Northeast and Southeast Minneapolis - General Topics

[Silophant]

The new one in Mankato at Hwy. 22 and Madison Ave. has been pretty effective. There's a lot of left turns there though, which isn't as much of a thing at Hennepin/Central. I think roundabouts are mor effective than traffic lights at complex intersections like this one, though. Even if you move slowly through it, that's mentally easier to deal than being stopped to wait for the interminable light cycle here.

[xandrex]

Does anyone have any real issues getting through this intersection. Living a few blocks away from here, I drive or ride the bus through it nearly every day. Even at rush hour, when it is quite packed, traffic moves pretty quickly. The lights are actually pretty short so you rarely wait more than a minute total.

Another benefit of the current design is that if you know how to navigate the intersection as a pedestrian, it's actually pretty quick. Because there are three streets that need signals, pedestrians actually get a lot of long walk cycles. With a little tweaking for a few kinks in certain walk-cycle combos and making that pedestrian island ADA compliant (it's embarrassingly bad with its ped ramps), it could really be useful as-is. I'd be a little concerned with how busy the two streets are that a roundabout would become hostile to pedestrians and--perhaps even moreso--to bikers, as 5th Street is a designated bike boulevard.

[MNdible]

I don't think you can fit a roundabout into the current ROW, and anything that distends the historic street faces would be a major bummer. We don't have a lot of flatiron blocks in this city, and to ruin one just so we can jam in a poorly performing roundabout seems like a bad trade.

[mattaudio]

A roundabout would be ideal given how skewed intersections are so awful from a sightline, signal timing, crossing distance, etc perspective.

[twincitizen]

Is it crucial that 5th St allow through-traffic there, in both directions (for automobiles)?

Could that little piece of 5th St be vacated, or partially vacated and reduced to a single direction for autos, to make the development parcel bigger (and even pointier)? Bike-ped access would be maintained in either full or partial street vacation scenario. Obviously it would present an inconvenience to some motorists, but I suspect the number is quite small. Or is that not possible or not particularly useful? Seems like the developer would at least ask about it. The development parcel could extend a little further out beyond the current property line at 5th, leaving the triangular piece for a ped plaza and thru-access for bikes.

[xandrex]

You could probably narrow the street a little, but it's already one lane in each direction. The rest is bike lane.

I think the issue with vacating the space for cars is that there are already a dearth of connections over the railroad just to the west of here. The only others are University (already a busy road) and 7th, which is not contiguous. Removing it would also make it all but impossible to for any car on 5th to get onto Central or Hennepin because there would almost always be cars queuing there at the intersection.

Plus, Webster is opening back up soon as the "downtown elementary school," and it's located on 5th.

[MNdible]

The ROW certainly looks like it could be reduced, especially if the bus stop could be relocated to the far side of Central.

I'd argue against eliminating the access at 5th, because at least for northbound circulation, it serves an important function.

[PhilmerPhil]

Build a triangular building all the way to the corner, with a cut through for bikes and peds, like so:

[Tyler]

What do you think should be done, MNdible? As it sits now it sucks for all involved (peds/bikes, cars, and property owners/businesses)

[MNdible]

As I noted above, I think that the 5th Street ROW could be reduced fairly significantly, and bumpouts could be added on Central. Looks like it would be more problematic to add them to Hennepin.

Aside from that, I'd probably consider the fact that this is a busy intersection trying to pack a bunch of users into a limited space and accept the fact that it's not going to be perfect for anybody.

[xandrex]

What do you think should be done, MNdible? As it sits now it sucks for all involved (peds/bikes, cars, and property owners/businesses)

Does it really suck? Or is it just a busy intersection?

I live here and have (mostly) no issues. It is a congested, but fairly free-flowing intersection that has short light cycles. In all of the businesses I've visited around here, they've never complained about it (what would be their complaint?). I've never had issues driving or biking through. Walking is a problem at only one or two of the crosswalks, which could be tweaked. Despite unideal geometry, I haven't encountered any problems. I experience more issues at University/Central than Hennepin/Central/5th.

And yet, there are plenty of new problems that would emerge by redesigning here, including a pointless roundabout for traffic that largely doesn't turn, cutting off yet another NE/SE access point (and a SE/downtown one too, since it would cut First Avenue NE off), and potential queuing issues.

95 percent of this is a solution looking for a problem to fix.

[Tyler]

Hmm. I use this intersection a ton in my car and on foot and yeah I think it sucks. You find the light cycles short? Interesting. And I don't mean the businesses are complaining about it. I mean the environment created by the intersection is not conducive to them. But yeah, maybe nothing can really be done about it.

[xandrex]

I just don't see a reasonable solution that actually fixes the problem. Some propose a roundabout, but I think that fixes traffic flow (except, I think, during rush hour) while not improving walkability and almost certainly harming bikability.

I regularly spent more time sitting at First Avenue NE and Fourth Street (sometimes minutes), which almost certainly handles less traffic than I do at the Henn/Central/5th intersection. Hennepin and Central both seem to have maybe 20-25 second light cycles and 5th has a very short one (but peds get longer to cross using segments of 5th because of how the cycles work).

The real fix would have been to not have two major streets intersect like this from the start (perhaps by unskewing the grid closer to the river). But, alas, it's what we have to work with. Narrow Central and 5th, expand the pedestrian island (and maybe add some greening), make everything ADA compliant, and fix a few ped timers. It won't be perfect, but it's kind of what you have to deal with when these are the only two routes that head north across the river from downtown.

[Wedgeguy]

One has to remember that these streets were platted out nearly 100 years ago. long before traffic was an issue. When you are using well worn cow paths to make your routes, you are always going to have perfect corners. The river running skewed does not help thing either.

[mattaudio]

Lots of gold in the USDG http://nacto.org/usdg/intersections/com ... rsections/
http://nacto.org/usdg/intersections/com ... -analysis/

If we were to keep 1st and Hennepin as two way, why not reroute southbound Central onto 1st, then east a block on 5th, turning right into southbound Central once again. 5th towards Marcy-Holmes could be RIRO on Central. We could reduce lanes and simplify traffic flow by effectively creating a large circle with 1st/Henn/7th/5th with northbound Central as a cut-through. Just one of many options to simplify things, increase space for people, and reduce the need for massive queuing spaces and skewed intersections for motorists.

[bapster2006]

Showing what's currently on the triangle lot where Hennepin Ave and Central Ave intersect. Good spot for something creative.

I froze my face walking around the neighborhood for you people.

Hennepin Ave - Central Ave triangle corner 2-13-15 by bapster2006, on Flickr

[kiliff75]

Haha I was planning on making some sarcastic comment about why no one took any pics today...guess not!

[bapster2006]

Ha ha, the wind on the Central Avenue bridge over the river was pretty rough but I enjoy things like that. I plan on taking the same pics around the neighborhood in five or 10 years so I have a nice before and after comparison.

[MNdible]

Thanks for the shots, Bapster!

[bapster2006]

You are very welcome!