Trasportation and the Pedestrian Life of the City
Back to Home Page
May 10th, 2007
TO: Charlene Zimmer, Project Manager
Access Minneapolis Ten-Year Transportation Action Plan
FROM: David Fields , Community Development Coordinator
Elliot Park Neighborhood, Inc.
RE: Downtown Sector Recommendations for Access Minneapolis Plan
EPNI is pleased overall with the directions in which the final draft recommendations for the Downtown Sector of the Access Minneapolis Ten-Year Transportation Plan are going. We have welcomed the opportunity to participate in the planning for street realignments of traffic and transit in the Downtown Core, recognizing that such recommended changes also have an impact on accessibility and mobility concerns of Downtown neighborhoods such as Elliot Park, Loring Park, and the North Loop/Warehouse district. This new plan represents the emerging awareness that these neighborhoods are an inseparable part of the connective fabric of all of Downtown Minneapolis.
On behalf of the Elliot Park Neighborhood, I wish to comment here on a couple of specific aspects of Access Minneapolis that directly affect Elliot Park. EPNI believes that these concerns also are important to the connections that must exist between all parts of the Downtown Sector.
1. It is imperative that transportation and pedestrian movement issues be regarded in an integrative manner, acknowledging that shared concerns of the Central Business District and the Downtown Neighborhoods are all of a piece. Any planning that sacrifices good transit functions in one sector for an unwarranted emphasis on the functions in another sector will merely perpetuate the conditions our Downtown has experienced for over a generation now: lack of street life, inhospitable public environs, predatory parking practices, a Kingdom of Cars , and the choking off of circulation between vital areas of the City.
2. The recommendations for converting existing one-way pairs ( Portland Avenue/Park Avenue ; 8th Street / 9th Street ) and all of 10th Street to two-ways through Elliot Park are enthusiastically supported by EPNI. Aside from the plague of surface parking lots, nothing has contributed more to tearing apart of the otherwise intimate fabric of Elliot Park Neighborhood than these one-way streets unnecessarily designed to merely move traffic through the neighborhood. Traffic volume studies should not support the need for these one-way streets. And even if such studies were interpreted to support such a “need” (actually, a traffic engineer’s “desire”), the experience of those who have lived in Elliot Park Neighborhood for years will support the contrary: at no time of any day of the week is the traffic capacities for which these streets were designed justified. Along 9th, 8th, and 10th Streets east of 5th Avenue South (the western border of Elliot Park) automobile traffic significantly reduces to levels easily accommodated by a two-way configuration. In addition, it is crucial for better neighborhood circulation that the one-way pairs be eliminated. Currently, having to take a three-to-four block roundabout (which one-way detours often require) to access a street front business discourages the kind of neighborhood-scale retail services so critically needed in Elliot Park. Anyone can tell you that slower and more flexible traffic circulation on two-way streets is one of the most important factors in ensuring accessibility to neighborhood retail and entertainment destinations.
3. It appears that the initial suggestion for converting 8th Street South to a two-way is being reconsidered, most likely because Downtown businesses worry that CBD workers and patrons won’t feel they can escape through Elliot Park to the Hiawatha corridor entrance fast enough if the street is not maintained as an Indy Speedway. Nonsense. Stand on the corners of 5th Avenue South or Park Avenue along 8th Street even at rush hour, and never does the traffic volume come close to capacity for which that street is designed. Even for the reduced number of autos that continue along 8th Street east of 4th Avenue (the feeder to I-35W), you will note that well over half the cars make a left at 11th Avenue to access Washington Avenue in order to jump ahead of the back up on that truly major traffic corridor. In fact, 8th Street from Downtown is very underused as a feeder to Hiawatha.
4. Streetcar lines for the Downtown Sector (indeed, for throughout the City) is an exciting proposition. The ineffable appeal of riding streetcar or light rail lines (as opposed to the serendipitous experience of riding isolated buses) is something, luckily, more and more cities are rediscovering as a major contribution to creating livable, vital neighborhoods and commercial corridors/nodes. EPNI is very pleased with the suggestion that Chicago Avenue become a primary streetcar line; and is especially pleased that both 9th and 10th Streets west of Chicago might feature “spur” streetcar lines. This is important for a number of reasons:
a) Chicago Avenue desperately needs reclamation as a business/institutional corridor that would be well-served by the ridership streetcar lines attract.
b) A streetcar running into Downtown from Chicago Avenue along 9th Street and out of Downtown along 10th Street would ensure the kind of circulating transit connection presently missing between the heart of Elliot Park Neighborhood and the Downtown.
c) This connection would be most appropriately served by a streetcar line, which complements the historic neighborhood scale and feel of Elliot Park. And the 9th/10th street routes would perfectly frame the kind of neighborhood mixed use node EPNI wishes to create through its Centennial Commons Initiative for redevelopment in the heart of Elliot Park Neighborhood.
5. The five “Streetcar Cross Sections” in the Phase III Feasibility Report should also include another cross section: “Downtown Neighborhood Community Corridor,” which would best serve the 9th and 10th Street segments in Elliot Park. The configuration of this corridor would be: one-way streetcar lane; one traffic travel lane in each direction; one on-street parking lane. Ninth Street already is wide enough to accommodate this configuration, even with recommended narrowing for pedestrian improvements. (It is important to note that EPNI is advocating for CLIC funding to make 9th Street from Chicago Avenue to Marquette a more improved pedestrian corridor). Tenth Street from 5th Avenue to Park Avenue was narrowed a few years back, making for a much more pedestrian-friendly street skirting the Grant Park Homes and Skyscape condominium developments. Tenth Street is identified in Elliot Park’s Master Plan and in our Centennial Commons Initiative as being the primary neighborhood retail corridor. A streetcar line and two-way automobile traffic would truly enhance this corridor. Even if on-street parking had to be eliminated along 10th Street and diverted around corners to Portland and Park, it would better serve the needs of Elliot Park if this “Downtown Neighborhood Community Corridor” for accommodating a streetcar line is implemented as we suggest.
6. As to current bus routes in Elliot Park:
a) The Downtown Fare Zone should be expanded to include all of Elliot Park Neighborhood. The present boundaries deprive a majority of Elliot Park residents and workers of convenient access to the lower fares into Downtown. It is absurd that the populations at North Central University , much of HCMC, Augustana Care, and East Village , for example, are being told that somehow they are “remote” enough from Downtown to have to pay full fare for bus connections.
b) The bus routing through Elliot Park is haphazard and counter-intuitive. Why is there no continuous north-south connection through Elliot Park/East Downtown to the Metrodome LRT Station and Washington Avenue ? The heavily used #5 bus route along Chicago turns to go into Downtown along 7th Street , missing these destinations entirely! Why cannot at the very least a couple of these buses (you know, “5E,” “5G” lines for instance) offer direct connections to these important East Downtown destinations?
c) The topical suggestion that the #5 bus be re-routed from 7th Street to 4th Street into Downtown would only address the issue mentioned immediately above for spurious reasons, and will not in any case solve the problem of inadequate and inordinately expensive east-west transit connections between Elliot Park and Downtown. If indeed the streetcar lines along 9th and 10th are installed, however, it would largely cancel out these problems presented by the #5 bus line.
7. Eventually a thorough street parking study and reevaluation should emerge from the Access Minneapolis Action Plan. Present parking meter policies in Elliot Park almost amount to an assault on the neighborhood. Inconsistent, unpredictable meter placement and hours make residential and visitor parking in the neighborhood a nightmare. There is no justification for the dominance of meters requiring plugging until 10 PM in Elliot Park south of 8th Street . They punish rental residents, patrons of neighborhood businesses (as opposed to passers-through going to Metrodome events), as well as guests visiting the many new households that have joined the neighborhood in the past six years. Having meters that need to be fed until 10 PM extending as far south as 15th Street along Portland and Park Avenues is unjustifiable. These 14 hour (!) meters have no place in a residential neighborhood. Even during the most heavily attended Metrodome events these meters are seldom used. As alternative transit modes are encouraged and more off-street parking facilities are incorporated into developments, virtually all of the parking meters south of 8th Street and east of 5th Avenue should be eliminated. Someone (perhaps it is not the City) thinks they are making a big profit (doubtful) on these meters in Elliot Park, but the liability to the East Downtown is enormous. This is just another egregious example of how emphasis on automobile traffic has dampened attempts during the past few decades to reclaim our Downtown neighborhoods as attractive places to live, visit, and linger. EPNI intends to pursue changes in the irrational parking street parking policies in Elliot Park regardless of the how much the issue might or might not be addressed in the Access Minneapolis Plan.
Thank you for the opportunities that have been offered for Elliot Park Neighborhood to participate in this major planning initiative that will have an impact on the quality and vitality of Downtown Minneapolis for years to come.
Trasportation and the Pedestrian Life of the City
Back to Home Page