The view from uphill

I am facing south, standing on what used to be the sidewalk heading down to West River Road. The sidewalk has been ripped out and replaced with a temporary strip of asphalt that has no curb, just a white line indicating the edge of the road (which the truck is obeying). This allows buses to make wide turns at this corner without hitting a curb. Notice the well-worn path between where I'm standing and the nearest stop sign. It leads to the curbcut. Cyclists use this as a direct route to the road crossing.

Greenway bridge over Mississippi is on ice

I wrote this post a few weeks ago and then pulled it after deciding it was boring and irrelevant. I couldn't have imagined how relevant a story about a bridge could be; the 35W bridge just a mile or two up the river has collapsed, in a sudden horrifying moment during rush hour. Here it the post again with some edits.

Startribune.com's current headline is "Plan for new bridge across Mississippi is put on hold." They must have heard the same report that I did at last night's LCC Environment and Transportation Committee meeting. Hennepin County staff and their consulting engineers presented a report on options for a bicycle/pedestrian bridge crossing the Mississippi River as a continuation of the Midtown Greenway. The original plan was to use the Canadian Pacific railroad bridge just north of Lake Street, but that does not appear to be a viable option any more. I was impressed by the obvious care that the engineers had put into this project, and I trust what they are telling us about the situation.

The main facts that I learned were:
1. The existing Canadian Pacific railroad bridge was built approximately 100-120 years ago using an obsolete "pin" design that is being phased out because it can collapse if a single pin fails.
2. It is very difficult to ascertain the condition of this kind of bridge. The most useful tests are very difficult to do, and would be prohibitively expensive to perform.
3. Modern bridges have a life span similar to humans, which makes this bridge ancient.
4. Canadian Pacific Rail doesn't want to let us use its scary old bridge anyway.

It sounds like the community would be better off replacing the bridge. But that can't happen without the cooperation of the railroad. The rail line is used regularly on a very limited basis (one train a day or week--I forget which), and the railroad is not saying whether it plans to continue using the line or not.

The community could also build a bridge next to the railroad bridge, and engineers presented several design plans for a new bridge. But all of them would require a major jog in the path of travel, and probably a drop in grade. None of them are as elegant as crossing straight over the river at the site of the existing bridge. And apparently there are many obstacles to accomplishing that project: jurisdiction problems as well as concerns from the environmental preservationists about adding a bridge to the river gorge.

If only CP Rail would share its plans for the bridge, the community could move forward with a plan for creating a bicycle/pedestrian crossing over the river. The engineers presented options for building a parallel bridge that might only be a "second" bridge for a short time until the railroad takes down its bridge. Maybe those who want to limit the number of bridges crossing the river would be more comfortable if they knew that the railroad bridge was coming down.

But CP Rail doesn't seem to be talking. The bridge project is not over, but it's on ice indefinitely.

An opportunity at Lake Street & W River Rd

I created this blog because I bicycle-commute along the West River Road in Minneapolis's Longfellow neighborhood, and there is one intersection that has always bugged me as being especially inconvenient and unsafe for bicyclists. It's the intersection of West River Road and Lake Street, on the south side. Here's a picture.

A few months ago I finally decided to make a few phone calls and see what it would take to improve the intersection. By a bizarre coincidence, the very next day a bunch of guys with a front-end loader were tearing up the intersection--the exact spot that is problematic. During the Lake Street reconstruction, they had to re-route buses onto 32nd Street and over to West River Parkway, and they had to widen the access point back up to lake Street. When Lake Street construction is completed, the plan is to rebuild the intersection exactly as it was.

What's the problem?

Here is the view from the bicycle trail along the parkway, facing north. The Lake Street Bridge is ahead of you. To reach the bridge, you turn onto the access road that branches off to your left. The pedestrians in the photo are crossing at the official crosswalk. The crosswalk has curbcuts on either side, so if you're pushing a stroller or rollerblading or bicycling or in a wheelchair, this is the convenient place to cross. Once you reach the other side, the sidewalk hooks around the corner in a J-shaped path, which then leads up to the bridge.

If you're a pedestrian this is fine. For all other forms of conveyance, it's not so good because of the J-hook at the base of the hill. It throws you off balance to go around a hairpin turn like that, and it makes you slow waaaaay down. So a lot of people either avoid the J-hook, or avoid the crossing altogether. In the foreground you can see bare spots on the earth where bicyclists jump the curb and cross into traffic towards Lake Street. Likewise, on the other side (just ahead of the pedestrians in the photo) cyclists often skip the J-hook entirely and create their own cow-path of least resistance, which in this picture is a gravelly gully.

The intersection has already been partially demolished. Rather than rebuilding it as it was before, with all of its flaws, let's rebuild it better. Got any ideas? Submit your comment here. I'll throw out a few ideas in my next post.