Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
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VacantLuxuries
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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby VacantLuxuries » May 9th, 2018, 12:56 pm

His layout assumes extra wide pedestrian space at the stations that consumes the parking, but leaves it intact between stations. Is there some benefit to this I'm missing?

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby MNdible » May 9th, 2018, 1:24 pm

Presumably, it's the pinch points at the stations that preclude bike lanes in the layouts. Where there aren't stations, there's extra space that could be used for parking, or could be used for extra pedestrian space, but since it's not continuous would be of little use for bike facilities.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby tmart » May 9th, 2018, 2:10 pm

This would be a great opportunity for the city to put its money where its mouth is and follow through on the complete streets policy. If cars can't be accommodated after serving a critical transit and bike route, then so be it. Hennepin as a transit/ped/bike mall would be a great, direct spine through the most human-friendly areas of the city.

Putting political will aside, how well do you guys think the grid could absorb the impact of closing Hennepin to cars entirely? My primary concern is that there's no other major direct access across the interstate from Uptown/Chain of Lakes/Excelsior Blvd/etc.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby amiller92 » May 9th, 2018, 2:30 pm

I'm not sure how much diversion to the grid there would be. Probably some for trips with an endpoint in Uptown, but seems like there are a lot of through trips by people driving to/from the near west suburbs or west of the lakes. Those trips may largely divert to 394/100 or just go away. And, of course, the west of the lakes crowd will theoretically have SWLRT as an option someday.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby MNdible » May 9th, 2018, 3:03 pm

Ah. I see it's time to move this conversation over to the Fantasy Maps thread.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby mattaudio » May 9th, 2018, 3:32 pm


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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby MNdible » May 9th, 2018, 3:58 pm

And do you think that elected politicians will interpet that policy to mean that they should eliminate automobile traffic from Hennepin Avenue?

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby EOst » May 9th, 2018, 7:53 pm

I don't think removing all cars from Hennepin is likely or even necessarily desirable. The backlash would be so intense that it would probably end up getting reversed, and kill a lot of other great initiatives with it.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby tmart » May 9th, 2018, 8:50 pm

There are two separate questions here, right? What is the best use of Hennepin Ave, and what is the current political situation surrounding Hennepin Ave? The city has a once-per-generation chance to consider what Hennepin will look like for decades to come, not just for what's convenient to implement and avoid a few months of people complaining about parking.

I'm pretty sure what we get in the end will have auto traffic. (The cynic in me thinks it's just going to get repaved and maybe if we beg hard enough there will be an unprotected bike lane.) But it's clear that it will be at the expense of other, better uses that the city has, on paper, prioritized higher. I would love for one space south of downtown to actually be a human-friendly space without the omnipresent nuisance of auto traffic, and Hennepin would be our best candidate to do it. Maybe we won't get all the way there, but I'd rather work backwards from the best case than ask what meager facilities we can squeeze into the worst case.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby EOst » May 9th, 2018, 8:55 pm

Would Hennepin really be the best street in south Minneapolis to take car-free? Seems like you could make a pretty strong case for Nicollet instead, between the Mall and the whole Kmart thing.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby VacantLuxuries » May 10th, 2018, 8:17 am

I'd rather work backwards from the best case than ask what meager facilities we can squeeze into the worst case.
This is the way we should be thinking about everything. If the compromise ends up being what Matt proposed in the article, that's one thing. But the compromise between his proposal and the status quo would probably end up pleasing no one.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby LakeCharles » May 10th, 2018, 8:39 am

Would Hennepin really be the best street in south Minneapolis to take car-free? Seems like you could make a pretty strong case for Nicollet instead, between the Mall and the whole Kmart thing.
This would be so much easier, as it has a freeway one block over (Blaisdell), and another freeway a few blocks the other way (35W).

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby amiller92 » May 10th, 2018, 9:19 am

(The cynic in me thinks it's just going to get repaved and maybe if we beg hard enough there will be an unprotected bike lane.)
The cynic in me thinks we will get the old "bus, bikes and right turns only in the right lane" that used to be posted downtown on Hennepin, with the same zero enforcement.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby David Greene » May 10th, 2018, 10:07 am

I like Matt's idea a lot. I would dispense with all parking and put in bike facilities. I'd make that tradeoff in a heartbeat.

Realize that removing parking means more surface lots and/or structured parking. The latter is preferred, of course, but development we would hope for the current surface lots would happen earlier but for the removal of parking on Hennepin. I'm willing to live with that for better transit and bike facilities.

I just don't see how banning through traffic on Hennepin could ever work, at least not with our current traffic levels. Right now Hennepin is pretty good at rush hour so I'm fine with going one lane + left turn lane each way. But I don't buy for a second that removing all through lanes would magically make traffic disappear from the corridor. Side streets are really not an effective option. They are narrow on a good day and good luck during the winter. Cars have to stop for each other all the time. Plus the current physical layout makes crossing Hennepin difficult. Fixing that takes $$.

The only way side streets could possibly work for replacing Hennepin would be to create one-way pairs and I want fewer of those in the area, not more. Especially not on "residential" streets where plenty of children are running around. Removing parking on side streets is not realistic, especially if we're counting on those spaces to make up for the loss on Hennepin.

I have for some time pondered the idea of private paid parking, in that owners could open parking pads, etc. off the alleys and charge for their use. I'd stick a charger next to ours for good measure. :) I'm sure my neighbors would be horrified at the idea but the less pressure we have for surface parking lots, the better.

I am totally on-board with making Nicollet a transit/bike/ped corridor from downtown to Lake/31st. Something would have to be done for business parking but I'm confident smart people can devise solutions. I share the concern of others than opening Lake & Nicollet to through traffic is going to worsen things for Eat Street.

There's a significant cost to such a plan for people living along Blaisdell and 1st. Something is going to have to be done to mitigate that but I don't know what. Somehow encourage more people to use 35-W? The new ramps at Lake & 28th should help with that but maybe not much as it doesn't really relieve northbound traffic.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby amiller92 » May 10th, 2018, 10:55 am

But I don't buy for a second that removing all through lanes would magically make traffic disappear from the corridor. Side streets are really not an effective option.
This is one reason why many trips would disappear, though. There are no side streets to divert to. You're going to need a different route altogether. You certainly aren't going to go that way if you're just passing through, as many do now.

Not that it matters as it isn't happening anyway.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby Bob Stinson's Ghost » May 10th, 2018, 12:06 pm

My own personal Grand Useless Vision for Hennepin between downtown and uptown involves a subway, one fairly narrow lane of vehicle traffic going each direction, and the whole rest of it devoted to bikes, pedestrians, sidewalk cafes and sculpture. The ribbon cutting will take place 2 days after the doors of hell are solidly frozen shut.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby BBMplsMN » May 15th, 2018, 1:17 pm

Experienced the bus lane pilot program this morning on Hennepin. Funny thing, my bus actually went a lot slower than other traffic for those blocks because the lane was so narrow. The bus driver seemed concerned that he'd knock over the cones so he was overly cautious. We'll see if things speed up the next few days. Overall, the traffic seemed rather light this morning.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby amiller92 » May 16th, 2018, 10:21 am

I watched briefly last evening and saw some cautious driving too. But the buses were still whizzing past traffic that was barely outpacing pedestrian speeds.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby Bakken2016 » June 20th, 2018, 11:42 am

http://www.southwestjournal.com/news/tr ... in-avenue/

Metro Transit and the City have said they have received prominently positive feedback on the bus only lanes on Hennepin. Now lets use our political will to get them to install them with the E Line.

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Re: Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction / E Line (Uptown to Downtown)

Postby Ohiosotan » November 12th, 2018, 2:21 pm

I'd still like to see mid-block crosswalks. When developers build these new downtown mega projects they include things like this which existing downtowns largely refuse. Developers know that you need narrow streets, lots of marked crosswalks, and low speeds (the street below is posted at 25 MPH) and they get it done their way and the city stands back and let's them. So why doesn't the city of Minneapolis do what the Columbus suburb of Dublin has?


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