urbanMSP

I nearly added this update in the Highway 7 thread because so many of us still refer to this sliver of highway as Highway 7. But the highway stretch between TH 100 and France Ave is officially known as County Road 25.

It has a fascinating origin as part of an original plan to run a highway through Kenilworth corridor. But we have this remnant of a decades old plan taking up a tremendous amount of real estate facilitating high speed driving right onto Lake Street where they come to a crawl. Some, (including me) have posted fantasy designs for a future of the corridor. Others add this highway rump on their short list of highways that should be removed entirely. Here's my fantasy from three years ago.
Belt Line Station Area Fantasy Map by Eric Anondson, on Flickr
Minnetonka-Lake-France-Cty25 by Eric Anondson, on Flickr

I bring up my fantasy that I posted three years ago because...

I found in the May 28 agenda for the Saint Louis Park city council (https://www.stlouispark.org/home/showdocument?id=13702) a presentation of future roadway layout that changes up a lot of the frontage road design (removing parts of it near Beltline/Ottawa), proposing a new stoplight at Raleigh, a major sidewalk expansion on the northside of the Minnetonka Blvd entrance. Quiet a few similarities!IMG_0145 by Eric Anondson, on Flickr
IMG_0146 by Eric Anondson, on Flickr
IMG_0147 by Eric Anondson, on Flickr

I think they still need to consider closing the norther frontage road on the west from accessing Ottawa and instead having the Raleigh stoplight accessible to the north.

I'm not impressed with the bike lane protected parking bays on the north side of Minnetonka. What should happen is instead use more of the wasteful highway median by pushing the Minnetonka entrance further south into the grassy median and swapping the bike lane with the parking.

I like that there is a thought about adding a bike trail along the south side of CSAH 25 from the Minneapolis border all the way to TH 100.

Hey @mister.shoes do you still have the fantasy map we did years and years ago?

He did, over in the Parkway 25 thread last week. Might as well place it here to.

Back to the official concepts, I’m really disappointed the France/Minnetonka/25 intersection is leaving so so much unchanged medians.

I can understand the highest priority placed on crossing 25 from the Manhattan Park neighborhood apartments that are popping up, I don’t know how that happens at Inglewood and Glenhurst without more ambitious changes with the medians.

Here you be!

Yours is practical and realistic! I made this one ages ago, before 100 was redone.

Bye bye, Cty 25
dropbox link

West of Beltline/Ottawa Ave, it is as expected. Tough to do much calming west of that intersection.

East of Beltline/Ottawa, this plan is a huge disappointment. They need to do a deeper dive on that entire section, consider using roundabouts at Lynn and Inglewood to "push" traffic up to the Minnetonka Blvd / CSAH 5 alignment, or onto the south frontage road (which becomes 31st Street). East of a big roundabout at Inglewood, CSAH 25 should be gone completely, with all traffic using Minnetonka Blvd or 31st Street between Inglewood and France Ave. France/Mtka could/should also be a roundabout. Is that descriptive enough for Mr. Shoes or Anondson to sketch up?

I agree that the city’s ambitions are… not very ambitious. I like Anondson’s ideas much better.

In terms of roundabouts, though: is it likely that cars would go from a literal highway (Hwy 7) to (multilane?) roundabouts without incident? I imagine bikes or god forbid pedestrians trying to cross a multilane roundabout with cars that just came off a highway and so are (a) going fast and (b) not expecting anything other than cars in their way.

I also don’t understand pushing cars up to Minnetonka Blvd.? Cars here want to go from Lake to Hwy 7 and want the straightest path.

Overall, this has the same problem (only worse) as Excelsior Blvd.: a commuting highway that is also trying to be urbanist. Isn’t there a name for that?

Yes: Stroad.

a commuting highway that is also trying to be urbanist. Isn’t there a name for that?

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