Just a quick note on a note from Mr. Jim Grube from Hennepin County Public Works. Many of you that were at the meeting might remember the discussion about parking safety and speed control on Cedar Ave. Mr Grube offered to investigate and paint in much needed parking lanes for the area between 46th street and 38th street. This falls squarly within our short term goals! So Hurray! Good work everyone! I know many of the folks that I have spoken with since the beginning of this effort have expressed their feelings about this issue in this area. Many business owners suggest that their customers park on side streets because of the danger. Hopefully this will be the first step in making Cedar Ave a better place to shop and live (among other things)!!
Here's the letter:
Next week Hennepin will begin an evaluation of the effects of striping the parking lanes of Cedar Avenue between 46th Street and 38th Street. The first step we will take is to put down counter hoses that will help us capture the speed of traffic along that segment of Cedar Avenue. Once we have the information and we feel it is valid we will stripe the parking lanes. We don't have the striping scheduled yet. I'll let you know when it will happen, but be assured it will happen this summer.
Jim
Maybe it's my inability to leave well enough alone, although I think it's my committment to my neighbors and our nieghborhood businesses, but I sent a response letter to make sure that all of our concerns were clear... at least all of those that can be dealt with in this project.
Hello Mr Grube,
Thanks for the update, I know that there will be many happy residents and business owners watching the process out their windows!
When it comes to line striping, are there standard lane widths or are they determined based on the need. I've seen a few places around town (St. Paul included) that have re-striped with narrower lanes possibly to control speeding. (The most effective seem to be paired with bumpout/crosswalks, or course.) I mention this because one of the concerns that has been raised, secondary to speeding, is that the parking south of Minnehaha parkway (around the park) is too narrow to accommodate parked cars and creates a serious safety issue. It seems, according to many studies and publications, that narrower lanes might help slow traffic to within the limit and improve parking safety thus dealing with both complaints. I Figured that I should mention this before things are painted. I know from my work with historic development in Ramsey County that it's far easier to know about these things before the project rather than after it has been completed.
Also, will the information collected be available to our group/general public? We'd be interested to see what the before and after effects are.
Thanks again for the update and your willingness to look into all of this.
Sincerely
Will Peterson
So there you have it. A first physical step. We will have an event when they finish painting the stripes :)
keep an eye out for changes on Cedar, and keep an eye on the blog for the announcement for the upcoming meeting.
Thanks all,
Will
Posts
2 years ago
1 comment:
As long as we are stating what we would like to see happen with the parking lane striping project -- what would be involved in getting a crosswalk painted on Cedar Ave at 44th Street? This was one of the concerns expressed by several people at the June meeting. (There are no crosswalks on Cedar between 42nd and 46th Street.) Is this also within Jim Grube's "scope of influence" to make happen?
Being ever-conscience of ways to reduce costs, it seems to me if we were going to get the crosswalk at some future date anyway, why not paint it at the same time as the parking stripes? A crosswalk at 44th would also help to slow the flow of traffic…which is the main issue we have with Cedar Avenue.
Secondly: At the meeting it was discussed to get speed limit signs posted at strategic locations, we should call 311. Before we do that, WHERE do we feel speed limit signs are best placed? Something needs to be posted as you are heading into the city, after the parkway, where the speed limit changes from 35 to 30. I am thinking somewhere around or just after 47th, (there is too much going on with the business node between the parkway and 47th for a speed limit sign to be noticed), and again somewhere between 45th-44th. Or would it be possible to put a sign warning a speed change from 35 to 30 goes into effect at the Parkway? Anyone have any input on this? How about South-bound speed limit sign placement?
Finally: I think a “Yield to Pedestrians in Crosswalk” sign needs to go on either side of Cedar if we should be lucky enough to get a crosswalk on 44th…
My concerns are obviously pertaining more to the area of Cedar from the Parkway to 42nd…Let’s hear from the Southern neighborhoods (between Edgewater to the Parkway), and those of you North of 42nd – WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE HAPPEN WITH CEDAR AVENUE? Now is the time to get involved…
Jeri Elsner
4223 12th Ave S
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