Pedestrians: Speak Up About the Street Design You Need!
The pedestrian crosswalk button near Denfeld High School in Duluth is inaccessible for some people all of the time, and all people some of the time.
Category: Signals
Share the Road with Bikes! (Unless They Want to Turn Left)
In taking stock of my most well-traveled routes, those places where I have to turn left are the places where a motorist has honked, shouted or threatened my safety in some way.
Summer 2021 Highway News Roundup
As the 2021 construction season moves into high gear, I thought I’d try something different and write about a few things that have gone on around the state the past year, interesting enough to present here but probably not deserving of their own full article. The St. Francis Highway 47 Safety Project by St. Francis […]
Highway 280: Put It Back the Way It Was
Highway 280 was transformed into a freeway in the wake of the I-35W bridge collapse in 2007. Now MnDOT is making it bigger and faster, even though the reason for the upgrade has long since disappeared.
Near Side Signals: Thinking Outside the Pedestrian Box
How often do you think about stoplights? Not just to acknowledge that the light is green or red or how many times the “Don’t Walk” hand on the pedestrian crosswalk counter has flashed so you know how long you have to cross, but the design and placement of that signal. (The red hand flashes 17 […]
Prioritize People on East Hennepin, Not Cars
When people are asked how a busy street could be made safer, two suggestions always come up. For better or worse these are: put in a stoplight, or put in stop signs. For example, local business representatives recently called for a stoplight on every block of Lyndale Ave S after Ted Ferrara was killed by […]
Meet a Roundabout: Wentworth Ave
This is “Meet a Roundabout,” a new series of posts about roundabouts in the Twin Cities area that are improving traffic efficiency and safety. Posts include pictures and video of the roundabout and a history of how they came to be. This is the first post in the series. On a recent beautiful Wednesday night, […]
What if Hennepin Ave Had a Roundabout?
I was waiting for the number 6 bus at Hennepin Ave and S 1st St, near where I live, and I was watching the vehicle traffic. I noticed that the semaphore intersection was not very efficient at handling left turn vehicles. There was a part of the cycle when left turns in both directions on […]
A Charming Third, or Tilting At Windmills
Welcome to Winter! In addition to the cold and snow, we are in the early parts of the the 2019-2020 Minnesota Legislative Session. Among the many hundreds of bills that have been introduced so far, bicycle-related legislation has been introduced in the House (HF 462) and the Senate (SF 1014). This proposed legislation, which seems […]
One Month Later: A RRFB Crossing Failed
Just over a month after I wrote a post criticizing county traffic engineers for a half-baked attempt at protecting pedestrians and cyclists crossing busy streets, I unfortunately was proven right by a crossing in Anoka County. On November 20 two girls crossing Highway 47 at Pederson Drive in St. Francis were struck at the crosswalk […]