Twin Cities Streets for People

There is an opportunity to create a more humane, livable Hiawatha Avenue, and, to try out a metaphor, now may be the time to step out in to the intersection and begin our journey across. Hiawatha Avenue should become an urban boulevard that unites neighborhoods rather than divides them, particularly near light rail stations where pedestrian counts have steadily increased since light rail service began and development continues to occur. What’s nice is I’m not the only one who believes this. Read more >

When I first came across this image of a roundabout with dedicated tunnels for bikes and pedestrians, I thought I had somehow wandered onto David Hembrow's blog about cycling in the Netherlands, but no, it turns out this is an image of an American roundabout.  A Minnesotan roundabout. A Woodburian roundabout.

A roundabout in Woodbury?  With two lanes, bike paths, and tunnels?  Yep.

A few weeks ago, Mike Spack linked to an online presentation by Joe Gustafson of Washington County Public Works that covered the project.  It's the first fully two-lane roundabout in the state, so the county used it to experiment a bit and collected extra data about its performance—hence the reason for the presentation.

However, the main thing that jumped at me was the roundabout's location: It's at the intersection of Radio Drive and Bailey Road.  You might remember Bailey Road from news stories earlier this year about Gordon Bailey Elementary School.  It became a cause célèbre for Minnesota urbanists after it was reported that of the 620 students, none of them walked or rode bicycles to school.

A 55-mph speed limit at an elementary school?

Now, I don't want to sound like a ratchety old fart talking about walking in eight-foot snowdrifts uphill both ways, but I did grow up in the southeastern Minnesota town of Byron, where kids within the city limits were (at the time) required to make their own way to and from school—whether it was by walking, biking, or getting a ride from a family member.  I mostly walked, but did ride my bike or get rides on occasion.  One of the main roads to my elementary school had a speed limit of 15 miles per hour, while others were normally 30 but restricted to 20 mph when students were present.

Because I grew up with a school on a slow street, I'm always amazed to see schools such as Bailey placed next to 55-mph suburban arterials.  Unfortunately, it has been a common practice in the United States for the past few decades.

Roads such as this can be deadly for students.  For me, this reality  came into stark relief when I was in high school—a student in nearby Kasson was killed crossing the 40-mph Mantorville Avenue (Minnesota State Highway 57) near that city's high school. He was hit fast enough to be lifted out of his shoes—the mental image of empty sneakers marking a crash victim's last footsteps is something that always sticks with me.

Gordon Bailey Elementary's main entrance to the west side parking lot.

Due to my own experiences, I'm inclined to think that parents and kids feel unsafe crossing Bailey Road, and that's why every student gets driven or bused to school.  In the original reporting on the subject, parents gave a variety of reasons for driving their children, but the school's location still sticks out like a sore thumb.

So, how do you make this road—out on the edge of the urban boundary—feel safe?  Ideally, I'd like to see schools located in town centers, like the elementary I grew up with.  Built up near the edge of streets that are designed to be slow, even if the slow area only lasts a block or so.

The school's closest intersection, a 4-way stop at Bailey Road and Woodlane Drive.

But here, we're dealing with an established facility that's on roads that are made for high speed.  Reducing the speed limit might help, but a road lined on one side by farmland is unlikely to be driven slowly.  Wide open spaces encourage wide open throttles, so a reduced speed limit would likely be ignored.

In this case, it seems the best option is to completely separate pedestrian traffic from the road, allowing people to get from one side to the other without having to wait for cars to pass or stop.

Tunnels or bridges across the road are the way to accomplish that.  Expensive solutions, but worth the money because they will save lives.  Certainly criticism would follow any such proposals, but critics should also recognize that they are usually remedies to problems that never should have existed in the first place.  Unwalkable locations bring latent costs with them, and building special grade-separated walkways just makes those hidden costs visible.

Schools should be built in walkable places, period.  They are engines of community, and should be treated as such.

It’s like we’re starting to connect the dots, but we aren’t quite there yet. I wonder if parents in Eagan were reading the Strong Towns blog last week? KSTP reported yesterday that they were contact by concerned parents in Eagan about pedestrian safety at a local school [Walk Score: 29].

[NOTE: I can't embed this video, so you'll have to make due with this: http://www.kstp.com/article/12303/?vid=2948385&v=1]

Read more >

Children don’t walk to school because they lack sidewalks and safe street crossings. This claim by the experts is true, but doesn’t tell the whole story. Suburban neighborhoods often have no sidewalks besides the occasional winding pathway that connects one edge of the subdivision through a poorly defined park towards the other end in a curvy, non-direct way and large suburban road crossings can be scary. The crossing near Bailey Elementary in Woodbury has a crosswalk, but no stop lights to halt the 55 mph traffic. Read more >

This is “open space”- between the rear of the Super Target and the parking lot for the pancake house. It has a bike path that connects virtually no one to no where. It’s convenient if you want to bike from the Original Pancake House, behind the Target, down a quarter of a mile of big box loading docks, past the Chucky Cheese to the Office Max. Read more >

The initial plan for a reconstructed Nicollet between Lake and 40th Sts had a 42' wide roadway with bump-outs. While the design primarily encouraged through car traffic and car storage, slight accommodation was made for the high level of pedestrian traffic.   You can see the layout here.

After lobbying by the local business association, the width appears likely to be increased to 44' and all bump-outs eliminated.  The new layout does nothing for pedestrians, cyclists or transit users, and cannot be considered a complete street in any way except that non-motorized and transit users are not explicitly banned. Read more >

Join the Minnesota Department of Health, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, the Minnesota Safe Routes to School Network and local partners for a Safe Routes to School (SRTS) planning workshop!
 
“Safe Routes for Healthy Kids: How to Develop a Comprehensive Safe Routes to School Plan” will help your local SRTS team:

• Develop expertise in Safe Routes to School planning
• Identify action steps for the next 12 months
• Position your community to be competitive for funding to support SRTS

The workshops will be held:
Mankato: January 25; 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Marshall: February 8; 1:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Alexandria: February 9; 10:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Bloomington: February 17; 1:00 – 4:00 p.m.

  Read more >

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources -DNR is working to obtain feedback from minnesotans on their "Minnesota Park and trails Legacy Plan".. Read more >

A reminder! Mn/DOT is working on an update to their bike map (last one was completed in 2001). December is the last month to take the survey and provide your input. Take the survey and read the intent of the project... Read more >

New film from Streetfilms highlights Portland's Bicycle Boulevards, now called "Neighborhood Greenways." They have elements of complete streets, as well as systems of integrated onsite storm water management. These types of treatments continue to give Portland national attention as a leader in bicycle infrastructure.