urbanMSP

I notice that north of 42nd street east of 35W tree coverage is much more sparse in Powderhorn and Phillips. Also many sidewalks don't have boulevards and trees. South of 42nd street tree coverage is much more dense. You can see it on Google Maps just about anywhere. What is up with that?

Wasn't this an area that was throttled with storm damage in recent years? I'm not talking about the path through North that is seen on aerial imagery. I remember South Minneapolis also getting hit by a less-than-North Minneapolis like storm.

South Minneapolis had a ton of trees down last year. I remember because powderhorn looked like a tornado went through

Ah that's right. i remember it hit Longfellow, didnt' realize all the way to 35 too.

There was tornadoes in 2009 too.

There was a straight-line wind storm that took out a lot of trees in south Minneapolis on June 21, 2013. Here's a description of the storm from the national weather service:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/mpx/News ... June21.pdf

And a map of the tree damage:
http://minneapolis411.files.wordpress.c ... ge_map.jpg

Also, if you drive on Portland at about 42nd street you'll notice all the trees are less than 10 years old, I think related to the tornado that went through there in 2009(?).

Here's the North Minneapolis tornado path.

North MPLS tornado by xeoth, on Flickr

For comparison, the stretches in South Minneapolis. Especially compare with the map linked to by kiliff75, there is a darker green band in the aerial images as the exact location as the path of most damage in June 2013. Interesting.

South MPLS trees by xeoth, on Flickr

There was an almost-tornado in 2009, yes. It was the same storm/almost-tornado that knocked in the roof of the Electric Fetus. There was a legitimate fear that it was going to hit downtown. I remember because I had just bought my house in February that year and was terrified that I'd come home to find the gigantic maple in my backyard through my roof. Thankfully (for me), my place was OK. But driving Portland south from downtown is a perfect way to see the extent of the damage to the north.

There was an actual-tornado in 2009. It went up Portland from about 44th St, then past the Wells Fargo campus and Electric Fetus, ending at the south end of downtown (felling the steeple on Central Lutheran). I was house shopping at the time, looked at a house on 43rd and Portland, and about an hour later there was a tree through the roof. It took down most of the tree canopy on Portland between 38th and 42nd.

We're clearly talking about the same storm

As a weather nerd...it is a pet peeve of mine when people always think if there is bad damage it has to be a tornado. Straight line winds can be just as bad, and are usually more widespread. Straight line winds can easily be over 100mph in a broad area. That was what the June 2013 storm was...there was also a very bad straight line wind event in May of 1998 that I remember very well. The 2009 storm, as mentioned above, was indeed a weak F0 tornado, that was really interesting actually. There weren't even any thunderstorms around, it was just a very large fall like low pressure system that had just enough spin to drop that weak tornado.

End weather nerding out:)

Wasn't this an area that was throttled with storm damage in recent years? I'm not talking about the path through North that is seen on aerial imagery. I remember South Minneapolis also getting hit by a less-than-North Minneapolis like storm.

Yep. That was back in '08 or so. My then-gf, now-wife lived very near to the path of that tornado.

Portland around 42nd or so and points south looks like the new subdivision it was in the '20's. It's pretty eerie but shows just how important mature trees are to the urban feel of a place.

Aside from weather events, many former streetcar routes / current bus routes are lacking boulevards and the difference is very noticeable. Grand Avenue South is lacking boulevards and trees from Lake to at least 34th, then it seems the boulevards and trees return. The southern stretch, from 36th to 46th, is definitely less-navigable for buses. Like I don't see how the status quo is even acceptable.

As far as what we could do to improve those boulevard-less areas, personally, I'd rather restore the boulevards and trees on those streets and go down to one-side parking (maybe even just during the day when buses are running frequently).

Anyone know if those boulevards were removed back in the streetcar era (or never existed)? Or was it something that happened later to accommodate wider buses and their less-predictable movements?

With 35W north being closed over the weekend (and my girlfriend living in Richfield), I took several different routes and got a good look at quite a few of these streets.

Combined with the weather event discussed above, 4th Ave South seems to have suffered doubly, having no boulevard to begin with and being stripped of its mature trees.

EDIT: Bryant is sans boulevard all the way down to 50th (extent of bus route), while Grand only lacks boulevard from Lake to 34th (buses continue to 46th). Of course, the buses on Grand run much less frequently and are all limited/branch routes to begin with. You wouldn't want mainline Route 4 buses on Bryant experiencing the ridiculously narrow conditions you see on Grand. I stand by the above statement/suggestion: if boulevards are valued, then lets bring them back and restrict parking to one-side (probably 24/7 restriction on Bryant).

Hear hear!

Many east-west streets also lack boulevards/trees, lack demand for on-street parking (resulting in far too much pavement width), and suffer the further injustice of overhead electrical lines. 38th Street, 46th Street, etc.

Hear hear!

Many east-west streets also lack boulevards/trees, lack demand for on-street parking (resulting in far too much pavement width), and suffer the further injustice of overhead electrical lines. 38th Street, 46th Street, etc.

38th and 46th are both old Trolley line streets so they most likely did not plant trees that would have branches that would compromise the wires of the trolley. How close trees were planted all probably depended on the width of the street. Bryant and Grand have some of the same issues that brought about by them being used as Trolley streets. Some of these lines were designed to help foster growth to the city limits. Trees were not planted close to the street to cut down on maintenance for the overhead wires, and the side walks were put close to the street so when you stepped off the trolley you were stepping on sidewalk and not a muddy section of boulevard. These streets were design for their time, which was for the trolley and passengers of the trolley. These were built in the 20's -40' so they had different criteria that some members of this site.

Consulting with the late 40s TCRT map in my copy of "Twin Cities By Trolley" there were not streetcars on 38th or 46th except for a short stretch of 38th between 23rd and 28th Aves (near Northbound).

Also historicaerials shows that 38th and 46th Streets actually had boulevards that were removed sometime between 1947 and 1957.

IF you look at the current bus routes you will see that good portions of 38th and 46th have become commercial districts. The time frame you are referencing was about the same time line when the Trolleys were replaced by bus routes. Again we are talking about a very different place and time when all of this was done. Neighborhood commercial districts had been thriving about this time. Shortly there after was the flight to the suburbs and the downfall of many neighborhood commercial districts in the city. Sidewalks were placed closer to the street as a way to allow people to parked and go into stores without walking across a possible muddy boulevard. This was possibly done to save the commercial districts and help them to stay relevant. It has only been in the last 10-20 years that many of these districts have really come to life with real activities again.

Considering that many buildings in these nodes come from the prewar era, and are up against the sidewalk, I'm fairly certain that the curb to curb distance was widened. Probably in the late 40s through the early 60s when we made our urban streets wide for car commuting, before we built urban freeways. I don't doubt that Hennepin County had their fingerprints on these width "improvements" since IIRC this was about the same era when many primary streets became county roads.

It should be a goal for the city to add boulevards/trees along these primary streets (I hate to call them collectors or arterials because of what that implies) and also to remove overhead utility lines running along the curb line. One by one, these street aesthetics challenges do not have a big impact, but on the whole they degrade place - and by extension, cash flows from property tax revenues.

Jeez, four years since the last post in this thread (I didn't even realize this site had been around that long), but reactivating a trees thread, here's a nice article from the Journal about tree plans.

http://www.journalmpls.com/news/parks/2 ... ew-canopy/

I found this recent email blast from the Minneapolis Parks and Rec really interesting regarding boulevard trees. https://content.govdelivery.com/account ... ns/1ef7ef6