urbanMSP

Interchanges like the ones on 610 do not, and should not need pedestrian crossings along the main road. They should have specific ped bridges going over the freeway and keep pedestrians away from interchange.

I could get behind that. At least we're then realizing that the junior facility at the interchange is also a road (in need of something like a sidepath) and not a street (something which should accommodate non-vehicular users) or a stroad for that matter. But in the absence of actual things like sidepaths and ped bridges, we end up with situations like Snelling/36 where pedestrians commonly walk across a bridge in the middle of a cloverleaf. I like the solution, if we resolve to build it.

What exactly does "horribly designed and inadequate" mean? A design that takes up too much precious real estate? A design that is not compatible with transit or walking? A design that costs too much money to build? It seems to me that interchages on 610 are some of the worst designed in the metro.

I certainly wouldnt consider those interchanges to be unfriendly to transit. The express bus I take daily does just fine and doesn't back up the other automobiles it shares the road with either thanks to the design.

There is also ample room for pedestrian crossing so I wonder if you have actually ever physically been to the area.

The overuse of cloverleafs, shared exit and entrance lanes coming from said cloverleafs and other merging points are key contributors to this classification. My experience here has found that much of the congestion flows from the aforementioned flawed design elements. You must not travel outside of Minnesota much since you seem unaware of better functioning designs.

The purpose of a freeway is to move traffic quickly and efficiently.

I certainly wouldnt consider those interchanges to be unfriendly to transit. The express bus I take daily does just fine and doesn't back up the other automobiles it shares the road with either thanks to the design.

Friendly to transit usually goes hand in hand with being a pedestrian in the area since after getting off transit you are immediately a pedestrian. And if the point of transit here is simply to deliver a person to their parked car you kind of concede the area is not designed for getting around as a pedestrian.

There is also ample room for pedestrian crossing so I wonder if you have actually ever physically been to the area.

Room for pedestrians doesn't compensate for a design that is hostile to being a pedestrian in the area. It is a freeway after all, made for moving motor traffic efficiently.

The overuse of cloverleafs, shared exit and entrance lanes coming from said cloverleafs and other merging points are key contributors to this classification. My experience here has found that much of the congestion flows from the aforementioned flawed design elements. You must not travel outside of Minnesota much since you seem unaware of better functioning designs.

The purpose of a freeway is to move traffic quickly and efficiently.

At a cost that must be paid over and over through its lifecycles, not just to get it built. Congestion-free uber allies is compelling. The most congestion-free experience is also the most land consuming design. Property that can no longer provide support for the infrastructure being built. It is efficient at moving motor vehicles, but not efficient at paying for the maintenance of itself. If we accept a bit of congestion in places by having more compact freeway interchanges we can generate more revenue to pay for supporting it in the future.

You must not travel outside of Minnesota much since you seem unaware of better functioning designs.

Yes, I've been to outposts of hell with stacks.
This is not a place. http://goo.gl/maps/yKKgE

Shouldnt an interchange also be built to support the uses of the area? Not some urbanists dream of what would benefit him the most?

It is funny how some on this forum complain non stop about the suburbs and people that live in them, and then expect those suburbs to be built like downtown Minneapolis. But hey, let's just design everything in this world around pedestrians and cyclists.

Shouldnt an interchange also be built to support the uses of the area?

No. Why should people massively subsidize those who choose land uses supported by interchanges, when those land uses aren't valuable enough financially to justify the investment? It's easy. We just need market reforms to end the massive subsidy of places like the 610 corridor.

Shouldnt an interchange also be built to support the uses of the area?

That is exactly what many are objecting to the geometry of the these interchanges. It is the inverse. The area around the interchanges will never support the immensity of the interchanges—over the future life cycles—the way the area is developed. It doesn't need to be downtown-like to do so, that is an unfair charge.

Some of the comments are ridiculous. These interchanges are hardly massive. They actually support the traffic levels in the area. I don't follow the subsidy argument either.

Explain how these interchanges aren't supported by the immediate area. You obviously don't live around here to see the daily traffic pattern.

The density in the area isn't that conducive to pedestrian needs. One can easily walk across these interchanges at the crossing with out issue as they have signals and aren't ridiculously large. How are these anymore unfriendly to pedestrians than any of the freeway interchanges in the city? Now 252 has some unfriendly crossings but those are not the same as the set up along 610 in Brooklyn Park.

In order to show what I mean when I say "massive" I grabbed some equal scale maps, see the scale in the upper left corner. They take up tremendous amounts of real estate with arguably unnecessarily long ramps. I realized the land around 610 is effectively banked for future development, these aren't to show how they "Aren't being used". All are pretty good examples of places hostile to peds and bikes.
494 and 100 by xeoth, on Flickr
494 and 100
610 and 169 by xeoth, on Flickr
610 and 169
France and 62 by xeoth, on Flickr
62 and France
610 and Zane by xeoth, on Flickr
610 and Zane
494 and Penn by xeoth, on Flickr
494 and Penn
610 and Noble by xeoth, on Flickr
610 and Noble

The density in the area isn't that conducive to pedestrian needs.

Agreed. But is there any effort alter that to make it so?

One can easily walk across these interchanges at the crossing with out issue as they have signals and aren't ridiculously large. How are these anymore unfriendly to pedestrians than any of the freeway interchanges in the city?

These aren't necessarily more hostile, maybe a little less than the 252 crossings where there have been pedestrian deaths over the years. What builds up pedestrian "hostility" are great the distances between everything. Related is the (low) number of crossings and distance between crossings. The beg button themselves, rather than just granting a go light for pedestrians as cars get goes with unfriendliness, because almost always these buttons are rarely (or very late) shoveled out when snow piles making it a challenge to people in scooters and wheelchairs to request permission to cross.

A lot of the land in the middle of the new interchanges is stormwater ponds. That land can't be developed anyway. Theoretically the ponds could go elsewhere nearby or the ramps could go inside of the ponds, but then the overpasses would need to be wider for turn lanes. Also, the speed limit on 62 is 55, while the speed limit on 610 is 65 so the substandard ramps on 62 aren't as much as an issue. We shouldn't stay stuck in the 1960s for engineering standards. We build bridges better and we build interchanges better.

Also, Keeping in mind what would realistically go there would likely be a gas station or more single family houses, not a stack and pack urbanist fantasy, I'm not sure why it makes much of a difference. The total of the tax revenue they'd generate minus the city services they need can't be that big in total.

That's a bizarre argument -- the land became undevelopable because the interchange was added, which is what Anondson was arguing.

I think it's good to point out that the entire UK road network only ever had three cloverleaf interchanges, and now they're down to two: one in Headless Cross and another in Livingston (the third, former interchange is just northeast of there). Typical interchanges tend to include some sort of roundabout, which often lets them be smaller than what's normal in the US, but when they do get big, they often do allow room within the arcing roadways to either develop some land or retain it as farmland.

I don't hold up the UK as the ultimate paragon of good street/highway design or urban planning, since they've fallen into many of the same traps as American planners, but they have restrained sprawl more than we have here. The island of Great Britain is very similar in area to Minnesota, but they have 60 million people (Scotland alone has a population similar to Minnesota).

Can you imagine Minnesota with that many people? It would be a disaster if we had that many people and kept on with the typical suburban development pattern.

A lot of the land in the middle of the new interchanges is stormwater ponds. That land can't be developed anyway. Theoretically the ponds could go elsewhere nearby or the ramps could go inside of the ponds, but then the overpasses would need to be wider for turn lanes. Also, the speed limit on 62 is 55, while the speed limit on 610 is 65 so the substandard ramps on 62 aren't as much as an issue. We shouldn't stay stuck in the 1960s for engineering standards. We build bridges better and we build interchanges better.

Also, Keeping in mind what would realistically go there would likely be a gas station or more single family houses, not a stack and pack urbanist fantasy, I'm not sure why it makes much of a difference. The total of the tax revenue they'd generate minus the city services they need can't be that big in total.

This is spot on. With the exception of the 494/Penn bridge the others are all also examples of poorly functioning interchanges. Penn has a really cool design and works well especially as cloverleaf hybrid.

Cloverleafs in general are horrible. That is why most other metros have stopped using them. I am guessing MnDot has 1 holdover engineer from the 60's who just won't retire.

The other important point is that these 610 interchanges have holding ponds and have some nice forestation that has developed. The holding ponds would need to be somewhere so I don't think blaming 610's development is really valid. The amount of usable land lost here is neglible.

I would welcome some density along the corridor and have shares the opinion with the city's planning forum.

If more of the freeways were designed like 610 we would likely have less congestion.

Suburbs: Where we need holding ponds and forestation because we've built freeways over the real ponds and forests.

"Nature is present!"

I am thoroughly confused by the self-contradictory statements going on here.

Cloverleafs are kind of OK for moderate traffic volumes where traffic lights are unacceptable. Say 169 and 610, or 14 and I-35. Obviously they don't work so well at I-35W and I-494. But given how severely underfunded the roads are, and how stacks are problematic from snow removal means we're stuck with them.

Fixed.

Cities: Where we need 8' storm sewers with treatment plants and junkyard landfills->rail yards->'parks' because we've built over the real ponds and forests.

It's clear people do not understand The Original Green.

By that metric, Manhattan is an environmental disaster looking at the green space per acre and the runoff demand. Manhattan, worse for the environment than Brooklyn Park!

Or maybe it's better to have one part urban land to many parts rural land, rather than having a large portion of rural land consumed for "low-impact" development.

So now we are comparing Manhattan to Brooklyn Park? Got it.

And let's not sit around and pretend that NYC doesn't have their version of Brooklyn Park....or 50 of them for that matter.

Yeah you're totally missing the point here aren't you.