Welcome to the back side of summer – solstice passed, 4th of July over, and the back to school ads have probably already started. But not at streets.mn, because our summer picnic is next Saturday, July 13, 2019 starting at 11:30 am at Boom Island Park in Minneapolis. We’d love to see you!
Getting around
Eric Saathoff proposes the 7th Street Bikeway in Downtown St. Paul which continues thinking along the lines of an earlier post by Bill Lindeke about how to implement the Saint Paul Capital City Bikeway and improve it, too. This post fills in a needed east-west link on 7th Street: “Would this be possible? Yes. Most of 7th Street has four lanes for car traffic in addition to turn lanes. Recent experience on Maryland Avenue shows that higher traffic volumes (up to 20,000 AADT) can function adequately with only three lanes. Some blocks only have four lanes and would need a 4-3 conversion, while other blocks that already have turn lanes could simply convert outside traffic lanes to buffered bike lanes (5-3 conversions).” Commenters are interested in the idea with a few suggestions, too.
7th St Proposal and AADT
Eric Ecklund reports on The Blue Line Extension in Limbo saying, “After decades of planning, Southwest LRT (the Green Line Extension) is finally under construction. Unfortunately the news is not so good for the Bottineau Corridor (the Blue Line Extension). Between Minneapolis (specifically just west of Olson Memorial Highway & Penn Avenue) and Brooklyn Park (specifically just north of I-94) the Blue Line Extension would operate in right-of-way owned by BNSF Railway. BNSF is opposed to the Blue Line Extension project, and negotiations with the railroad have stopped at the present time.” The post follows up with some ideas for why BNSF may oppose the project and some alternatives for moving ahead.
BRT rather than LRT on the Blue Line extension?
Regular and almost regular features:
Map! Not a Map Monday, but a special holiday map Bonus Map: Uniquely Searched BBQ, By State which shows “Minnesota’s unique search trend is Korean BBQ. Wisconsin and our Dakotan neighbors want homemade sauce.” Who’d have guessed?
Walk! Walking All the Streets of Logan Park, Day 1 with Max Hailperin.
Link! National Links: Inclusionary Zoning Could Get Challenge from Jeff Wood at The Overhead Wire.
Review! Conrad Zbikowsi evaluates the new Lyft scooters in Review: Lime vs. Lyft Scooters in 2019
The 2019 Lyft scooter, which is a model Mi by Chinese maker Xiaomi.