Based on fuzzy recollections: The city has been working with the county for a number of years now on how to deal with the need to rebuild Lyndale Avenue, taking into account the way it relates to the variety of commercial and residential areas it moves through.
It is not wide enough, south of Lake and north of 54th to function safely as a four lane road. Efforts to widen the street were met with fierce neighborhood resistance early in former Councilmember Lisa McDonald's first term. Widening the street would have taken out almost all of the mature trees and increased the already excessive speed of traffic through the neighborhoods. Rather than rebuild the road at that time, the county and city decided to maintain the surface, which gets very rough every couple of winters, and put off the decision on rebuilding. A citizen task force, which met extensively and made a proposal for ways to redesign the street some years back, was re-convened by Henneping County Commissioner Gail Dorfman, and is now starting to look at the issue again. The original plan called for reducing the street to single lanes with turning lanes added at intersections and parking bays in front of much of the remaining blocks on both sides. There are both safety and quality of life rationales for managing traffic through the neighborhoods south of 31st street. It is not an effort to strangle economic activity but in fact, lots of traffic speeds through the neighborhoods to downtown that could just as well be using the interstate. A well designed single lane of traffic with timed intersections would carry most of the lunatic two lane rush hour variety a lot more safely. Niel Ritchie East Harriet-Farmstead __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search new jobs daily now http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@;mnforum.org Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
