After attending last week’s meeting hosted by Hennepin County regarding the reconstruction of Minnehaha Avenue in Minneapolis, I have a few questions. First question. Designs shown at the meeting generally indicate an increase in vehicular traffic of around 1% per year, or about 20% by 2030. Why? What is the County basing this on? Isn’t that a self-fulfilling prophecy? Build it and they will come. Making it easier to drive results in more traffic, something called induced demand. Do we really want more traffic on Minnehaha? The question was raised during the meeting and the answer from the County representative was that household…
It has been seven years since this urbanist last visited Daybreak. In 2006 I wrote an article for ULI (you may have heard of it). At that time Daybreak was a few hundred homes, a school and the idea of new urbanism was indeed new to Salt Lake City. Now, one housing bust and a light rail line later, I returned to see if Daybreak has grown up. It has, but in human terms, it is no longer a young child and now a responsible teenager with a job and a bright future. The Trax red line now serves Daybreak, a…
Denver Union Station may well be the most impressive rail hub project in the United States today. I must admit to being pretty wowed by the presentation for development of the station and its 20-acre environs at the ULI Fall Meeting in Denver last week. For one, it isn’t just a proposal; it is under construction. It’s happening! The station itself will open in 2014 and the rest of the transit infrastructure will be done in 2016. As well, there will be significant private development immediately surrounding the station. That is precisely what interests me the most – the opportunity…
It is time to stop letting the highway standards dictate pedestrian safety improvements along Hiawatha Avenue. Anyone who has crossed Hiawatha Avenue on foot or by bicycle knows it’s a pretty rough go. Even with an actual walk signal illuminated the experience feels like taking your life in your hands, and I constantly rubberneck to be sure I’m not about to be run down. While the popular operation of light rail along Hiawatha for eight years running is surely a victory, the pedestrian realm has not kept up. The good news is as a result of the Minnehaha-Hiawatha planning initiative,…
