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Shared-Use Paths Create ConflictsApril 3, 2025 (The survey expires tomorrow!) Project contacts: Kelly Agosto, project manager - kelly.agosto@hennepin.us Michael Rainville, City Council - ward3@minneapolismn.gov Marshall Street’s reconstruction plans are proceeding. The county has proposed three concepts. Two include protected bike lanes. One includes a wider sidewalk with bicycles allowed (shared-use path). Shared-use paths create conflicts between pedestrians and riders. Please tell Hennepin County that we do not want the shared-use path. This is not transportation-oriented infrastructure. Please select Concept 2’s one-way bike lanes that agree with the direction of traffic rather than the other Concepts that move riders in a direction that will not be expected by drivers. Here is how I answered question 3 on the county’s Marshall St survey, “What elements of concept 1/2/3 best meet your personal needs? What elements best meet the community’s needs?” Fist off, Marshall is Northeast’s river parkway. This is our access to the waterfront. Minneapolis parkways do not make families cross more than two car lanes to get to the water and never has more than one lane of parking. These plans put as much as 5 lanes of pavement between people and the river. That’s a significant separation of our river asset from Northeast Minneapolis. No portion of Marshall (which eventually turns into Main Street’s cobblestone) should be more than 3 lanes of pavement and all crossings should be 2 lanes of pavement. Minneapolis municipal speed limit is 20 mph. Hennepin County streets are mandated to have a 30 mph speed MINIMUM. Combine this with extra lanes of pavement and Marshall will continue to separate Northeasters from the riverfront. Next, shared-use paths (bikes and pedestrians) create unnecessary conflicts between walkers and riders. Individual walkers tend to do a surprising amount of “wandering” back and forth across a sidewalk. People walking in pairs or more tend to take up much more than the sidewalk as well. Both of these situations are fine when “traffic” moves at walking speed. Conflicts can be seen coming with plenty of time to adjust. But people on bikes travel much faster than walkers and seem to appear out of nowhere, especially when approaching pedestrians from behind. These surprises are very disruptive to a river stroll and dangerous when pedestrians make erratic movements across a path. Crashes between walkers and bikers happen much more frequently when these two travelers are put in the same space. It’s also slow and inefficient transportation that will discourage people from replacing car trips with bike trips. Concept two's one-way bike-ways are the safest option. Two-way paths create a situation where riders are traveling in a direction that drivers generally don't expect. This will be especially pronounced when drivers turn left across a two-way bike-way, in this case off of Marshall. Drivers will be focused on car traffic coming directly toward them. They are likely to see bike riders coming directly toward them as well. Bike riders coming from behind their cars present an unnecessary complication. Drivers here are likely to often forget (or not be aware at all) that riders may be coming from behind them. If a driver doesn't check behind them as they turn left, they are likely to miss people on bikes. This will result in crashes. The visibility of bike riders will be further reduced by their distance from the traffic lanes. Riders in all of these concepts will be quite far away from a turning driver’s focus on car traffic. In many cases, riders will be beyond a parking lane and a tree-lined boulevard making them well beyond a driver’s field of vision when drivers are focusing on cars. Protected bike lanes should be adjacent to car lanes to make riders visible to drivers. Last, but certainly not least, sidewalk-level bike lanes look like sidewalks to many drivers. In Minneapolis sidewalks generally contain slow moving, non-threatening pedestrians. Sidewalks on cross streets are often ignored by drivers approaching an intersection, especially drivers in a hurry. Too many drivers “skate” through crosswalks and stop at the first lane of traffic that crosses their path. If the bike lanes are at street level, these drivers are much more likely to regard them as traffic lanes and stop in time to allow bike riders to pass safely. This is another reason to move protected bike lanes close to traffic lanes. Drivers who skate through crosswalks get slower and slower the closer they get to the crossing car lanes. A driver slowing for car lanes but ignoring crosswalks is going much faster 15 or 20 feet prior stopping. If the bike lanes are 15 or 20 feet away from the car lanes, bike riders will encounter cars crossing their path at much higher speeds. Take the Marshall Street survey here and tell the county that Northeast deserves safe transportation options on the Marshall Parkway. Write to project lead Kelly Agosto (remember to CC City Council Member Rainville): Kelly Agosto, project manager kelly.agosto@hennepin.us Ward 3 City Council Member Michael Rainville ward3@minneapolismn.gov |
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Marshall is Designed for Speeding(Northeast Deserves a Parkway) March 11, 2025 Come to the Public Open House Monday March 17, 5-7pm at Pierre Bottineau Library (Connected to the Grain Belt Brewery on Marshall and Broadway) Project contacts: Kelly Agosto, project manager - kelly.agosto@hennepin.us Michael Rainville, City Council - ward3@minneapolismn.gov The Minneapolis parkways end when they get to Northeast. The Grand Rounds stops at St Anthony Parkway. The River Road doesn't make it through the U of M. Marshall St is Northeast’s river road and our access to the riverfront. It should be our parkway. It should highlight the Mississippi as an asset rather than separate us from the water with traffic. And Marshall is finally being reconstructed. This is no mere resurfacing project. This is an opportunity to change our neighborhoods for decades to come. This is a chance to reconnect Northeast with parts of the river that were separated generations ago. If we get this right, we will have safer streets, a more vibrant waterfront, and activated commercial and park spaces. At the moment, Marshall NE goes from a literal 4-lane divided highway to a cobblestone pedestrian mall. Hennepin County recently resurfaced Marshall north of Lowry offering Fridley freeway drivers clean smooth pavement, wide lanes, and crisp white paint as they enter Northeast’s neighborhoods. This gives high speed traffic a clear shot all the way to the aptly named Betty Danger’s ferris wheel where Hennepin County plans to mix Lowry’s shared pedestrian and bicycle path with the 50 mph traffic coming down from Fridley’s four lane highway. The Marshall resurfacing project increased traffic speeds (as resurfacing projects often do). The 35 mph signs do little to slow the freeway traffic as it enters Minneapolis. Marshall north of Lowry is DESIGNED for 50 mph traffic. We should not be surprised when drivers let the road tell them how fast to go. (The Minneapolis municipal speed limit is 20 mph.) This is bad design. Marshall NE is fast and loud and it reduces the value of the waterfront for Northeast residents and visitors. Crossing bad design with mixed traffic (cars, bikes, peds) is a recipe for fear, injury, and death. But it’s too late for Marshall north of Lowry. The redesign area is focused on everything south of Lowry. This makes it that much more important that the design of the new street prevents Marshall’s traffic speeds from continuing into the residential neighborhoods south of Lowry.  Main St SE - 11/6/24 The current design calls for FIVE lanes for cars in most places. This is a traffic lane in each direction, two parking lanes, and a turn lane. This is a lot of pavement to cross when you want to bring your kids to the park for a walk. And it's a recipe for speeding. Wide swaths of pavement move objects away from cars and give drivers a sense of security, making it feel comfortable to drive faster. When we drive close to fixed objects on the side of the road, we have a better sense of our relative speed. It makes us more engaged. It makes us more cautious. A parking lane full of parked cars can actually provide this feeling of "edge friction." We definitely don't want to hit parked cars. We don't want to hit a door that suddenly swings open. And we don't want to hit a person that might appear from between parked cars. This causes us to naturally drive slower. But this is all reversed when a parking lane is empty. Suddenly there is another ten feet between us and anything coming into our lane. This causes us to NATURALLY drive faster. This is bad design. Faster traffic is obviously more dangerous. It's also louder. And it is less conducive to enjoying the riverfront. We have let Northeast's "parkway" be dominated by traffic for generations. Broadway to the St Anthony Parkway is the only part of the river without a parkway (in Minneapolis). Now is our only chance to correct this. Marshall should be designed for Minneapolis' 20mph municipal speed limit. This is the road that becomes Main St SE where people walking dogs comfortably cross the cobblestones in front of the Main Cinema and the Stone Arch Bridge. Main Street’s activated pedestrian infrastructure should extend all along the riverfront to give Northeast a true parkway. The Marshall parkway needs (and Northeast deserves) a 20mph riverfront. This means accentuating Marshall’s curves to keep drivers engaged. It means day-lit crossings so peds and bikes can see and be seen. It means medians to create pedestrian refuges as we cross the street and to reduce the amount of time people spend in front of traffic. And it means a maximum of three lanes in any particular spot: a traffic lane in each direction plus one other lane. This can be parking on one side of the st. It can be a turn lane here or there. It cannot be all cars all of the time. Marshall is a Hennepin County street and state statute overrides Minneapolis regulations and mandates a MINIMUM 30mph speed limit. This should be changed. In the meantime, Marshall needs every traffic calming measure we can throw at it to ensure that 30mph doesn't become 40mph as it does everywhere else in Mpls. (Read about more traffic calming elements here.) These are the protections that will keep families safe while they access the parks on the riverfront. Marshall can be better. Lending your voice to the project empowers planners and engineers to advocate for safety. Learn about the upcoming project and tell Hennepin County we want a street designed for the neighborhood, not for suburban freeway traffic. Write to project lead Kelly Agosto (remember to CC City Council Member Rainville): Kelly Agosto, project manager kelly.agosto@hennepin.us Ward 3 City Council Member Michael Rainville ward3@minneapolismn.gov |
The Mississippi River from the Camden Bridge. (9/5/21)
Here’s a note from a Northeaster who regularly navigates Minneapolis by bike and by foot: I hope to see the new Marshall Street reconstruction allow for easy bicycle access to the new riverfront trails at Graco Park as well as the upcoming bike/pedestrian bridge at 1720 NE Marshall St with [bike lanes that minimize back and forth crossings as we travel along Marshall]. I would love to see the bidirectional bike path extended from about 1600 Marshall to the proposed landing of the new bike and pedestrian bridge [at 18th] just a block or two north. This will facilitate a road-free stretch between North Minneapolis and the riverfront trails down to Boom Island. North of the proposed pedestrian bridge, however, I think a unidirectional bike lane on each side of Marshall (mirroring vehicular traffic) would allow for seamless transition to Marshall Street north of Lowry. Should there be a bidirectional path limited to one side of the road all the way up to Lowry, one would need to do a diagonal crossing at the Lowry/Marshall intersection, which is neither safe nor efficient given the vehicular traffic there. Lastly, I do hope that there is infrastructure for safe and easy bike/pedestrian crossing of Marshall at the new bridge. Ideally, one would be able to stop vehicular traffic with a red light (see SE 5th St [at Broadway]/SE 10th Ave intersection) to facilitate safe passage of this busy roadway. In short, I hope you keep in mind the growing and changing bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure along this roadway as you plan for this road redesign. |
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