People who design streets are taking the coming of the Central Corridor light-rail transit line linking Minneapolis and St. Paul as an opportunity to revisit an intersection that has bedeviled traffic engineers for decades.
The Central Corridor route is a mile away from the complicated five-way crossroads of East River Parkway, Franklin Avenue, and 27th Avenue SE, but its impact is expected to be felt there. In preparation for the train following Washington Avenue SE through the university campus, that street will be closed to motor vehicles to create a pedestrian/transit mall.
East River Parkway may get much of the motor-vehicle traffic redirected from Washington Avenue, bringing those drivers to the intricate intersection.
Runners, walkers, bicyclists and traffic from the nearby University of Minnesota converge there. Balancing their competing needs has meant a series of shifts and tweaks over the years.
The
reconstruction now underway is bringing improvements that include the latest in road-sharing techniques and technology, from "bike boxes" where cyclists can wait for green lights in front of other vehicles, to signal sensors that detect bikers and pedestrians as well as cars.
If those innovations work at East River Parkway, they may see action at other traffic trouble spots. "Why do I get all these odd intersections?" asks Hennepin County Transportation director Jim Grube. "I must have been born under a bad sign, as Eric Clapton would say."
Source: Jim Grube, Hennepin County
Writer: Chris Steller