Central Avenue — change is coming!
MnDOT’s 2028 Central Ave redesign will be the most important and most impactful urban works project in Northeast in our lifetimes. It will set the tone for Northeast Minneapolis for the next half century and beyond. We have a chance make Central Avenue a destination worthy of the Arts District, worthy of the great businesses here, worthy of a great city!
We couldn’t say it any better than Columbia Heights Mayor, Amáda Márquez Simula, “[This is our] main street, but its local charm is destroyed by the noise, by the safety problems, and the rush hour traffic.”
MnDOT has put a lot of good stuff on the table: traffic calming for more livable streets, bike lanes, bus lanes, improved pedestrian access and more. Right now MnDOT is painting with a broad brush while they wait to see what we actually want Central to be for the next half-century.
We want a destination! We want Central itself to be a place where people spend time strolling the corridor, sitting for morning coffee, enjoying their community. We want safe, manageable traffic and wide pedestrian ways. We want activated spaces that not only draw people to the district but are comfortable and interesting, spaces where people choose to see their community, to enjoy the space, to continue shopping down the block. We want a livable street.
We’ve got 100 feet to work with. Here’s what it could look like.
• Wider pedestrian ways are the most important elements of an improved Central Avenue. Combined with less hostile traffic, this will transform the corridor. Traffic noise on Central does more to chase people away than anything else. Reduced car speeds, effective traffic calming, and wider sidewalks will bring people out to the avenue. There will be room for outdoor restaurant seating.
• 20 mph speed limit and street design to match. What the proposed MnDOT plan fails to do is honor Minneapolis’ 20 mph municipal speed limit. Columbia Heights leaders have also called for a lower speed limit. This will increase safety and dramatically decrease traffic noise (tire noise overtakes engine noise at about 30 mph).
At Recovery Bike Shop, we don’t need a bell to let us know when a customer comes in. We can hear Central Avenue whenever the front door opens. Eighty feet away in the back room, we can hear the wave of white noise rush through the 3 1/2-foot opening.
• 4-to-3 “road diet” traffic lanes (one lane of traffic in each direction with a center turn lane) is already part of MnDOT’s proposal. Four-to three-conversions have been shown to handle similar traffic loads while often improving traffic flow. Turning traffic can block through lanes, causing cars to stack up. Separating these blockages keeps the through lanes moving.
• Narrow lanes and other traffic calming elements to help keep traffic at the desired 20 mph and the street quiet and safe (curb bumpouts, medians, raised pedestrian crossings, etc.). Central Avenues’s speed limit signs are not working. Traffic often moves at 10 or more miles per hour above the speed limit with plenty of people going 50 mph or more. It causes accidents. It destroys property. It is hurting people. Central’s traffic is hostile to drivers and pedestrians alike.
Traffic speeds must be enforced by design.
• Bus integrated traffic signals will prioritize bus traffic and keep the new Bus Rapid Transit Line F Line moving on schedule. Lights will be green as the Rapid Transit buses approach and red after they pass. This will ensure that buses will have an unencumbered lane ahead of them at all times.
This is a much more efficient way to move people around a city and it will do more to reduce rush hour congestion than anything else we can implement. One bus holds more people than a block of rush hour car traffic. If you’re in a car, you want as many commuters on that bus as possible.
(Really, we want a trolley. If we can’t have a trolley on Central (yet), we want buses that are so reliable and efficient, people will use them. When people use mass transit it reduces the number of cars in traffic and we all get where we want to go sooner and safer.)
• Protected bike lanes. We want street level (not sidewalk level) bike lanes on each side of Central traveling in the same direction as car and bus traffic. As avid urban riders, we feel safest in these types of facilities.
Is it any surprise that Recovery Bike Shop thinks bike lanes are good for Northeast Minneapolis? People on bikes help activate public places. Bikes and riders help with traffic calming. Shoppers who arrive by bike tend to spend more at local businesses. Bicycle infrastructure reduces the burden on car infrastructure and lowers our tax bill. And every car mile replaced is a local dollar kept in the neighborhood that would otherwise go to big auto and big oil.
• Parking? I’m not going to advocate for it. I am ethically opposed to using public tax dollars to pay for free parking (until mass transit is also free) and we generally have WAY too much of it in our cities (seven spots per car and almost one car per person, including children). However, we currently live in a car-centered city, so while we are shifting the needle away from car dependency, we need to continue the drip.
Recovery Bike Shop benefits from having car parking available on Central as do all of our great neighbors and it would be devastating to eliminate street parking entirely. We are happy to lose a few parking spaces for the above amenities. We would support metered parking. Some parking must remain on Central for the near future.
• Art walk! This is the Arts District! Everyone should know it! We want Central Avenue to be filled with local art. Sculptures, murals, architecture, and even performances, markets, and happenings! The art walk should be capped at both ends with two massive gateways installed at the entrances of the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District (Broadway & Central and Lowry & Central). These should be so impressive as to rival the Chicago Bean! These should be destinations in their own right, where visitors come to take pictures to prove that they were in the Northeast Arts District.
I was incredibly heartened by the informal polling during the MnDOT public meeting Dec. 11. There were tons of supporters for slower cars, bike lanes, pedestrian infrastructure. These are the ingredients that will allow Central Avenue to be a jewel for the city, a place where people thrive.
It’s time to let MnDOT know what we want for our street. Now is the public comment phase and we’re the public. Write to project lead Beth Burton and cc your city council members. Feel free to use our bullet points above.
elliott.payne@minneapolismn.gov
amarquezsimula@columbiaheightsmn.gov
cbuesgens@collumbiaheightsmn.gov
jspriggs@columbiaheightsmn.gov
Seth Stattmiller
Recovery Bike Shop
Bus Rapid Transit, like the proposed Metro F Line that will run down Central Avenue, is the most efficient and cost-effective way to meet the metropolitan area’s transit needs, Matthew Bruns asserts. (Metro Transit)
Re-Evaluating Bus Rapid Transit over light rail
As Minneapolis continues to grow and evolve, so must our approach to public transportation. The ongoing debate between Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) deserves a fresh look in our post-COVID world. The time has come to re-evaluate our priorities and recognize that modern BRT is the more adaptable and cost-effective solution that better meets our city’s transit needs.
The last comparison between BRT and LRT in Minnesota was completed over 12 years ago (in 2013) for the initial planning in the Bottineau corridor. At that time, BRT was a new concept for our region. In fact, the first BRT line had yet to be implemented. Consequently, that 2013 analysis was based wholly on projections and assumptions rather than real-world experience.
Fast forward to 2016, Minneapolis welcomes its first BRT line, the A Line. Since then, we have witnessed firsthand the numerous advantages that BRT offers. Not only has it proven to be a reliable and efficient mode of transportation, but it has also demonstrated its flexibility in serving a wide range of routes and changes in demand at a reasonable cost. Unlike LRT, which requires extensive infrastructure and long-term commitments, BRT can be adapted and expanded with relative ease. This adaptability is crucial in our post-COVID cities where changes in population and shifting demographics necessitate a modern, flexible, and adaptable transit system. LRT is most certainly not any of these.
The Blue Line Extension (BLE) project has undergone several iterations since its inception. Despite being proposed nearly 15 years ago and the allocation of over $300 million dollars from Hennepin County, the design phase remains incomplete, and any tangible benefits have yet to be realized.
Failure of Blue Line Extension 1.0
The initial plan for the Blue Line Extension, commonly referred to as BLE 1.0, utilized the existing Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Rail corridor. BLE 1.0 proceeded through full municipal consent and over 90% engineering and design, but in 2015 Hennepin County proceeded to purchase land with the sole intention of preventing BNSF and Canadian Pacific Railways from connecting their rail lines. Shortly after this, negotiations with BNSF began to break down and in 2018 it became clear that sharing the BNSF rail corridor was no longer an option.
In 2020, project planners scrapped the previous ten years of BLE planning, resulting in a loss of nearly $129 million of Hennepin County taxpayer dollars.
Turn to 2021; in the midst of the COVID pandemic while we were all quarantined at home, the BLE project team began reviewing alternate routes for over eight miles of LRT track. Social distancing and limited in-person events enabled the project team to make decisions and proceed in choosing their preferred project alignment with little community input. Fortunately for us, the pandemic eventually came to an end, but the decisions made during the vacuum of public engagement had been enshrined in the project plan.
Addressing investment concerns and justification
Today, 15 years since the inception of the initial BLE study, we are still waiting for a final design, and continually see construction delayed – currently until 2027. Plan A (BLE 1.0) failed, plan B (Lyn-Park) failed, and now plan C appears as a desperate attempt to salvage millions of taxpayer dollars and decades of planning LRT instead of BRT; all because of that 2013 LRT vs. BRT study.
Meanwhile, by the end of 2025, Metro Transit will have placed six BRT routes into service with an additional six in the stages of planning. With the projected opening of the Blue Line Extension LRT – anticipated to be 2030 at the earliest – one must wonder if the assumptions in the 2013 LRT vs. BRT study and subsequent decisions meet the needs of our communities in today’s world. By the time the Blue Line Extension opens in 2030, we will have invested nearly 20 years and $3.2 billion dollars on an antiquated, rigid system of transit. In that time, and for that expense, we could easily have implemented multiple additional flexible BRT routes and already be enjoying the environmental and social benefits. Instead, we continue to wait for transit that eludes us.
Cost-effectiveness and financial prudence
While the controversies surrounding the Metropolitan Council are well known, we must also question Hennepin County’s justification for spending over $300 million taxpayer dollars simply planning a 15-year-old project that has yet to complete the design phase nor provide a single benefit. Furthermore, city and state government agencies continue to raise questions about the project’s long-term feasibility and cost-effectiveness. It is essential to carefully evaluate whether continued investment in LRT is the best use of public funds, especially given the proven success and affordability of BRT. Nationally, BRT costs average between $10 million to $30 million per mile to construct, while LRT can cost upwards of $50 million to
$150 million per mile. In the post-COVID world, public transportation systems must be resilient and adaptable to changing patterns of work and travel. With more people working from home and seeking flexible commuting options, BRT’s ability to adjust routes and schedules quickly is an absolute necessity.
The Path Forward
Critics of BRT often argue that it lacks the prestige and permanence of LRT. However, what is best for our state may be quite the opposite, and the prioritization of functionality and practicality over perception should lead to transit decisions that fit our communities. BRT has proven its worth through its performance, adaptability, and its continued investment in Minnesota; its success should not be overshadowed by outdated biases.
Minnesotans and Hennepin County residents simply deserve the best transit, not a desperate attempt to build a transit system based on decades-old assumptions. As Hennepin County looks to the future, we must re-evaluate the decisions made in the vacuum of the past. And with the overwhelming success of BRT since that 2013 study, we must re-evaluate the merits of BRT over LRT for the Bottineau corridor.
To Metro Transit, Hennepin County, the Metropolitan Council, and Governor Tim Walz: We are done waiting. We deserve better. We need better. It is beyond time to stop the madness. We demand that you take pause and re-evaluate the justification of LRT over BRT for this corridor. Give us transit that serves today’s needs and will be able to adapt to the future, not this antiquated pipedream from yesteryear.
Matthew Bruns
North Loop neighborhood