the third year in a row that the budget has been $1.1 billion. I've been trying to keep a record of their seasonal announcements, and this is the history I've collected (take it with a grain of salt). Spending had been bumped up for most of the Pawlenty administration (2003-2011). I'm not sure what it was before then.

• 2003: $600+ million
• 2004: ?
• 2005: $1.7 billion
• 2006: $1.5 billion
• 2007: $1.5 billion
• 2008: Somewhere between $447 and $657 million
• 2009: $1.4 billion
• 2010: $1.3 billion
• 2011: $900 million
• 2012: $1.1 billion
• 2013: $1.1 billion
• 2014: $1.1 billion

2004's was approximately $1.3 billion, based on what was available in the HUTDF (I have a flowchart for 2004)

There's a display in the IDS' Crystal court of a cap of i35 between the west bank, and DTE along with a huge model and buildings and it's pretty cool... mirrors a lot of ideas that have been talked about here.

There's a display in the IDS' Crystal court of a cap of i35 between the west bank, and DTE along with a huge model and buildings and it's pretty cool... mirrors a lot of ideas that have been talked about here.

Whoa! Hey...what? Really? I'd love to see that.

For those of us who don't work downtown, I'll be down there Wednesday at 5 PM or so because I have an event downtown later that night. If anyone else wants to check it out, and grab a beer nearby, let me know.

Shoot some snaps? (if you haven't already)

So this is an old project, but I didn't know where else to put the question, so feel free to move it to wherever it belongs mods.

I happened to be up in Little Canada/Maplewood the other day, and noticed the weird Rice St/Hwy 36 area. The lanes on Rice and County Rd B have little buffers painted between them. Like a bike lane, but too narrow and not marked. Can be seen here, you'll have to zoom in to see them but they are all over that region. Does anyone know why this is? The road just wasn't wide enough so they said, "how can we get some more asphalt in this region?" Traffic engineers must have wet dreams about it.

They're to give experienced bicyclists a place to ride. They're not wide enough to be a legal bicycle lanes so they can't sign them as such, but that is the intent (in the suburbs casual riders tend to use the sidewalks on busy streets).

They can mark them in Florida...

Honestly it's almost negative bike infrastructure. A car in the regular lane would be within 3 feet of a bike in the "bike lane" so it's actually dangerous. Bikers should just take the lane. But I honestly think on suburban-style stroads, especially the stroady stroads with half-plus mile intersection spacing and few/no private accesses, a multi-use path is actually better.

And you're complaining about four lanes on Hennepin... that shot above sort of puts things into perspective.

He's a question I bet Mdcastle could answer. Is there anywhere in Minnesota with triple left turn lanes? I don't think we even have many stretches of 8 lane roads that aren't freeways... Anyone biking on that "street" is crazy.

The only one that comes to mind is MN 62 and I-494. There's a triple left turn lane (although you can also go straight from one of them) for the southbound off-ramp to accommodate the major movement of southbound to eastbound. This was originally going to be rebuilt as a SPUI during the reconstruction of I-494 but was dropped for cost reasons (and I don't think the benefit would have been to great because the westbound to southbound movement isn't that heavy- they only bothered to make a single lane for it.)

I've heard (but cannot confirm) that the northbound 169 ramp to Bren Rd has them.

To be fair, we don't have very many surface roads that are even *6* lanes, let alone 8.

169 north to Bren is a triple left. Latest map imagery should show it.

I was in stroad city (Jacksonville, FL) last month and I was pretty surprised how many of the new huge-ish roads had bike lanes. Whether or not anyone would want to bike on them remains to be seen.