We stood waiting for the Walk signal to get across 4^th Street and I detected a murmur from them as nothing was happening; there was no traffic, except for the one car that had come to a stop in the crosswalk in front of us, but nobody seemed to have a green light or walk signal. But the view across surface parking lots towards the Guthrie was…a view. Great, I thought, here is someone’s first exposure to our city and it is one of crosswalk confusion and lack of urbanity.

Why couldn’t I be pointing them in the direction of Nicollet Mall?

We finally crossed 4^th Street, maneuvering roller bags around the car still stopped in the crosswalk. As I pointed down Chicago Avenue towards Washington, past the surface parking lots and hardscape, I detected a possibly Scandinavian accent. I asked where they were from. “Ohio,” she said. I raised my eyebrows and the man, sensing my confusion, chimed in “We’re originally from Denmark.” Ah, that’s better. I apologized for our crosswalk and lack of shade trees. They joked that Copenhagen has more bike lanes, and I sheepishly said “yeah, but we look to you for inspiration.” Not to be deterred, I encouraged them to take a stroll on the Stone Arch Bridge after their meeting at Periscope.

They went on their way, and who knows how the rest of their visit transpired. I like to think they had a pleasant time at their meeting, followed by perhaps a meal at one of our fine restaurants and show at the Guthrie. Shaw and I went to the unveiling of the Downtown East plan and I kept thinking about them and all the people who get off the train for the first time or the hundredth time and walk from the platform to the Mill District. What about them? What kind of city are we showing off to guests? What kind of city are we building for ourselves? How will that experience change in three short years when it all this new development is planned?

In an attempt to answer that question, I spent time on the Ryan Companies website looking at images and watching the “flyover” presentation on YouTube. I was shouting at my screen “go left,” “slow down,” “zoom in,” “pan down,” “focus on that streetscape,” “is that street two-way?” “oh, hell, was that a skyway?” It is hard to tell, as there is not much detail yet, but according to the plan’s timeline, if I should run in to my Ohio/Copenhagen friends on the train platform three short years from now, we’ll be looking at a decidedly different surroundings.

To our right will be a “striking” new indoor stadium that will draw crowds but not necessarily give the Vikings the necessary competitive advantage an outdoor stadium would bring to help them return to the Super Bowl. To the left will be a green space, with any luck a fully programmed park that will be the focal point of the downtown, a gathering place for all, and a crowning achievement in this public/private partnership. Possibly the crosswalk at 4^th Street will be a little less confusing and more pedestrian-friendly. Across 4^th will be an apartment building that fronts the 4^th Street side of the easternmost Star Tribune block. As our friends from Ohio/Copenhagen walk down Chicago Avenue towards the Mill District, they’ll very likely pass under a skyway that connects a massive parking structure on that same block to another parking structure farther east, both of which are connected by skyway to the stadium. Unless some parking can be put under the new park, they will also very likely pass by that large parking structure. Maybe the streetscape along Chicago Avenue will be better, with street trees and benches, but only so much can be done to enliven a parking deck. Maybe there will be storefronts, but it is also possible that retail space won’t be viable at the street level because the skyways suck the life and customers from the street.

Maybe our friends will finish their meeting at Periscope and be intrigued enough to wander back to the Downtown East area and look around. They might walk along a pedestrian-friendly urbane street, with good commercial and residential frontage and plenty of pedestrian doors (their fellow Danish urbanist Jan Gehl would be proud). They could well pass a busker along the way, but whether that busker be leaning against the wall of a parking ramp as he wails on his saxophone remains to be seen. If they are seeking a late afternoon coffee, they may find it at street level, or perhaps it will be tucked away up on the skyway level, possibly not even open late in the day, as is often the case with many skyway-level businesses. Perhaps there will be a market event at the Armory and our friends can browse artisan crafts or sample some bacon-wrapped lutefisk on a stick. Maybe there will be a movie showing in the new park across the street. Maybe Wells Fargo employees will be emerging from work and populating the sidewalk tables facing across 4^th Street to the new park. It is possible that 4^th Street itself will be a safe, sane two-way street planted with trees that will provide valuable shade in a decade or so. Our friends might join others on the patio, sipping a drink and gazing across the new park at kids playing in the fountain, couples nuzzling in the glow of dusk, commuters biking across the park where Portland and Park Avenues used to run. Afterward they could grab a nightcap at a cozy wine bar in one of the new mid-block alleyways, while gazing at paintings in a small art gallery.

There is much to be resolved, as the site plan is promising but vague, but yet all of this is possible in Downtown East. Over the next few weeks and months, it will be very critical for us to demand good urbanism from the city council, Ryan Companies, CPED and ourselves. There is public financing going to this project and it will pay for parking and improving the green space to a “basic level.” I sure hope we get something in return, like an attractive public realm and an actual park with a reason to visit. We cannot afford another Gaviidae Common, City Center, Conservatory, or Block E, and we must raise the bar even above the Target corporate campus and store and even the excellent Midtown Exchange. There is much more on the line with this project.

We must have better streetscapes and fewer skyways, more pedestrian doors and no visible parking. This isn’t rocket science, it is just sensible urban values and attention to detail. A stadium, 6,000 employees, 1,700 parking spaces and a green space doesn’t guarantee good urbanism. Good sidewalks, doors, windows, crosswalks, trees, benches, activity and people do. I sincerely hope there will be a little more public vetting of this plan as it races forward to the deadline of ensuring enough parking for the Vikings on opening day 2016. The city cannot afford to “fumble” this opportunity. It costs more upfront, but the return to the private sector, public coffers and our overall enjoyment of our city will be much greater over time. But we must guarantee a good urban experience, not only to impress our friends from Copenhagen, but to impress ourselves.

This was crossposted at Streets.mn.

Right now the only certainly about the plan for Downtown East is the city must provide a lot of parking for the new Vikings stadium. Wells Fargo is interested in building a campus downtown, and to be sure, it would be a stroke of genius if their parking needs could share a facility with the Vikings. But this goes deeper than the provision of parking for a few events a year or a lease signed by a company for some office space. Downtown needs a park, and a well-designed and programmed park will outlive the Wells Fargo lease and certainly the Vikings tenure. This park represents the city’s one major chance to create its version of Central Park. Therefore, the mayor should minimize the focus on parking (not to mention eliminate the skyways) and immediately push for the creation of a conservancy for the new park, a 501c3 entity that can raise money to build, maintain and most importantly program a world-class downtown park, just like they did in Houston with the Discovery Green Conservancy.

Yes, Houston. Discovery Green, which opened about five years ago in Houston sets the bar in my opinion. It shares many characteristics with the new park in Minneapolis, including approximate size (the Downtown East park is about nine acres; Discovery Green is less than 12), and the fact that its area was also once covered by parking lots that severed the downtown core from a major attraction (in this case the Houston convention center). The Discovery Green Conservancy helped raise $125 million in philanthropic money to build the park, which has more than 25 different programmed spaces including gardens, plazas, promenades, fountains, terraces and restaurants that attract people from all over Houston to enjoy their downtown. It s a lovely place. By the way, this well-designed and programmed public space has leveraged about $1 billion dollars in private development around it in less than a decade. That is what the city needs, and the image of a lively, activated, beautiful park like the rendering released last week (shown below) needs to be the basis of the mayor’s vision and rhetoric for the area. A properly executed park will catalyze more development and investment than any stadium ever could.

Critically, Discovery Green has more than 600 underground parking spaces, and doing the same under the new park alleviates the need, or at least alters the design, for the 1,300-space parking garage along Chicago Avenue, which is the front door to the Mill District and should not be marred by a parking garage. Yes, underground parking costs more, but a large underground parking facility nearby uses like a stadium and 6,000-employee office should help pay for itself, and of course would be  better situated for park users.

Right now the name for the new park is The Yard and the only budget is for grass seed. Sounds like my yard. Mayor Rybak hopes this can be a front yard for residents of the Mill District. We can do better. We must do better. We need a new name like Humphrey Square and it must become the front yard for the entire city if not the state. An elegant, beautiful place to gather for events, weddings, races, yoga, celebrations (should a certain football team finally win a Super Bowl), and yes, even protests, or just hanging out.

We need a bold vision from our elected officials calling for a more beautiful city, not a hope that by building a parking structure that it just happens. Perhaps I’m being too hard on the mayor. You decide. But as mayor your job is to inspire and to invoke beauty and urbanity, not parking. Joe Riley is right. There is no reason we should build anything that won’t add to the beauty of the city. Rick Collins of Ryan Companies was quoted in the Star Tribune saying this is “a game-changing development.” I sure hope he’s right. Only by developing a beautiful world-class downtown park will this indeed be true; adding Wells Fargo or parking ramps for the Vikings won’t cut it. Even if the mayor doesn’t have the funding lined up for the park, he should be out there promoting a wonderful, populated, planted, programmed park that is a gathering place for all and a centerpiece of the future of the city.

Ms. Wolford argues young people considering a move to a metropolitan area seek better connectivity and an urban lifestyle. Absolutely. Let’s pretend for a moment that we find the political will and funding to accelerate the build-out of our system; to get the “connectivity.” What about the “urban lifestyle” we seek? People aren’t moving here just for the train. The connectivity provided by new transit systems valuable, but we leave half the value on the table if we don’t create a truly walkable environment once riders step off the platform. We must not just connect dots on a map but weave a fine web of urbanism that everyone can share and enjoy.

What does that mean? Here’s an example: I just spent a few days with my family in the Eastern Market neighborhood in Washington D.C. From our rowhome, we could walk down leafy, wide sidewalks, across mostly narrow streets with boldly marked crosswalks (some of which were marked with signs reminding drivers it was a $250 fine for not stopping for a pedestrian), crosswalk signals with pedestrian-friendly countdowns, past storefronts with lots of windows and doors, not a single surface parking lot, narrow curb cuts where they existed,  It was easy to get not only to the Metro station but also throughout the entire neighborhood on foot. Sure, the Metro took us all over D.C., but we (my six- and two-year old) also were very comfortable in the city that lay outside the stations. Quite simply, it was walkable.

The Hiawatha Line continues to teach us lessons. Here we are approaching the ninth anniversary of service on the Hiawatha Line (Blue Line) and we’re just starting to address life beyond the platform. This year crosswalks on Hiawatha Avenue will be improved, a good first step, but ideally that occurs the day service begins. The private development market has certainly responded as expected, with plenty of residential and other development popping up near stations (and sometimes at the station itself), but ensuring a high-quality public realm has remained elusive. People stepping off the platform at Lake Street, for example, expect a better urban lifestyle, particularly a dozen years after approval of a plan by Peter Calthorpe. Moving forward, we must guarantee that when development happens the result will be to the high standards we should expect.

Granted, the federal funding process does not help. We have to do it all ourselves. We don’t even get trees. The City of St. Paul had to create a whole separate program for trees along the Central Corridor (Green Line). Who pays for these seemingly elemental things like trees, benches, enhanced sidewalks, crosswalks and better building facades? I think a large portion should come from property owners who benefit most from enhancements – those immediately adjacent to stations. In return, they can be allowed greater density to ensure profitability. Cities and the state should also ensure the right financing system is in place to pay for infrastructure and placemaking improvements even before private development occurs.

We are at an inflection point here in the Twin Cities. Not only must we build out transit system much faster, we must bring our urbanism “A-game” to the table.  Connecting the dots is half the solution. I encourage all stakeholders, including planners, residents, the FTA, traffic engineers, local and state elected officials and of course McKnight to come together and ensure that entire neighborhoods, not just train stations, are ready for people the day service begins. Only when we insist upon nothing but the best urbanism will we be able to provide that elusive “urban lifestyle” and literal value we need to be a successful and attractive metro area in the future.

Increased cycling has many benefits to the city and local businesses, and as a cyclist I believe we must continue exploring new bike routes and on-street solutions for cyclists. But on-street parking is and may always be a valuable asset to cities, and too often we acquiesce to moving traffic and sacrifice on-street parking instead, and I think that is a mistake. Not all properties in Minneapolis and elsewhere were developed with ample off-street parking. Some have none. A great number of businesses and residents rely on it. Thus, removing it for a bike lane is can actually hurt small businesses, making the city less livable. The answer is not to build more parking lots (many planning departments agree). I don’t know about you, but one of the wonderful aspects of cycling in the city is the many small businesses as destinations. I don’t want that to change.

During a community planning meeting for the RiverLake Greenway, I spoke up with concerns that a commercial node that includes Chris & Rob’s was losing parking, cautioning that lost on-street parking would not be good for business. (Here is my post from that time) I advocated for an alternative like sharrows or some combination of narrower driving and bicycle lanes in order to preserve that valuable on-street parking. Alas, a sensible solution is elusive because of the “Standard.” According to road standards, the volume of traffic along 42^nd Street requires a certain lane width which precluded sharrows. “Why not relax that regulation a little to allow for sharrows or painted lanes?” I asked. “Because we have to move traffic,” I was told. I then suggested that this portion of the route simply have signage but no alteration to the right-of-way; no bike lane, no sharrow, no lost parking. After all, just two blocks to the east the bike route to this day is just signage because it crosses Hiawatha Avenue, a state highway, and no suitable solution could be found that fit within MnDOT rules.

I visited Chris and Robs a few months after the Riverlake bike lane was in and No Parking signs up across the street (the direction of travel from which most customers arrive), and they showed me how business fell off by 15% the DAY the No Parking went in to effect. I visited them again yesterday and that loss of revenue has persisted. So bravo – it worked! Traffic is moving as smoothly as before on 42^nd Street, but more if it is passing Chris & Rob’s without stopping. And Chris & Rob’s is now considering purchasing a nearby vacant lot to be used for surface parking (I don’t think this is the outcome the city, county or neighborhood would really prefer).

I was also told at the community meeting that the hoped-for outcome of the bike lane is to encourage more cycling to businesses. As someone who already cycles to Chris & Rob’s, I don’t buy this argument. Maybe some day the modal split will be so, but I don’t believe in hurting the income of a business in the meantime while hoping more customers will arrive by bike on what remains an unpleasant biking street.

On-street parking isn’t just a necessity, it is also an asset. It slows the traffic by placing parked vehicles closer to moving cars, and also provides a real and perceived buffer between moving traffic and the sidewalk, making pedestrians feel safer as well as making them safer from errant drivers.

I’m not the only one who thinks this – Jeff Speck explicitly points out in his book Walkable City that bike lanes and transit lanes should never displace on-street parking, just moving traffic lanes. I wholeheartedly agree.

Bikes aren’t to blame here, and the last thing I want to suggest is that we must choose between bikes and businesses. In fact, well-placed bicycle lanes (and parking) is good for business. I want cycling to be part of the city. What is to blame is the “Standard,” the expectation that free-flowing automobile traffic is a right rather than a choice and transportation engineers’ ability to quote from an actual manual to make the case for lane widths, speeds, and clear zones. Cyclists and businesses must form a stronger alliance to fight the real enemy – the “standard.” Unfortunately the standard for moving traffic is entrenched while urbanism doesn’t yet have a recognized standard, and while we allow traffic engineers to have the final say, all in the name of making roads safer by moving cars faster, when in fact the opposite is true.

Even if you hate bikes, you have to admit that slower-moving cars are more likely to stop at a business they are driving by. And I’m not proposing blocking traffic (although in some cases that is a very good idea!), but rather the powers that be need to relax their standard just a bit – allow narrower lane widths, slower speed limits, something. The solution is so easy and realistic it should be possible. A better, more complete street would likely have the opposite affect and increase business.

To compound things, just this past week the city put up No Parking signs two blocks west of Chris & Rob’s along 42^nd Street, in front of two more small businesses, one of which (the Nokomis Pet Clinic) has no off-street parking (see image above). All because the parking lane was yet again displaced by a bicycle lane. To the city and county’s credit, working with input from our neighborhood association, 42nd Street striping within one block of commercial nodes at Cedar and 28th Avenues shifts to preserve critical on-street parking (effectively a sharrow situation), but businesses like Chris & Rob’s and Nokomis Pet Clinic lose theirs. This inequity must be corrected. Bikes aren’t the problem – road standards are. Sure you say, try fighting the various levels of officials and engineers who can cling to road standards, good luck with that. Well, that is precisely the fight we have to pick if we are to have a meaningful breakthrough on improving the urbanism of our cities so biking and small businesses can thrive. For now, I’m asking nicely; can we please restore on street parking on both sides of 42nd Street in front of businesses?

So that, my friends, is where I as a city council member might go against a recommendation of the BAC. But that doesn’t matter right now. What does matter is, for all the wonderful improvements the city has made with regard to biking, some are already or threatening to affect local business. Like I said, I comes to a decision between bikes and businesses, don’t make the false choice, make the right one. What good is a Complete Streets policy if there’s nothing along those streets? It’s time the lanes of moving traffic gave up something.

This was crossposted at Streets.mn.

…If the restaurants post their menus in the window, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If streets are used for more than cars, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If you can walk for blocks without seeing a parking lot, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If you feel comfortable letting your kid walk down the street, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If there are more than 10 doors per 100 meters (300 or so feet), you might be in a walkable neighborhood (thank you Jan Gehl)

If you can get your groceries on foot, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If you can walk to the corner pub, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If cars slow down for people at crosswalks (regardless of the law), you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If you walk out your front door find a sidewalk, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If it actually makes sense to use your front door to go anywhere, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If your child can learn to ride his/her bike on the sidewalk in front of your home, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If you are elderly and don’t need one of these to get to the grocery store, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If you can walk between stores without needing to get back in your car, you might be in walkable neighborhood (even if you drove to get there)

If you don’t necessarily need trees for shade in the summer, and buildings are tall enough and close enough to the sidewalk to do the trick, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If it is actually easier to walk than drive, you are most likely in a walkable neighborhood

If the distance across the street is less than the length of the left turn lane, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If the sidewalk is wider than the adjacent lane of traffic, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If you stand in the street and see more pedestrians than moving vehicles, you might be in a walkable neighborhood (thank you Gordon Price)

If the buildings are taller than the street is wide, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If you don’t need to step back away from the building and crane your neck to read the sign for the store, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If even the blank wall along the sidewalk is scaled well and pleasant to walk past, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If there is anything pleasant to look at from your sidewalk café table, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If you can take a walk and see something new every time, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

If you have a big smile on your face, just strolling around, and you don’t know why and you don’t really care, you might be in a walkable neighborhood

A team from the University of Kansas/University of Missouri/Kansas State created a plan for downtown east in Minneapolis that focuses on the Armory as an indoor market and civic space, flanked to the north by two blocks of green space – the first downtown park. Retail, entertainment and housing fill in the development parcels. The Kansas/Missouri/Kansas State team beat out teams from Harvard, Yale and Ball State/Purdue, plus more than a hundred other entrants. Aspects of all four finalist teams deserve to see the light of day.

Principle 1: Get the streets right, as I’ve already written. Every team had some sort of street and traffic flow change proposed. Some closed portions of streets outright, while others proposed two-way streets or more dedicated bike lanes or cycletracks. Good ideas all of them, but many proposals focused on just one street, often Portland Avenue. I think all streets need addressing for successful urbanism to take hold.

Principle 2: Build that park. Two of the ULI Hines teams, including the winners, proposed a park on the block (or two) to the north of the Armory. This is an excellent idea. Downtown Minneapolis desperately needs a park, and frankly with so many blocks currently used as surface parking, they practically scream for a park. Any good neighborhood needs one, and I agree that the best location is the block north of the Armory, particularly if the Armory is used for any kind of public or quasi-public use.

Principle 3: No more skyways. We should not perpetuate the expense of new skyways in an area most believe should be pedestrian-friendly. The density of foot traffic simply won’t accommodate both, as drawing people in to the skyway eats away at sidewalk retail potential. Even a single skyway connection from a parking structure to the new Vikings stadium for VIP usage should not be allowed. All fans, VIPs alike, should have the experience of an outdoor walk to the stadium to remind them of the weather and elements in which football should be played. (When is the last time the Vikings got to the Super Bowl? It is no coincidence that it was when they played home games outdoors with all the competitive advantages the elements bring. But I digress.)

The ULI Hines finalist teams clearly struggled with the issue of skyways and understood their damage to the public realm. The team from Harvard went so far as to suggest semi-enclosed sidewalks that were heated. All of this strikes me as odd, as if you make a public realm with sidewalks, street trees, benches, flowers, and all the elements of good placemaking, nobody will miss the skyways. I realize pedestrian-friendly streets are a novel idea for downtown Minneapolis, but this must change.

Principle 4: Parking should not be visible from the street. The city already will not allow new surface parking to be built, although I fear the Vikings will find a way to circumvent that; we should go one step further and not allow any new ramps visible from the street. Parking should only be approved if it is contained within mid-block structures and wrapped by buildings (as shown in the photo above), or underground. Don’t let the Vikings claim they need easy accessible parking for up to 12 games per year. If they want a 50,000-vehicle ramp, let them have it so long as they pay for it and residents of the city cannot see it walking by the other 350 days per year. Some renderings show continued surface parking in the name of football obliquely hidden by trees. Let’s not let this happen. We have succeeded with this elsewhere in downtown. http://kmsp.images.worldnow.com/images/19198603_BG1.jpg.

Principle 5: Break up the blocks where possible, as three of the four teams recommended. These are large blocks. Create some quaint mid-block alleyways, either with retail/restaurant frontage like this image of Hardware Street in Melbourne, Australia (shown above – courtesy City of Melbourne) or residential mews. Alleyways and mews (regardless of whether they are lines with restaurants or residential front doors) would not only add to the variety of pedestrian routes and choices, but add intrigue and intimate spaces to a downtown sorely lacking in this department.

Principle 6: Make frontages more interesting. Every single structure built (office, parking, residential) must be interesting at the street level. Implement the Jan Gehl rule of requiring at least 10 doors per block front (minimum of 10 doors per 100 meters to be considered remotely “friendly”). If the building is Wells Fargo Mortgage offices, line it with small retail spaces. If it is a parking structure, do the same. If it is residences, make sure they have doors and walkout entrances at the ground level. Windows are not enough. Even the stadium can be more interesting at eye level with plaques, murals, art installations or Vikings memorabilia. As the image of Park Avenue Lofts (above) shows, we know how to do this in Minneapolis and must continue to improve upon it. Follow the “Gehl Rule” to ensure friendly streets.

The ULI Hines winner and runners up have some excellent ideas for downtown east. We should pursue some of them. But regardless of which ones we pursue, if we do these few things (public space, no skyways, no visible parking except curbside, and good frontages), we’ll look back in 30 years and not remember the current conditions around the Metrodome. Who knows, maybe we’ll even celebrate a Super Bowl victory on Armory Green. Well, I can dream, right?

…If you choose a slightly longer route to your destination because you know the walk is pleasant, you might be an urbanist (you also might be a rational human being)

If your vacation photos have more buildings than people in them, you might be an urbanist

If you come home from vacation in a walkable city depressed by your own you might be an urbanist

If the first thing you do on vacation is drop your bag in your hotel and set out on a walk, you might be an urbanist

If you plan your shopping trip to park once and walk between stores, you might be an urbanist

If you get back in your car to drive between stores just to spite the designers of the shopping center because they really didn’t have pedestrians in mind, even though the distances aren’t that great, you might be an (frustrated) urbanist

If you prefer to decide on a restaurant based on menus posted in their windows as you stroll the sidewalk rather than use your smartphone to decide for you, you might be an urbanist

If you walk down the street and estimate FARs, you might be an urbanist

If you know what VMT means, you might be an urbanist

If you walk down the street and pace off distances such as lot widths, setbacks, distance between curbs, or simply count doors per 100 meters, while your partner shops, you might be an urbanist

If the view from your sidewalk café table is better than your drink, you might be an urbanist

If you are the only one in your group who actually considered walking to dinner (even if you were met with blank stares), you might be an urbanist

If just seeing the words “transit-oriented development” gives you a semi, you might be an urbanist

If you get blank stares from your relatives during the holidays when you describe the relationship between transportation and land use, you might be an urbanist

If you are watching coverage of the Boston bomber terrorist standoff and notice the nice decorative streetlights and banners hanging over the street, you might be an urbanist

If life is about the journey, and that journey involves a sidewalk, bicycle and train, you might be an urbanist

Think about it, nearly all the streets in the area are either glorified on-ramps for freeways or one-way thoroughfares designed to speed the entrance to or exit from downtown. There’s 3^rd and 4^th Street, which descend in to a car-friendly cut to access the University of Minnesota – the shortest and most unnecessary freeway in the Twin Cities (luckily this stroad is partially being mitigated by the Green Line light rail). 5^th and 6^th Streets provide access to and from Interstate 94 to the east (the on-ramp seems to begin at Chicago Avenue). 7^th and 8^th Streets also access a non-freeway (Hiawatha Avenue (why do we have all these non-freeways?)). 4^th and 5^th Avenues access 35W. Portland and Park Avenues are one-way couplets intended to speed traffic to and from downtown as a reliever to 35W. Nearly all of these streets have three-lanes for maximum efficiency, and man it works! Coming off these freeways and stroads nothing about the design of the streets intuitively tells a driver to slow down despite a 30MPH speed limit, and it is tempting not to hit 40 on those last few blocks before the city fabric gives way to the freeway decking. Gentlemen, start your engines! Not one of these streets has helped create a good neighborhood.

Moreover, as the above image shows, none of these streets is particularly nice to walk along. There is hardly a street tree for shade, a bench for sitting or other amenity to encourage walking, much less many destinations to reach on foot. Just try walking from the Metrodome station to the Guthrie or to HCMC. It is an unpleasant no-man’s land in search of a good plan, as was recently noted by a group of students visiting the area as part of their design competition for the area.

The 2013 Urban Land Institute/Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition is using downtown east as its location, and members of the four finalist teams made their first visit to Minneapolis on a recent snowy Friday to walk the area. As they did, several students commented how few people were walking. I assured them it wasn’t the weather; hardly anyone walks in this part of downtown unless they have to.

Our walking tour with the ULI design competition students included pointing out the stretch of 5^th and 6^th Streets around the current stadium, where the three blocks between Chicago and 11^th Avenues are divided by a fence preventing any pedestrian crossings (to a stadium!) while the street as designed encourages cars to speed despite a posted speed limit of 30 MPH. Effectively the on ramp to Interstate 94 eastbound begins at Chicago Avenue and this must be addressed. A common complaint is the Metrodome interrupts the grid, but this simple fence dividing 5^th and 6^th Streets is an even bigger barrier. There is no reason on God’s green earth why a three-block stretch of two streets in a downtown area cannot be crossed on foot. Facing what some call an ugly stadium notwithstanding, the design of the street in this location actively discourages development. As you can see below, my son isn’t wild about it, either.

Lo and behold, the four finalist teams’ plans include some measure of making at least one of the streets greener and more pedestrian-friendly. One team’s plan is called “Portland Avenue,” and it gives the street a “road diet,” reducing through traffic lanes, making it two-way, adding trees and other amenities that create a spine of activity that frames development in the district. Students from other cities get this concept. Do we?

Periodic plans for the stadium that appear in the press and the ULI competition show streets somehow magically transformed in to pedestrian plazas. 5^th Street in particular seems to be cut off from its westbound Interstate 94 off-ramp entirely. I’m pretty sure these plans have not yet been vetted by transportation engineers, and I fear a lack of spine from planners and elected officials when they sit down at that table and hear that the off and on ramps need to remain. A compromise must be reached to be sure, but I encourage planners and elected officials to be strong and make good streets a priority. Plans for the area, whether they are the downtown east plan approved several years ago by the city, the winning ULI student team, or even the Vikings, call for the area to become a neighborhood (albeit a neighborhood anchored by a stadium). It is imperative that any neighborhood must have good streets. Not having good streets precludes all the good development we are hoping for.

The plan for the stadium area must include better streets and pedestrian connections, including more two-way streets, crosswalks, street trees, pedestrian-scale lighting, benches and public art, no more barrier fences and no parking (surface or ramps) visible from streets. What actually gets built on all the private property is a topic for a related post.

Pedestrian connections from 7^th street to the new stadium must be in place along Carew Drive and 10^th Avenue. That means crosswalks and traffic signals, and the removal of the barrier fence between 5th and 6th Streets. The same is true north of the stadium, where Norm McGrew Plaza needs an improved crosswalk and traffic signal at both 4^th and 3^rd Streets as well as a continuous pedestrian connection past the Wasabi building and across Washington Avenue continuing on 9^th Avenue to the river.

Let’s indulge the students’ plans and give these streets a road diet, make them two-way, build curb bumpouts, cycletracks, and plant some street trees. Transforming Portland Avenue in to a spine of activity, making it a Main Street for downtown east, makes imminent sense.  But don’t stop there; let’s make every street in downtown east a pleasant walk. All streets should become two-way.

The on-street parking meter system should be modernized and priced variably and accordingly for business days, hospital shifts and game days, ensuring there is always on-street parking available, with revenue captured for public realm improvements to the district.

We need not worry about access. People arriving downtown from the east metro and other locations can slow down a few blocks earlier or speed up a few blocks later. After all, some of the freeways originally imagined never materialized (Hiawatha) or no longer exist (State Highway 122). And people don’t need to leave so quickly; what’s the rush? Stick around, downtown is fun! Why not move in? Exactly why we need three lanes of 8^th Street racing eastward through downtown when only one of those lanes actually survives to access Hiawatha Avenue (not a freeway) is beyond me.

Visitors can also choose to use our multiple transit options to arrive downtown. Continuing to allow streets that encourage driving fast will limit development and the value of east downtown. Slowing the traffic and building streets for people will greatly encourage development and increase real estate value (and tax revenue lost to the stadium).

We cannot directly control what gets developed on all of the private development parcels in downtown east, but we can control the streets. We are giving the Vikings a boatload of money to stay downtown; the least we can do is expect good urban design that adds value to our city. That starts with the public realm. We must do everything in our power to build an improved grid of streets and public realm to make downtown east a more livable neighborhood.

This was crossposted at Streets.mn.

The image above shows clear demand for bike parking at the Northbound. Look closely. See the bikes chained to poles and trees? Hidden in this photo behind the cars are two existing bike racks (hoops) on the sidewalk. Those hoops are full or cyclists would not need to chain their bikes to signposts and trees, as the photo shows. Overflowing bikes is a common occurrence at the Northbound, and will be again as the ice melts.

The owners of the Northbound hope to place the on-street rack right on 38th Street where that red pickup truck is in the photo – right by the front door. The Northbound has been on-board with this idea from day one. Sacrificing one vehicle parking space to ensure bike parking for eight or more bikes is good math, and good business based on the clear demand for bike parking. People want to park close to the door – this is a way for eight people to do so instead of one car. It is good for business. (Placing the corral on the side street, 28th Avenue, is problematic because that fire hydrant you can see in the photo means the corral would have to be placed farther from the door and in a less visible location.)

The photo below is the on-street bicycle parking at the Birchwood Cafe on 25th Street, the only existing on-street bicycle corral in the city. As you can see, it is well-used, as are the racks on the sidewalk. This is a perfect little urban situation – a bustling business accessible on foot, by bike (also notice the Nice Ride station) or by car. The infrastructure is in place to encourage all three modes. Not only does the bike corral allow for eight bicycles to park in front of the business as opposed to one car (good for business), it doesn’t clutter the sidewalk with bicycles, allowing more space for dining, lingering, chatting wtih neighbors, walking by, and chalk drawings on the sidewalk.

I will also point out the traffic calming impacts of the bike parking, subtle but very important. Slower vehicle traffic makes for more livable streets. We’re not blocking a traffic lane, but we are discouraging speed, and that is a good thing. As well, 25th Street is a bus route, which offers evidence that the two (bike parking and buses) can coexist on a street like 38th.

The process has been slow, as I indicated. The reason for this is the City of Minneapolis has no formal process to permit on-street bike corrals. The Northbound has applied for an encroachment permit, which is hardly the way to go about business. Suffice it to say on the past few months I’ve been getting mixed messages and pushback from Public Works. I can hardly blame them – they are doing their job, and this is a new frontier. One rationale I did get for not allowing bike parking on-street was the worry that it is dangerous and someone would be hit by a passing car. By that same reasoning perhaps we should ban on-street parking on 38th Street. That is a city I don’t want to live in. I look at it the opposite way – if the street has objects and activity near traffic lanes like trees, parked cars, bikes, pedestrians, cars tend to slow down, making everyone safer. That IS a city I want to live in.

Above is a picture of a bike corral in Portland, Oregon. I took this photo in 2010 on a visit. I wasn’t even looking for this, but I was cycling the city and passed by a corral, so I stopped and snapped this photo, thinking “what a great idea!”

It is a great idea. Portland has 97 of corrals citywide, and in fact they are good for business. It is important to look to other cities for guidance, and the reason Portland has 97 of these is they have a formal city process to install bicycle corrals. If you’re counting, they are 96 ahead of Minneapolis. If we want to continue to be the number one biking city (I’m more concerned about quality of life than a silly contest), Minneapolis needs to step it up. We’re building bike lanes right and left but we need somewhere to park when we’re thirsty after a long ride!

The Portland bike corrals are seasonal, as they’d have to be in Minneapolis, and they are allowed at nodes where consistent demand for 10 more more bikes exist. The Northbound meets this requirement on a consistent basis, as do many popular nodes around the city. Disagree with me if you will on the point of traffic calming, but you have to admit this is good for business. The evidence indicates people all over are biking to local businesses, so swapping out one car space to allow eight bikes to park in a space is good for business, and that is good for neighborhoods and the city.

Adding one on-street bicycle corral for the Northbound on 38th Street ought to be a slam dunk, and I hope Councilmember Colvin Roy can help get this done. Creating a formalized on-street bike corral for cyclists to park at business nodes would be a nice final piece to Mayor R.T. Rybak’s legacy as the biking mayor.

A recent post of mine at Streets.mn about urbanism in Uptown in Minneapolis elicited a response that gets at what I believe is the core of the problem. The commenter stated that the City of Minneapolis has sufficient heft in its zoning code to create good urbanism. I disagree. In the Building and Placement page of the Site Plan Review section of the Minneapolis zoning code, under Building Design, it reads “Blank, uninterrupted walls that do not include windows, entries, recesses or projections, or other architectural elements, shall not exceed twenty-five (25) feet in length”. The result is according to the code a building frontage can look like this:

Is this good enough? I for one think not, and I suspect Minneapolis isn’t the only city struggling with this.

The example shown is a residential building near the University of Minnesota, a heavily pedestrian-focused part of the city. While the front of the building is much more appealing, this side of the building still “fronts” on a prominent street and looks like this. I presume parking is behind this wall, but I don’t care. I also don’t care whether this is near campus or some other neighborhood. We the people of the city should require something better, like this example below, where residential units front on Lake Street at West River Commons.

Simply bringing a building up to the sidewalk isn’t enough. Big blank walls don’t cut it. Even windows aren’t enough (although they help). The problem isn’t isolated - a number of new apartment buildings are being built, especially near campus, that have what are in theory appropriate setbacks and good urban form. But a closer inspection (i.e., walking past them) reveals the the urbanism is coming up short. The problem is a failure of frontage, and it actually sets the city back when we should be moving forward. Simply requiring ground floor units to have doors and exits to the street (that’s why the sidewalks exist in the first place).

The intent of the Minneapolis zoning code is good, but doesn’t do enough. Even the Pedestrian Overlay doesn’t help much, requiring 40% of frontage to be windows or doors with transparency, and that’s just for nonresidential uses. Yes, the city essentially requires every property to have a front door and tries to reduce the scale, but what cities need is to follow Jan Gehl’s rule of thumb from his book “Cities for People,” whereas in order to have a “friendly” street, there must be at least 10 doors per 100 meters (just over 300 feet) of frontage. To be “active, you must have at least 15 doors per 100 meters. Even my low-density street with just single-family homes is a shade shy of “friendly.”

Metric or not, Copenhagen or Minneapolis, it doesn’t matter where you are, friendly is friendly. Active is active. ”Gehl’s rule” applies anywhere. Windows or doors aren’t enough. Streets need more doors, plain and simple, be they retail or residential. With a requirement of doors or windows every 25 feet, according to Gehl’s standard, the City of Minneapolis mandates its streets will be, at minimum, “boring.” We say we want friendly, but we allow boring. Is this good enough for a city that claims to want to be world class? The process should be not only requiring friendly streets (more doors), but actively encouraging it. Our development process should begin with the building frontage (all of them) and then worry about density, use and parking. Require friendly or active frontages and the rest will more easily fall in to place. We should require more West River Commons, not hope they come along and win the density fight against NIMBYs.

We have a failure of frontage and cities need to address it.

A different example is the new Target Plaza Commons in the old Let it Be Records space at 10th and Nicollet in Minneapolis.

Target opened their employee meeting and fitness center last year (above) in a building that used to house Let it Be Records, Key’s Cafe and Sawatdee, three doors I used to use (there were more doorways as well). Hell, I used to leave Let it Be Records and just stand in the covered entryway because it was a good urban space; shabby and all, it had life. See below for a friendly urban street.

Target took a “friendly” street and made it “boring,” and the city allowed it. Yes, the building sat largely vacant for seven years, is in better condition now, and we can quibble about whether that stretch of frontage should be privatized to this degree. But you have to admit, three or more doors is better than one, and I can’t accept that fewer doors on the city’s primary pedestrian street (or any street) is progress. Could the city have at least insisted that Target retain the old Let it Be corner entrance with the covered entryway? What should have been done was to carve a couple small storefronts carved out of the corner of the building to make the street more active – Target could have the rest.

We as citizens need to expect more from our urbanism. This last example (below – image by Mariko Reed) from Thin Flats in Philadelphia is striking in style but stays true to a walkable pattern of doors on the street, making for good urbanism that is timeless in that city and others. How can a city be walkable if buildings don’t have doors?

So yes, there is a failure of frontage, and yes I do believe the solution may be as simple as ”Gehl’s rule” of urban doors. We just need more doors facing the street. It seems like if we get this simple bit right good urbanism will flow more easily. Am I wrong about this?

This was crossposted at Streets.mn.