Interstate 94

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
mattaudio
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby mattaudio » February 4th, 2014, 1:23 pm

EAW for Rogers to St. Michael capacity expansion:
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/d3/i94/image ... _31_14.pdf

Mdcastle
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby Mdcastle » February 5th, 2014, 11:03 pm

It's interesting that the eastbound lane isn't carried through the MN 101 interchange, but maybe that would make it hard for all the traffic from south 101 to merge on.

mattaudio
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby mattaudio » February 6th, 2014, 8:32 am

Indeed, I thought the same thing. That jersey barrier and extended ramp on the loop from 101 to 94 has really helped solve that choke point. Makes me wonder why the eastbound aux lane is needed. Then again, I wonder why any of this is needed.

twincitizen
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Re: I-94 7th St Ramp in Minneapolis

Postby twincitizen » April 15th, 2014, 12:51 pm

Following up on the new exit to 7th Street, it appears we all slept through an open house two weeks ago: http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/cip/all/WCMS1P-121854

Here's the flyer: http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/gro ... 122662.pdf

Apparently there are two traffic control options, neither of which seem ideal. There have got to be better/smarter ways to calm that traffic coming off the highway than with unnecessary stoplights... arghhh

Smart people should comment to the project manager with their thoughts on the two options. This will be built next summer.

mattaudio
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby mattaudio » April 15th, 2014, 12:59 pm

Wow, this is a city-led project? They sure seem road-centric. "improve the efficiency of Minneapolis' downtown one-way street network" and "Better manage A.M. peak hour traffic volumes" etc. You'd almost forget that these are streets in a neighborhood called Elliot Park.

PhilmerPhil
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby PhilmerPhil » April 15th, 2014, 2:19 pm

Minneapolis really needs separate traffic/streets from Public Works into its own department. This project along with the bottleneck project show that Public Works is completely out of touch with the city's goals. Let's get Shaun Murphy back from Wisconsin and make him head of Minneapolis' new Department of Transportation!

froggie
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby froggie » April 15th, 2014, 5:03 pm

It's long been known (and studied previously) that, with the LRT along 5th, westbound 94 access to downtown is most appropriate along 7th…this was studied extensively/ad nauseum in the Access Minneapolis plan. That part of the project is a no-brainer, plus has the benefit of turning 5th into a local access street that will help connect Cedar-Riverside to Downtown East.

Option A is certainly much better than Option B as far as traffic calming. A roundabout might also work but could get overwhelmed during the AM peak, plus the space requirements for a roundabout would require a lot of excavation on the I-35W side…either retaining walls or additional bridging…which would drive up the cost of that option.

twincitizen
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby twincitizen » April 15th, 2014, 9:05 pm

Why can't the MN-55 ramp go down to one lane in Option A? It's obviously acceptable by the traffic engineers, as seen in Option B. Why have it at 2 lanes in Option A? Under Option A, would traffic coming from 94 and from 55 have two separate signal phases then, as they are allowed to "merge" onto 7th Street? That sounds really dumb. Actually 3 signal phases, if a pedestrian is present, as neither ramp would have a green light. If not two phases for 94 and 55, wouldn't that just be asking for sideswipe accidents?

The worst part about this is that freeway traffic coming onto 7th is almost always going to have the green light. That is really troubling unless we have strict speed enforcement and serious traffic calming. As soon as those lanes hit 7th Street, they should be narrowed to 11' at the maximum, not just west of 12th Ave. 16' outer lanes as cars come flying off the highway? GTFO.

twincitizen
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby twincitizen » April 15th, 2014, 9:12 pm

I'm envisioning (being realistic here):
HAWK signal at 13th Ave.
One 12' lane coming from 55.
Two 12' lanes coming from 94.
Bumpouts at 13th, and lanes narrow to 11' at that point.
Flashing beacons and MPH signs giving the 30MPH limit no doubt.

Frequent fundraisers (aka speed enforcement) with officers lurking on 12th Ave.

mattaudio
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby mattaudio » April 15th, 2014, 9:14 pm

^yes. Same thing I thought. But will there eventually be an east-west bus spine on 9th?

Tcmetro
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby Tcmetro » April 15th, 2014, 10:37 pm

Access Minneapolis wanted to move the 9 bus off of 9th and onto 7th. Recently the 14 was moved over to 4th from 7th, which is useful for the North Loop riders, but inconvenient for everyone else. I don't think we will have any more routes on 7th until bus lanes are striped.

Mdcastle
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby Mdcastle » April 16th, 2014, 6:43 am

Sometimes I think when there's only one realistic option transportation planners throw in a couple of ridiculous ones to reject so it looks like they're actually studying something. I agree with "what are they smoking" in option A. Grants Pass, OR has a similar setup in a similar situation- multiple lanes merging from high speed ramps from the freewayesque bypass into a one way street, but there are two lanes there, not three. It looks like they want a signalized intersection to give pedestrians a chance to cross, so there looking at a two phase at the merge, or at the next street, or else a pedestrian signal at the merge (I'm personally not a fan of HAWKS but it could be one).

twincitizen
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby twincitizen » March 25th, 2015, 8:23 am

Final layout for the new exit to 7th Street, to begin construction mid-summer. Looks like they heeded a bit of my advice above, taking the MN-55 exit to 7th St down to a single lane. I still don't fully understand the signal though, aside from pedestrian purposes. If the intent is to slow cars to 30MPH (from freeway speeds), I don't see how a green light will accomplish that :?:

For (probably infrequent) pedestrians, it seems a HAWK would be more appropriate. I guess I just don't understand what the full signal is for.

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/gro ... 136683.pdf

MNdible
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby MNdible » March 25th, 2015, 9:02 am

I agree that the signal does seem a little strange. Is it possible it's part of a rush hour peak traffic control strategy?

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woofner
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Re: Interstate 94

Postby woofner » March 26th, 2015, 3:59 pm

Given that they have angled the 13th Ave approaches to make it impossible for people on them to see the cars coming from 94 or 55 that they have to merge with, maybe they intend to signalize those movements. I would personally have preferred for the 94 and 55 traffic to each get their own phase, so it would be easier to reduce 7th St to two through lanes someday.
"Who rescued whom!"

trigonalmayhem

Re: Interstate 94

Postby trigonalmayhem » March 27th, 2015, 6:57 am

Considering we've been over engineering roads to favor speed of cars over pedestrian safety for years, I'm totally OK with a reversal of this that actually values human life a small bit.

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jw138
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby jw138 » August 12th, 2015, 12:01 pm

A new MnDOT study on the I-94 corridor between downtown St Paul and downtown Minneapolis is about to kick off:

http://kstp.com/article/stories/s3876761.shtml

Whatever the final scope turns out to be, it looks like at minimum this will be very expensive and time consuming:
Isaacson said he views MnDOT's foremost priorities as repairing and replacing some of the more than 50 bridges along that stretch of highway, and replacing the pavement on some of the more than 80 miles of lanes as well.
[...]
While it's far too early to put a price tag on any work, because the study has not yet begun, Gov. Mark Dayton's recent transportation budget estimated the cost of upgrading the bridges and pavement on that stretch of I-94 alone at about $500 million.
Given that the current ongoing Snelling Ave bridge repair/rebuild work doesn't include a 35W/46th St style center median bus stop, is there any possibility it could still be shoe-horned in sometime in the future? Any potential for this to be an option for other bridge rebuilds along this stretch? Seems like if you're rebuilding a bunch of bridges anyways, why not go a little further with this sort of center median stop? Or, are there just too many sections of the corridor that don't have enough room to push lanes further outwards?

trigonalmayhem

Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby trigonalmayhem » August 12th, 2015, 12:51 pm

My prediction: hot lanes, overpass repairs and nothing at all to improve life for anyone who lives nearby or walks.

mamundsen
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby mamundsen » August 12th, 2015, 12:53 pm

A new MnDOT study on the I-94 corridor between downtown St Paul and downtown Minneapolis is about to kick off:

http://kstp.com/article/stories/s3876761.shtml

Whatever the final scope turns out to be, it looks like at minimum this will be very expensive and time consuming:
Isaacson said he views MnDOT's foremost priorities as repairing and replacing some of the more than 50 bridges along that stretch of highway, and replacing the pavement on some of the more than 80 miles of lanes as well.
[...]
While it's far too early to put a price tag on any work, because the study has not yet begun, Gov. Mark Dayton's recent transportation budget estimated the cost of upgrading the bridges and pavement on that stretch of I-94 alone at about $500 million.
hm... I don't like when numbers get inflated for dramatic embellishment.

50 bridges must be counting each one 4x (N, S, over 94EB, 94WB) and the distance between the downtowns is about 10 miles, x 6 lanes in most spaces... they must be counting the on/off ramps to get to 80 miles.

I would think that there is not interest for center bus stops because of the 16 and Green Line on University are for local traffic. The buses travelling on 94 are for express, whether that be between the downtowns or from DT Mpls to east suburbs.

RailBaronYarr
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Re: Street, Road and Highway Projects

Postby RailBaronYarr » August 12th, 2015, 1:24 pm

A single stop online at Snelling wouldn't add much time to those express buses, but would be pretty good for expanding transit connections, inbound and outbound. It's not that crazy to think the Gateway BRT could just continue on as an all-day 94 bus into downtown Minneapolis with a stop at Snelling along the way (with a big connection to the A Line). An HOT lane would provide enough time savings to justify the slight slowdown. As a daily rider of the 94, I'd take that tradeoff.


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