While this has taken most of the neighborhood by surprise, I have heard that it is a process that has been underway for quite some time.. I'm sure I was notified by my friendly Lynnhurst neighborhood list serv about the meetings, and just didn't realize what was going on.
Perhaps Barret Lane would care to comment - give us the background on why this is happening, and the research that they have done to assess impact on local businesses, as well as the safety/calming traffic speed rationale that I assume is behind this. Perhaps Peter Nussbaum - who is, I understand a Lynnhurst representative on the task force that studied this - would care to comment. I would be glad to hear more background on this issue.
And I would be very sorry to see my corner go the way of 50th and Xerxes and lose several of the fine businesses that have made it such a wonderful place to live.
Susan Herridge Lynnhurst
This "redesign" of 50th Street from France Avenue to Lyndale has been going on for some time, with much of the push behind it coming from the Fulton and Lynnhurst neighborhood associations. Just how long it has been going on is hard for me to judge. I moved into Fulton in the fall of 2000. Every now and then, the Fulton Neighborhood News shows up on our doorstep, but it's not consistent. It's also usually so late that many of the meetings on the 50th Street topic had passed by the time we received the newsletter.
But my best guess is that this has been part of on-going efforts that date at least to 2000.
I believe the story now is that 50th Street will be re-stiped so as to make only 3 lanes along that stretch, one through lane in each direction, and a turn lane in the middle. This necessitates removing parking on one side or the other, as there is not enough remaining room to have parking on both sides with 3 continuous lanes.
The people pushing this change are concerned about a number things with regards to 50th Street traffic. According to the Parsons Brinckerhoff study, these items are (and I quote):
1. Reduce motor vehicle speeds.
2. Increase the efficiency of the roadway's operation.
3. Prevent the "cut-through" traffic through residential areas.
4. Enhance the pedestrian friendliness of the street.
5. Reduce the conflict between vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians and transit, and
6. Improve the availability and accessibility of on-street and off-street parking.
(end quote)
I'm firmly in favor of reducing the motor vehicle speeds (#1) to the speed limit -- on all neighborhood streets, not just 50th. But we all know how difficult it is to get drivers to obey the law.
Reducing the number of lanes, however, is likely to increase the speeds, not reduce them. In fact, it's essentially a "law of physics" -- to get the same number of cars per hour past a certain point on 50th using 2 or 3 lanes instead of 4 absolutely requires higher speeds. The only counter argument is that the current 4 lanes are not really continuous lanes, since there are during certain hours at certain locations, cars parked in the outside lanes.
I'm also in favor of reducing "cut-through" traffic through residential areas (#3), but the proposed changes to 50th are just as likely to cause an increase as a decrease. During the experimental 3-lane test last fall, the amount of cut-through traffic on my street certainly seemed to increase -- although not having the time, the city's ability to put traffic counters on various streets, or the city's historical data pertaining to same, I can't prove it emperically.
Traffic flow is a systemic organism. One can't simply fix a problem on one street by changing it and imagine that nothing will change on adjacent streets, or even streets far away from the change. Drivers tend to take the perceived path of least resistance. Make their route seem to be slower, even if not in reality, and they'll drive somewhere else. Where I live, I see this effect everyday. I live on a residential street with stop signs. Drivers regulary roar by my house and through the stop signs to avoid the stop lights on other streets, such as 50th Street.
One of the pedestrian problems with 50th (#4) is that in some areas, the sidewalk is narrower than average, and sometimes even terribly uneven and in need of repair. Additionally, it has close proximity to the driving lanes, the sidewalk being paved right to the curb.
It's strange to find narrow sidewalks paved to the curb, compared to most other streets in the area with wider sidewalks and a boulevard of grass between them and the curb. The 3-lane solution presumably improves this situation by moving the traffic further from the curb. Painting new stripes is certainly cheaper than rennovating the sidewalks, but it seems like rather a band-aid solution.
I don't know how reducing the amount of on-street parking, which the 3-lane solution will do, fits into the improvement mentioned in #6. This appears to be the main issue behind this thread of postings -- loss of parking and associated problems leading to loss of businesses.
My personal take on it is that a number of vocal people who imagine 50th Street to be more like a peaceful residential street have managed to get control of the respective neighborhood association boards and/or convinced others of the priority of their perceived problems. However, they seem to ignore the fact that 50th Street has been a large arterial street for a very long time, and that unlike most residential streets, it is also Hennepin County Highway 21. (Just how Edina managed to get their stretch of 50th Street from France to Highway 100 removed from county highway 21 is a curiosity to me.)
I've repeatedly meant to go out and hand-count the number of residential, commercial, institutional (e.g. churches, schools) and parks fronted on (i.e. face) or adjoining (side, back) 50th Street versus 54th Street for the Lyndale to Xerxes stretches. Unfortunately, due to the size of such a project I've not gotten to it. My best guesstimate is that a far larger portion of 50th is non-residential than 54th Street, both by number of properties and by number of lineal feet along the street. However, 50th has about 6 traffic lights in that stretch versus 1 for 54th. Guess where the cut-through traffic goes.
My position is that effort to reduce and slow traffic on 54th, and add bicycle lanes there would be a better use of resources, than trying to do the same on 50th. 54th is far more residential, is not a county highway, and is only wider than other streets through part of that stretch because of the former street car line that ran down the middle of it. (Wider streets generate faster traffic -- it's psychology. See the book "Street Reclaiming" by David Engwicht and the website here http://www.lesstraffic.com/street_r.html and here http://www.lesstraffic.com/)
I likewise don't want to see businesses on 50th (or elsewhere) disappear. I patronize them whenever possible, but of course, I am unlikely to drive to the suburbs to do so (one business is apparently moving to St. Louis Park).
It will be interesting to see if the 3-lane project really improves things in the way proponents say it will. I have mixed feelings. I'd like 50th to be a nicer and safer place, but I don't want the nearby streets to get worse as a result. I don't want to see businesses leave due to lack of parking.
Chris Johnson Fulton
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