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

From SENA

The Business, Development, Transportation group will meet this Thursday at 6:30 p.m. - at the SENA office.

We will have our usual updates - bike racks, RiverLake Greenway, neighborhood developments - and hopefully a report back to the group from the Board discussion last month.

We may want to initiate some discussion around traffic calming issues also.

Hope to see you all there. -- shirley

--
Shirley Yeoman : SENA - Standish-Ericsson Neighborhood Association 612-721-1601
+++++++++++++++++++
SENA Mission Statement:
The Standish-Ericsson Neighborhood Association brings neighbors together to build on the strengths of the Standish and Ericsson neighborhoods – stability, diversity and concern for others.

Meeting announcement!!!!

Hello Everybody,

Our next meeting is a week away! This time we hope to continue the discussion of group organization and begin to flesh out our framework. We are in need of people willing to officially volunteer for their community. Please see this link to see what sorts of positions we have considered.

The meeting will be on Wednesday April 1st at the Sibley Park Community Center, at 6:30. Click this line for directions.

Bring your ideas and neighbors. We look forward to seeing you!

-Will

4500 Cedar Ave.

Cedar Avenue United in PRINT

Thanks to Jeri E. for all the great work with neighborhood publications!! Here are her two most recent triumphs..



Close to Home will be hitting Northrop homes very soon...here's the on-line version.

Enjoy the weather this week, it's pretty fabulous!

http://www.frnng.org/close-to-home/CTH_april_may_09.pdf

---also---

FYI, SENA's latest edition is out with Ann's article

http://www.standish-ericsson.org/news/2009%20newsletters/Apr-May'09web.pdf


Also: BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE NEWLY FLESHED OUT WEBSITE: www.cedaraveunited.org

Meeting 'minutes' for 3-4-09

Attendance:
Josh, Steve, Sharon, Will

Focus:
Organization

As the group continues to grow and develop it has become clear that official organization is in order.

We started by discussing different needs for the group; various contacts or committees that would be useful. Here are some of the ideas discussed:
-Neighborhood Representatives. These reps would organize on a neighborhood level, working with residents, existing NRP (or other) neighborhood groups, holding meetings if necessary. They would also attend CAU monthly meeting

-Elected official Liaison- This person would communicate with various elected officials and their offices.

-Business Liaison, Business Committee – This person or committee would communicate and organize businesses on the Cedar corridor. Cedar Avenue Business Council (?)

-Cycling Representative/committee – work with neighborhoods and other organizations to determine most effective and SAFE ways to integrate and encourage cycling on the corridor. Work with various projects and initiatives in the area.

-Also some aspects that need to be addressed: Signage, Traffic (police enforcement) Multi Cultural/Diversity, National Night Out

Currently Jeri has been seeing over communication with various neighborhood publications with much success. Watch your neighborhood circular for meeting announcements and articles. Thank you!

We were in agreement that CAU is still too young to incorporate officially as a non-profit. We discussed this topic briefly, and will likely talk more about it in the future.


Also, thanks to Steve, we have an official web domain. www.cedaraveunited.org . Currently this is only a placeholder. Continue to use the BLOG for announcements and updates. In the future this site will become a clearing house for documents and information, included files for print material. We will be able to link with neighborhood orgs, city/county offices and affiliated businesses and organizations. Thank you Steve, this will be a useful resource.


We plan to continue this discussion in the next meeting and to compare and contrast our needs with other similar projects (Lyndale Redesign etc)
We hope to see all of you at the next meeting on Wednesday, April 1st. Bring your ideas and anyone that you think might be interested in participating.

Please feel free to add a comment if I missed something important!
Thanks,

Will