Life Out Of Balance

A hierarchical classification of roadways. Classification involves determining what function each roadway should perform before determining street widths, speed limits and other design features as well as operational characteristics of a street.

Principal Arterial: The metropolitan highway system is made up of the principal arterials in the region. Principal arterials include all interstate freeways. These roads only connect with other freeways, principal arterials and minor arterials and collectors. The emphasis is on mobility, not access.

Minor Arterial: Minor arterial streets connect major generators within central business districts and regional business concentrations. The emphasis of minor arterials is on mobility as opposed to access in the urban area. The minor arterial should connect to principal arterials, other minor arterials and collectors. Connection to some local streets is acceptable. Minor arterials should service medium to short trips.

Collector: The collector system provides connections between neighborhoods, and from neighborhoods to minor business concentrations. Mobility and land access are equally important. Direct land access should be predominantly to development connections. Typically, collectors serve short trips of one to four miles.

Local Streets: Local streets connect blocks and land parcels. The primary emphasis is on land access. In most cases, local streets will connect to other local streets and collectors; occasionally, they will connect to minor arterials. Local streets serve short trips at low speeds.

This is pulled directly from the City of Minneapolis website. I think this shows exactly why we have a serious problem with our roadway. Cedar is a type 'A' minor arterial and we are allowing it to be misused. We are not using it for local trips (patronizing local business etc) it's being used by commuters for long trips from the burbs. many people who would use it regularly for short trips are pushed to the other, smaller streets, and misusing them (unfortunately). This is pushing everything in our ENTIRE AREA out of wack. So issues on nearby, once quiet, residential roads are likely related to Cedar. Getting this monster road back on track is a big deal. It will restore the balance and encourage using Cedar as it was intended. By encouraging local traffic and shorter trips we can do a number of things:
-save on gas
-emphasize transit
-ENCOURAGE LOCAL BUSINESS
-reduce through traffic and related issues (crime both vehicular and otherwise, litter... decreasing traffic slightly should make it far easier to enforce don't you think?)
-increase the lifespan of the roadbed
-preserve and encourage use of beautiful local park areas (Powederhorn, Corcoran, Sibley, McRae and Nokomis
-Reduce toxic roadway runoff into Lake Nokomis, Minnehaha Creek and by extension, the MS River
I have to emphasize again what an important road Cedar is, and has always been. But in this case we are suffering from the effects of 50 years worth of poorly planned development. Too many people useing a local road when they should use the freeway (this happened WAY before the crosstown project began) and let's not kid ourselves, they aren't headed to Cedar Small Engine, Candy Jar or any of the other fantastic businesses along Cedar, they're headed to work or home. The chance of them stopping, and adding time to thier alreay long commute, is unlikey. So, now we have a chance to fix it. How does it go: "We can rebuild him - We have the technology..." well it's true, we do. But apathy won't do it, even a little bit of effort can do a lot. (that was my pitch)

There will be a short meeting this coming Wednesday, May 6th. We will discuss handing out materials to the neighborhoods. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so even if you can help get a flier to one neighbor, that'll do. Besides the weather is starting to improve and this might give you a food reason for a walk.

Here's the place:


View Larger Map

hope to see you there!!

Your health at risk

As per usual I am in search of more professionally collected research material. I happened across this on:

http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/2009/03000/Long_Term_Exposure_to_Road_Traffic_Noise_and.20.aspx

As you read this abstract, be sure to remember that the Cedar Leq was in excess of 70... So, people who live around loud traffic are more likely to have myocardial infarction... heart attacks.

Does this make our project a public health issue? There are an awful lot of people that live on or near Cedar.

So here is my smart ass question of the day: Would people concerned about slow ambulance response time due to backed up traffic have to worry as much (because they might be less at risk for a heart attack) if the traffic was quieter?
also:
Does this mean that a better designed road would actually improve the health of the people living on or near it? It's an interesting thought.

Borrow $$ from Big Brother?

Wow, here's one way to make up the budget deficit! Take a look at the amount of $$ generated by these things!

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=30&sid=1655198

Revenue like that would pay for a total redesign of Cedar in a couple years or less!

looking for sunshine

So maybe all this complaining about what wrong with our streets just isn't going to cut it. As someone who lives on Cedar it tough to get past the traffic crabbies. But I think it's worth while to look at the good things that we want to accomplish. I don't mean to be all gloom and doom... There's a huge 'Daisies and Sunshine' aspect to this project... just look at what we want to create with all of this!

-Create and maintain thriving businesses and attract Restaraunts by:
making Cedar a destination (lets think 48th and Chicago.. Or heck, I'll go Grand Ave in St Paul)

• Reconnect Neighborhoods with the parks... safely

• Take full advantage of our transit options by making it feasible to walk, bike, bus or drive to your local businesses... also make it easier for people to get to our businesses.
  

• Make it safe to ride your bike up Cedar to the Midtown Farmers Market

• Create transit hubs with bike lockers (at business/transit nodes and parks?) to encourage and enable multi modal transit

• Establish safe parking zones for residents and businesses... so you don't have to worry about losing your mirror by parking in front of your house OR, you don't have to worry about your customers getting mashed on their way into your establishment

• Identify neighborhood commercial areas with signage and other hub-specific features
  

-Create a friendly and pleasant walking environment by:

• -Re-greening the treeless parts of Cedar

• -Create greening incentives for people to use their front yards (Rain Gardens, native prairie gardens, etc. etc.)

• improve the street-scape by landscaping new features like curb bump-outs to protect parking

Create Neighborhood identities with

• signage, banners, improved street lighting, streetscape themes (landscaping, bus stops etc)
  

Am I on the right track? All these things are VERY do-able, we just need a little more participation. I think we've covered most of these in our wish lists, but the bear repeating. I invite everyone to close their eyes and picture what they would like to see.

Anyone else have a utopian view they would like to share?

New Leaf

Since we now have a website to give meeting times/places and minutes, I have decided to use this blog as a resource and sounding board... and editorialized source for links and sites related to urban (re)design and traffic calming. And I want to know what people are thinking about Cedar Avenue and how we can make it better. At the same time, expect an activist tone. From this point on this blog is not necessarily the voice of Cedar Ave. United, but one voice in the many involved. I encourage everyone to look into the public forum attached to our website. So, without further ado:


I've been thinking a lot recently about what could be some potential fixes for our road (go figure). I've been reading articles on taming, calming, redesigning and rethinking. I've looked at speed tables and roundabouts etc trying to find something that seems like a good fit for our situation. There have been a few ideas that really stand out in my mind.

Of course the complete streets policy is an obvious first choice. Really, who wouldn't want to make a residential city street (identified as residential by the Access Mpls 10 year action plan) more livable? Go look at complete streets: http://completestreets.org/ They have it together. I have been told that Hennepin County has worked with this group before and will work with them in the future. That's a good sign. It's time to look at rethinking the way we use our urban neighborhood streets... There's a lot more than just cars that use them. They are more than 'short cuts' from the burbs to downtown. (granted they are a legitimate and important route... just not a shortcut. Allowing them to be used as unregulated freeway alternatives will continue to erode the neighborhoods the run through... more on this later)

There's the concept of a 'Road Diet' which was a phrase coined some time ago. It's wonder that it hasn't caught on.. at least not around here. It even has a wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_diet This alone would help to curb some of the dangerous driving. Heck, painting lines (and putting out a few cops) might even do it! But we still need to look long term, while still fixing the problem in the short term. We still have people that are too concerned to park in parking lane in front of their house. I don't think that's OK, what about you?

OK, so all these ideas are great and appeal to residents and businesses, but where is the incentive for the county/city? Right now, with our budget issues (all around) it's tough to look at fixing something big like Cedar Ave without some sort of fiscal incentive. Well, here's one: http://www.usroads.com/journals/p/rej/9710/re971004.htm I read this article last week and have been thinking about it ever since. I would suggest reading the whole thing if you are interested but here's the general idea:
Road noise affects property value (duh). This article presents a formula that can be used to estimate the impact. It gives it in dollars and cents, it's a useful tool. It's easy to see that the city could benefit in the not-so-long-term just through increased tax revenue. Residents are immediately reimbursed with a much higher quality of life etc.

As mentioned in previous minute notes, the only available sound level test on Cedar Ave shows a reading of 71; MN state law dictates that 65 is the acceptable limit. Of course we're also significantly over capacity (according to Access Minneapolis) pair that with unregulated speeding and you've likely got the source of the problem.

Anyone who has EVER dealt with airport noise issues knows what this is like, but the airport is intermittent, and dies off at night. In this case there are no [enforced*] time restrictions on roads. This study actually puts a price tag on each loud vehicle that uses the road. On my neck of Cedar the lost value appears to be somewhere between 8,000 and 25,000 per structure... based on the cities tax values. (these numbers don't include the $ amount for large trucks... of which there are many) Factor in the lakes and other attractions I'm sure it's much higher. Throw in the fact that businesses in calmed areas do better and even Thrive... this is a no brainer.

In a city that's really hurting from foreclosures and lost tax revenue this could really help justify calming Cedar Ave.

Any thoughts?? lets take this to the forum: http://cedaraveunited.onlinegroups.net/

I want to know what people think. Please chime in.

Will
4500 Cedar

Meeting notes 4-1-09 (finally!)

I know I'm a little late with these, but here are the topics discussed at the 4/1/09 meeting of CAU

in attendance: Jim, Kay, Ryan, Will
we also welcomed 2 new people: Andy and Sue

The original topic of discussion was going to be organization of the group, we decided there weren't enough people present to have that discussion.

We dealt a little with short term improvements; since it's now spring we can begin to pursue small, short-term projects. Line painting was mentioned; both center lane and parking. *update: I have communicated this request to Katie Hatt at Peter McLaughlins office.

the conversation switched to livability of neighborhoods and the issue of road noise. One group member was kind enough to take a professional sound reading at 45th and Cedar. Here are the results:

'It looks like the significant numbers are L(eq) = 69.0; L(10) = 72.6; and L(50) = 68.1. For the most part, you're looking at the L(10). Federal Residential Criterion is L(10)=70, Minnesota Residential Criterion is L(10) = 65 Since I measured 72.6, existing noise levels exceed both Federal and MN criteria.'

More long term testing would be necessary to determine the extent to which this is a problem. But many of you that also deal with airplane noise know that these readings indicate a SERIOUS livability issue. These areas would be recipients of full noise mitigation were this an air port noise issue.

Since we had a business representative present we also discussed issues that face businesses.
-Safety and accidents, not necessarily noise are issues facing businesses
-Customer parking and pedestrian safety
-clients and customers should be able to safely get to the businesses by car, bike, bus and foot.
-keeping existing parking is key, making it safer will be the challenge
-Cedar Ave should be a destination. We have said this before, but it's worth repeating. The business space on Cedar has mountains of potential, yet somehow it's difficult to keep spaces filled.

We also brought up the idea of a CEDAR AVENUE BUSINESS ORGANIZATION, a group of business/property owners and/or representatives that would meet during the day (over lunch?) and work with CAU towards the same goal.


We also talked about a couple resources;

Streets blog:
http://www.streetsblog.org/


A collection of useful articles:
http://www.walkable.org/articles.html

A collection of VERY useful photographs:
http://www.pedbikeimages.org/

And there you have it. a productive meeting.

As more ideas and information comes in it will become increasingly useful to have more voices at the meeting. Also, as I have mentioned in previous meetings, the job of keeping all this rolling is becoming increasingly difficult with just a few people. If you are interested in our cause, please consider volunteering a tiny bit of time or some of your skills and knowledge.

Thanks all! Hope to see you all at the next meeting.

Will
4500 Cedar