Before I get into any questions like “What the heck is a split phase intersection and why would you have a favorite?” Let me give you some back-story… I’ve been attending a series of workshops revolving around State Highways 65 & 47.
Luckily, I learned at the meetings that my fellow residents share the same opinions! I was delighted at the first two meetings. Do I think MnDOT will actually listen? Probably not, but that’s when we’ll sick Mayor Lund on them đ
Another big issue brought up at the workshops is how the intersection timing across both 47 & 65 favors traffic going north and south. Residents that are actually trying to just get to the other side of town find themselves waiting endlessly.
So what’s up with split-phase intersections? Well, let’s define it first:
A split phase intersection is one where one side gets a green light and green left turn arrow, then the other side gets a green light and a green left turn arrow.
They aren’t known for their efficiency – they’re a band-aid for poor road design. But I think I’ve found one of the better ones which others should emulate.
Fridley’s Split Phase Intersections
There are several split-phase intersections in Fridley. MN-65 & Mississippi St. is the most notorious, however there are split-phase (or rough equivalents) at MN-47 & 57th and MN-47 & Mississippi.
Most of these are in place because of road geometry. The state highways (65 and 47) are so damn wide that there can’t be two left turn lanes running simultaneously without cars crashing head-on. 4-to-3 lane road diets could alleviate those problems, but until then let’s look at the signal timing – a software problem we could address today.
None of the split phase intersections work well for residents in Fridley, whether they’re driving, walking or biking. So let’s look a well-timed example to copy.
County Road 10 & Able Street
I used this intersection twice daily by car or by bicycle for 4 years. It is on the way to my kids’ day care provider. I didn’t like it at first… in my car when you leave Highway 65 and go on County Road 10 west, it’s the first signal you’ll encounter.
More often than not the signal would be green and then I’d see it change to red as I was approaching. I’d silently curse to myself (trying to watch my mouth as a new Dad). But after going this way about a dozen times, I realized something. I’m almost always going to see the light change from green to red because it’s constantly changing all the time. This is a good thing because it won’t be red for long for either the people on County 10 or Able St.
The first question traffic engineers will probably ask is “how much traffic goes through there?” It’s sees 20,000 vehicles per day on average. Keep in mind the times when I was using this intersection was always during rush hour, 7-8AM and right at 4PM.
So why not try it for a week or two? Signal timing is software, not hardware. Yes, 47 & 65 carry a bit more traffic (30,000/day), but if traffic backs up on 47 or 65 one of two things will happen:
MnDOT will change the timing back
People will find another way that is less congested
#2 is the option residents are shooting for. Remember when the 35W bridge collapsed? If I recall correctly, traffic was a little nutty for about a week, and then… Poof! Everyone found a different way about town and traffic wasn’t drastically worse than when 35W was wide open.
We should at least give this cheap-and-easy timing change a shot. Got any other ideas for these roads? Share them in the comments.
It’s been a while since I’ve had to publish a “Fridley Hates Pedestrians” series. Maybe I’ve become complacent. Some road diets on county roads might actually come to fruition. In the meanwhile this happened:
It saddens and enrages me to read a story like this. This is a moment for our local government to act, and for our judicial system to stand-up.
Streets for People
61st St. NE in Fridley has 12-foot lanes. This is the national standard for lane width on the interstate highway (55+mph). We put that road between two schools, between the park and the community center. This is proof-positive that we care more about the vehicles going through this area more than our own children.
I’ve spoken to city staff about reducing the lane widths and adding bike lanes here and it may happen. This is really the only way to slow things down. The road needs to be narrower, or at least seem narrower (with paint). Then we need to “put stuff in the way.” Bump-outs, bollards, parked cars, and bike lanes are other great techniques for making the road busier. The more the driver must concentrate on, the slower he’ll go. It seems counter-intuitive, but the wide lanes, barren clear-zones, and open sight-lines have only made us all feel safer in our cars, which leads to driving faster.
We need to stop the victim blaming. Whether or not the student was in the crosswalk is irrelevant. It was at 3:15pm after school got out and other students were present. I went to the site of the crash less than a week later.
It was 4:15pm and still light out even an hour after the crash.
So what is the response? Notice the plastic green fence above by the school sign. The schools put up this temporary fence following the crash to prevent students from crossing outside of the crosswalk areas. They went so far as to block their own walkways:
The fence is just another ugly fence that is added to the huge inventory of ugly chain-link fence here in Fridley.
This sends the message that “Streets are for cars, kids!” Especially the way we build them. Adding a fence is just putting lipstick on this pig and going in the wrong direction. We need to slow the cars, not impede the people. Drivers go way too fast here and simple police enforcement isn’t enough when lives are at stake…
I refuse to call this incident an accident because this was no accident. It was a crash. People will only change their behavior when there are real consequences – ones beyond the traffic stop. The perfect crime right now is to kill someone with your car. In New York, only 5% of drivers involved in fatal crashes are arrested. The Dutch wrestled with this in the 1970s with a campaign called Stop de Kindermoord (Stop the child murder). The uprising transformed the nation into a bicycle and pedestrian friendly mecca. In the Netherlands the drivers are responsible for their actions; manslaughter is murder – plain and simple. Here in the USA lawyers have invented terms like involuntary manslaughter and vehicular manslaughter that are labeled negligent acts. The driver was more than negligent and should be punished the fullest extent.
Right now you can do two things to help facilitate change:
Email Mayor Scott Lund – 61st is a city street, not a county road, so there’s no red-tape. It should be put at the top of the city’s restriping list.
Touring a city by bicycle is the best way to get to know it. You can move quickly from place to place, and stop easily along the way. You’re never too isolated from your surroundings to enjoy any sights or smells along the way.
I’ve made it a point to book a bicycle tour in new cities I’ve visited, and you’d probably be surprised which ones were the best. That is not to say I’ve ever had a bad bicycle tour experience, but some are just better than others. Continue reading →
1. Brussels, Belgium
This bike tour is my favorite for a number of reasons. I was able to share the experience with my then 10-month old son Jules. Even though he doesn’t remember it, he was a great passenger. We were also able to eat what I can only describe as life changing french fries during the tour.
Our tour guide spoke perfect english – because she was from Ohio. She was none-the-less very knowledgable about Brussels and its amenities. We stopped by several landmarks including the European Committee of the Regions (where the European Union meets), mannequin pis, and several monuments.
But the best stop was at a market in Leopold Park that had a permanent french fry stand called Maison Antonie. The fries were cooked in lard which was so clear it simply looked like boiling water. They had at least 20 different sauces – ketchups, mustards, hot sauces, barbecue and several variations or each.
2. Toronto
The Toronto bike tour was great because of the diverse neighborhoods. Each of them seemed to have a specialty cuisine whether it was a bagel shop or a sushi shop. Our tour guide was very knowledgable, and she offered her favorites for each neighborhood.
3. Portland
I put Portland last on the list not because it wasn’t great. It was a very good tour. But perhaps with Portland being the cycling mecca of the United States, I had set expectations too high.
I wished we had made a quick stop along the tour for a beer or some french fries. Maybe in Portland’s case it should have been a donut instead – our guide suggested Blue Star Donuts over the more touristy Voodoo Donuts. It’s all probably my mistake because I didn’t instead sign up for the beer or foodie tour.
But maybe it is just Portland itself. Fun, but predictable. Even being naughty here is legal. Kind of homogeneous. Maybe it’s just me.
Still, it’s the best way to get a feel for the city.
Let’s take a moment and look at two political philosophies and how they can even be applied to something as simple and mundane as a road (re)design. It may seem like somewhat of a reach, but stay with me for a story of regulation vs. self-regulation.
In Finance
Alan Greenspan himself did not foresee the housing crash coming. His mantra had always been that the market should (and will) self-regulate. He may have, at one point during the crisis, re-considered his libertarian ideals, as the situation left him “in a state of shocked disbelief.”
I saw Alan Greenspan on Charlie Rose (relevant conversation at 51:16) where he discussed the 2008 mortgage crisis. I suspect that in the aftermath he did some research going backwards to see what could have been done to prevent it. He mentioned a change at the NYSE in 1970 that allowed broker-dealers to become incorporated. Prior to this, broker-dealers were required to be partnerships where all partners had “skin in the game.”
Greenspan postures that the partnerships inherently caused all partners involved to look closely at each investment to carefully assess the risk. In a partnership, losses meant a loss to their customers, a personal loss to his or herself as a partner, and all other partners involved. Needless to say, lending was done much more carefully. VoilĂ , some self-regulation that we sorely need today.
What does any of this have to do with road design? Everything…
The Democrat: Regulate
Conventional wisdom leads many to believe that that you don’t need to change a street physically to make it safer – even if it has a record of poor safety. Instead, just add further regulation to the mix.
Police Enforcement
I’ve heard these complaints in person, during a road redesign proposal by Anoka County for Osborne Road. Citizens questioned the road redesign, even if it was just re-striping – not major construction. They insisted that for the safety of the kids crossing the 4-lane road to get to school, all that was needed is more police enforcement to set the tone.
Automated Enforcement
Police can’t do traffic enforcement 24/7, so another way to regulate is with speed cameras. But some studies have argued in certain cases that the safety effects of cameras have proven to be statistically insignificant. I’m not saying that the cameras definitely won’t make the street safer. My concern is that the cost to install, maintain, and operate cameras is expensive, and we can do something cheaper and easier to provide safety.
The Libertarian: Self-Enforcement
Why not instead undo a little bit of what we’ve done with our infrastructure. It may seem counter-intuitive, but we can make things simpler, more cost effective, and more self-regulating…
Lane Narrowing
First the road geometry can be changed to what is appropriate for the target speed. The current road design standard has wide lanes to give drivers a wide berth so they can make corrections before potentially causing a crash.
The roads have an extra-wide “clear zone” on either side – wide shoulders followed by an open area of grass free of “fixed objects” such as trees. This is to provide a margin of safety, but in reality the extra space simply makes the road feel faster. Probably because we’ve given many of our roads the same geometry as a highway.
We need to narrow the lanes and make the roadway feel “closer” in the cases where a slower speed is desired. Some studies have shown speed reductions of as much as 3MPH for every foot of lane narrowing. Let’s get rid of the highway geometries on 30MPH roads.
Lane Reduction
Then to really enforce the speed, reduce the travel lanes to one in each direction – prudent drivers will regulate those who speed. There are other safety issues that lane reduction solves, such as when one driver stops, but then other drivers try to pass in the other lane and don’t see the pedestrian until it’s too late. You can see the reverse effect on a road-widening, changing from 2-lanes to 4. Notice how the increases in through-put and travel time are marginal, but the injury and damage rate skyrocketed:
I’m excited about the prospects of a safer Osborne Rd. For the record I am for the 3 lane conversion the most of the proposed options. If the county were to mill and overlay tomorrow, this is a great low/no cost way to drastically increase safety and accessibility.
However, I feel this particular study does not draw from other cities past experience well enough. At the study meeting it was mentioned that the city of Crystal lamented that they did not do the 3 lane option for the full length of the roadway. I see the same sort of trepidation here.
Road Speed
Why not lower the speed limit to 30MPH? Residents in attendance at the meeting were obviously concerned about the speed as they’re asking for more enforcement. The real answer to enforcement is self-enforcement and the road diet would provide that. But why not lower the speed limit to 30? The odds of a pedestrian fatality at 40MPH is two times of that at 30MPH – and lets face it, travelers on a 35MPH road are going to be driving 40MPH.
I’m disappointed that the road starts with double-wide lanes at MN-47 and MN-65. I understand this is to accommodate the double left turn lanes from those roads onto Osborne. The real solution would be to reduce those to a single left turn lane and decrease the cycle time on those traffic signals so the single left turn lane does not back up. I realize this is MnDOT territory, and not likely to change.
Different East/West Treatment
The proposed treatment of the western side of Osborne is very different from the (preferred) treatment on the east side of Osborne.
West
vs.
East
Rather than creating a left turn lane(s) into lots that don’t yet exist, just use the 3-lane treatment for the entire roadway. Better to have a flexible system that accommodates existing users (like bicyclists) rather than reserving roadway such as dedicated left turn lanes for future development that doesn’t exist today.
More planters and crosswalks
For a consistent driver experience, and a much friendlier pedestrian experience, I’d suggest duplicating the planter option on all offset Fridley/Spring Lake Park cross-streets:
Adding more crosswalks and medians (stuff in the road) will help let drivers know that this is a complex environment with students, kids on bikes, emergency vehicles, hospital visitors, cyclists, pedestrians – all of which gives a clear indication to drivers that they should not be speeding through.