The "Access Project" will deny access to bicyclists to the section of Lake Street they intend to widen...this was revealed by one of the engineers at the Open House at Phelps Park the other night.
The engineer then suggested that bicyclists will use the Greenway trench .(made even more subterranean by the addition of a wider bridge and a new flyway)... There's a lot of problems with making the Greenway trench the only way east-west corridor next to Lake Street for bikes. The Greenway has too few entrances and exits. The Greenway is still unfinished. It has no shops or services and it's a lonely place at night. Also the amount of construction planned for the Greenway trench to rebuild and replace bridges makes the Greenway an uncertain route for many years to come. The new entrance to the trench will be on the East side of 35W....How will bicyclists on the west side of 35W get to the Greenway if they are banned from crossing over at Lake Street? This points up a major flaw in the 35W "Access" Project design....it is primarily SUBURBAN in nature. Cities were created to facilitate transactions...commercial social and cultural. A house is simaler.. homes are where transactions take place...the bathroom, the kitchen, the dining room. Good design in homes tries to maximize the space where transactions take place by reducing the need for connecting hallways...nobody buying a home asks "how many hallways does it have?" The Access Project essentially is about increasing connecting space for car traffic instead of preserving or creating those places where tranactions take place. This is why the project will increase car traffic rather than reduce it. It assumes that pedestrians like to walk past long stretches of empty "green space" Did they bother to ask the pedestrians there now why they walk on Lake Street?...if they did they would learn that they walk to get somewhere..to work and to shop...the elimination of stores for big expanses of nothingness creates a burden and a visual reminder that they are "too poor to own a car". This is the thinking of affluent engineers and planners who drive a lot...If they were pedestrians, they would realize that the sort of "green space" they depict in their plans and models will for most of the year not be green, but cold, barren windswept areas...People like to look at storefronts as they walk...like affluent folks do in Linden Hills and Saint Anthony Park ...why not Lake Street? The historic problem with suburban-style "green space" near busy intersections in cities is they are very noisy, dirty , and covered in trash....not an ideal place for a picnic. I predict that the "green space" planned to replace a vital business district will remain a business district for hookers, drug pushers and other illegal businesses. Illegal activity of this sort does not pay taxes...we are demolishing tax-paying businesses to subsidize a tax-free, illicit drug and prostitution enterprize zone. If the planners of this project were pedestrians they would see how awful it would be to cross a widened Lake Street...the medians only add insult to injury. Imagine standing on a median in winter, the noise and pollution, the slush splashed by cars on all sides...waiting...now imagine you are crossing with small children....carrying bags of groceries...or that you are blind or in a wheel chair... Walking and bicycling are my prefered mode of transportation. This project pretty much denies me the freedom to choose how I gain access to a important intersection and a vital commercial district. For others, children, the poor and the disabled who live nearby, walking is not a choice. The least able to adapt will suffer the collateral damage if we allow this brutal, big-box, autocentric, suburban invasion of South Minneapolis to happen. Ken Avidor http://www.stride-mn.org Kingfield _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
