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So did he or didn't he?
Printed in The
Pulse, issue of October 2 2002:
Big changes for 35W
By Ed Felien
"I promised Wells Fargo we'd give them a flyover lane to 28th
Street if they bought the Honeywell campus,"said Hennepin County
Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, according to Tom McGreevy, the owner
and manager of Pearle Vision on Lake Street. "This was at a
meeting last year with Sharon Sayles Belton and Brian Herron and
some neighborhood businessmen," McGreevy said.
The flyover lane is certainly the most controversial aspect of
the 35W improvements.
The need to improve that section of 35W became apparent when traffic
engineers finally appreciated how dangerous it was to enter 35W
at 31st Street with traffic trying to exit at 35th Street. The cross
weaving of traffic at 55 mph seemed like a catastrophe waiting to
happen. So, it was decided to move the entrance and exit ramps from
35th and 36th Streets to 38th Street. This would eliminate probably
the most dangerous section of Interstate 35 from Duluth to Texas.
There was some grumbling about the changes that would happen at
38th Street, but, generally, everyone agreed to it.
Then, certain other changes were proposed, and these became increasingly
controversial.
Some businesses had wanted an entrance ramp to go north at Lake
Street to go downtown and to connect to West Bound 94. There were
sound reasons there were no entrance and exit ramps to and from
downtown at Lake Street in the original plan. It was felt that local
traffic could feed into downtown. There were entrance ramps to West
94 at 15th Street and to East 94 and North 35W at Franklin Avenue
that effectively bypassed downtown and, thereby, cut down on congestion.
Also, it was considered extremely dangerous to put an entrance and
exit ramp on a curve in the freeway, when much of the traffic would
be wanting to exit.
But some Lake Street businessmen said they felt some of their customers
might be coming from north of downtown and couldn¹t easily
get off the freeway system at Lake Street. And major employers in
the area wanted the ramps for easy access for their employees.
The resulting plan may become quite dangerous as cars entering
35W at Lake Street try to move over two or three lanes in fast moving
traffic to exit to westbound 94 in less than a mile. Also, most
people who use the Lake Street entrance will probably be using it
to get downtown. It has, up to now, not been sound freeway design
policy to encourage trips of less than a mile on the interstate
system. Do we want to clog the system with this kind of short-term
traffic?
Trying to exit off 35W onto Lake Street might be just as tricky‹on
a curve, going 55 mph, weaving with traffic that has just entered
35W from 94 East. Some people think this entrance/exit combination
should be a sure winner for the most efficient plan for creating
motor vehicle accidents since the 31st Street/35th Street combination.
The Project Advisory Committee making these proposals has been
meeting for almost four years. It is a Committee heavily weighted
in favor of institutions (like Allina and Honeywell) and businesses.
But neighborhood organizations are also represented and could present
a balance to the outcome. The power began to shift back toward the
neighborhoods with the election of Robert Lilligren. If Brian Herron
would have been re-elected, he would have been a sure vote to support
the plans for more concrete. But, in a surprising conclusion to
a year of amazing reverses, Lilligren, who actually comes from the
area most affected by the PAC proposal, was elected and now represents
that area on the City Council.
One other proposal that has been controversial is the widening
of Lake Street from six to eight lanes from Blaisdell to 5th Avenue.
This is, supposedly, to more easily accommodate the new entrance
and exit ramps. It is certainly not to accommodate more traffic
on Lake Street, because, according to Larry Budnik, the City of
Minneapolis Traffic Engineer, traffic on Lake Street is not increasing,
"If anything, it¹s probably gone down." Traffic count
at Lake and Nicollet on a normal weekday in 1990 was 26,100. In
2000 it was 23,000.
But the most controversial proposal of the PAC is the flyover exit
from North Bound 35W to 28th Street. This proposal would build a
huge bridge from Lake Street to 28th Street that would take out
six lots of housing in the West Phillips neighborhood and make the
sun set about thirty minutes faster for the homes that remained.
It would produce a huge concrete barrier two stories tall with traffic
zooming along overhead 24 hours a day.
The justification for this $40+ million part of the project, according
to longtime observers, is that Allina did a survey of their employees
to see what they liked and didn¹t like about working at Abbott-Northwestern
Hospital. One of the things the employees didn't like, it seemed,
was getting off 35W at 31st Street and having to wait for a light
in a neighborhood that didn't seem safe. With a flyover ramp they
won't have to see the neighborhood where they work. They will be
flown in directly to the mother ship.
The flyover lane has been sold to the neighborhoods as a solution
that would keep traffic out of the neighborhood. Unfortunately,
the neighborhood that would benefit the most from this solution
also believes it is a solution that would make the neighborhood
unliveable.
Of course the $40+ million is money dedicated to highway construction,
but if it were possible to use that money to keep that intersection
at 31st Street and 2nd Avenue safe by hiring a police officer to
direct traffic there during morning and evening rush hour, then,
we could hire an officer to stand on that corner for 1600 years.
If the PAC approves the plan, then, it must still be approved by
the Hennepin County Board and the Minneapolis City Council. Approval
by the County Board is assured if Peter McLaughlin can keep his
seat in the upcoming election, but approval by the Minneapolis City
Council is not guaranteed.
The planning process has taken four years to this point, and it
may take another four before construction actually begins.
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