How seriously did planners consider alternate parallel avenues for bike trails, rather than on Lyndale?
Editor Note: This letter was sent to a group of local politicians prior to being published here.
I’m writing to support a delay of the Lyndale Avenue redesign project. I am not anti-bike. When healthy, I regularly biked 25 miles a day. But I am anti poor planning, and that’s what the Lyndale Ave. redesign constitutes. Consider the American Planning Association’s recommendation:
“Planning for social equity means recognizing planning practices that have had a disparate impact on certain communities and actively working with affected residents to create better communities for all.” American Planning Association https://shorturl.at/MhAFC
Please share how you have actively worked with seniors, those with disabilities and the retail communities, in particular, to ensure their needs are met in the Lyndale Avenue redesign.
Likewise, how many planners are avid bikers? How did you ensure other groups were equally represented during actual planning meetings for the Lyndale re-design? How many actual planning meetings included seniors, those with disabilities and retailers as participants? (Not just town halls or community meetings.) Is litigation needed?
With vehicle traffic estimated at 80 – 90 percent of road use, clearly, the biking coalition has played an outsized role in re-design, while retailers’ concerns have been ignored. With our city facing a possible upcoming $30 million deficit how can we ignore the needs of all constituents who shop Lyndale, and the businesses who support them? Have you factored in:
- Costs of lost livability due to lost retail?
- Lost sales and property tax revenues?
- Inconvenience to retail shoppers—your constituents—due to lost parking?
- The livelihoods of small business owners?
To redesign Lyndale without considering how it impacts retail traffic, seniors and those with disabilities is unwise at best; foolhardy at worst.
We have a federal deadline, but why have planners not considered retailer needs in earnest from the start? Your planners have left us in the lurch. So the deadline does not justify going forth because planners did not take major constituents’ needs seriously. This is on them.
Time to re-group and re-think how the Lyndale Avenue project can be accomplished without damaging retail. There are options planners and constituents have not taken seriously that should be. Hennepin Avenue businesses have not revived despite the project’s completion. We can’t let this happen to Lyndale Avenue, too.
How seriously did planners consider alternate parallel avenues for bike trails, rather than on Lyndale? This would be safer while preserving the retail district. Are we going to let biker minority voices outweigh residents who want vibrant retail, the business owners who need parking and the city who needs the property and sales tax revenues from those retailers?
Deadlines are one thing; lifelines are quite another. If you proceed with the current design, you will likely sever the lifeline to Lyndale Avenue retail. That’s a travesty for all constituents.
Sincerely,
Marjorie Simon
Minneapolis, 55408
I have to blame most planning schools for for their failure to understand the needs of retailers. My masters degree was in MURP (masters in urban and regional planning) and I don’t remember one professor who had any retail experience. Compounding the problem in Minneapolis is the antiquated Special Service District program. While most cities have transitioned to a BID (business improvement district) model, Minneapolis has not, except for downtown. BIDs play a major role in business recruiting, marketing, and transportation issues. SSDs do not. Do you think Hennepin Avenue would have resulted in destroying the business community if a majority of the planners had retail experience?
AMEN! I wondered about the curriculum of planning at the U of M. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.
Except for the reality that when you make changes to streets that make them safer and more accessible to people who walk, bike, or use transit, you can see increased retail activity. What retailers need in dense urban neighborhoods is for them to be places people who live nearby want to use. How could anyone possibly disagree with that? https://trec.pdx.edu/news/study-finds-bike-lanes-can-provide-positive-economic-impact-cities
wyseapple: Thank you for weighing in. Based on your comments, I infer you were not on the planning team, and thus could not answer my questions:
1. Costs of lost livability due to lost retail?
2. Lost sales and property tax revenues?
3. Inconvenience to retail shoppers—your constituents—due to lost parking?
4. The livelihoods of small business owners?
We do know that “meeting with the constituents—even individually—“and including them on the planning team are two entirely different things. What good does it do to meet with groups if their concerns are not addressed? Retailers should have been a part of the planning team.
Next. You say that “There aren’t any near-term plans to continue the protected bike path on Bryant north of Lake street.” However, you did not explain why. Bikers have said it is far safer to bike on Bryant than on a bike lane on Lyndale. What prevented planners from extending the Bryant path north of Lake street? That would seem the logical thing to do.
Later you say, “On street parking on Lyndale is hardly ever at capacity.” But you neglected to acknowledge that Lyndale Avenue businesses suffered loss after George Floyd and Covid, and have yet to recover fully. So establishing parking use on an Avenue not yet recovered is a false pretense. The question would be, “If the empty storefronts were in use, how many parking places would be lost?”
The heart of your argument, however, appears at the end of your comment: “Some owners may have to decide if Lyndale is still the right place for their business. And that’s OK. Cities and neighborhoods change.”
This acknowledges that the redesign will hamper retail. Yet, the planners went forth anyway—despite retailer and constituent concerns. To tell business owners that, in essence, they can like it or leave, is to tell people who provide a service to the area, and whose livelihoods depend on their business, “Like it or lump it. We’re doing this OUR way regardless of how that impacts you.” Neighborhoods change when poor planning forces them out. That attitude does not reflect a city that cares about all people and the businesses that support it. That attitude smacks of authoritarianism—not democracy.
what are you trying to measure tho? Everyone is in agreement that there are impacts to businesses during construction. I can provide you studies that have evaluated the impacts of road reconstructions that evaluated impacts to businesses when changes reduced lanes for driving or parking in exchange for transit, ped, and/or bike improvements. There has been research that includes Minneapolis. This research has included looking at things like sales taxes and measurable data points. The conclusions have been that these changes are typically neutral, sometimes positive, and sometimes negative. Whether there are positive or negative impacts to particular businesses can vary based on the type of business. Studies will often cite, for example, that a furniture store tends to do worse when you eliminate a lot of parking. However, coffee shops and restaurants can do better.
I’m still unsure what you are trying to argue here. It still seems that you just want “planners” to do whatever a handful of business owners say, and that if our plans don’t perfectly cater to their preferences, then it’s not really planning.
I’m not the one here that wants authoritarianism. I want us to follow our policies and goals that have been the product of the democratic process. We also keep electing people at every layer of local government who are supportive of these changes. How are we being authoritarian when our elected leaders vote to approve things that are consistent with codified policy that elected leaders adopted years ago?
We’re going to agree to disagree. You skirted the issues I raised. You did not answer the questions I asked. This clearly is not just about lost business during construction. I’ve stated that already.
And that’s OK. But you should know that planners at the County were aware there aren’t any plans to extend the protected bike path on Bryant. The city controls Bryant and it isn’t slated for reconstruction for years. Why would the county work to improve Bryant when they are working on Lyndale? And, for those who care about parking, if we extended the bike path on Bryant, you’d eliminate more parking than we are on Lyndale. An entire “lane” of parking would need to be removed. That would directly impact residents, as Bryant is all residential and often densely populated.
The parking study was from 2023. Do you have any evidence that parking was used at higher capacity before COVID and the unrest? If not, you’re just speculating there would be a material difference if we waited longer for a “recovery”. We use the data we have, not what you think it might be under different circumstances. But I guess what’s the point of even having data. People will just disagree with it and move the goal post.
I hope you do your own research. You’ll learn that these types of reconstructions have been studied and there’s a lot of valuable information out there. We don’t have to make things up to have these conversations.
There was a vote by all constituents on the Lyndale Ave. redesign? That, I–and many others–would have loved to see. Just because people are elected to office does not mean they are listening to the majority of their constituents.
Wysapple you are a one issue commentator who is completely biased towards bike lanes being added. How many people bike 11/15 – 3/15? City needs to work together to save commerce right now not find new ways to destroy it. Look at Hennepin, doing the same thing and expecting a different result is definition of insanity.
Again, we aren’t doing the same thing on Lyndale because we are keeping 75% of the parking on Lyndale whereas on Hennepin we kept only 25%. Until you and others take that into account in your arguments, you aren’t being serious.
Why do people keep insisting that planners haven’t done extensive engagement or don’t understand the concerns of the business community and other stakeholder groups? The county did direct outreach to the business community. It wasn’t just town halls. They met individually. I know from my perspective, the county made numerous presentations to my neighborhood group. We are diverse group spanning many ages and demographics. Lyndale has also been included on the city’s master bike lane for years, along with Bryant. It has always been the aspiration to have bike infrastructure on Lyndale in addition to Bryant and Hennepin. The county obviously knows about Bryant. And they know that there aren’t any near-term plans to continue the protected bike path on Bryant north of Lake street. We are eliminating 25% of the on street parking on Lyndale. On Hennepin, it was almost the opposite. We eliminated more on-street parking than we preserved on Hennepin (although, we then reduced the hours of operation of the bus lane to provide more parking). Per the county’s parking study, on street parking on Lyndale is hardly ever at capacity. After reconstruction, there will be more parking available than used along most segments of Lyndale at a given time. Sincerely, it was a lot easier to persuasively argue that design changes will hurt businesses on Hennepin than on Lyndale. The streets are materially different, and we see how it is easier to make everyone happy when you have more right of way to work with. Hanging your hat on eliminating parking is not a serious argument given the actual reality of what the design entails. We are also talking about an area with tens of thousands of people who live nearby and choose these neighborhoods because they want to live somewhere where they can walk, bike or use transit. All these people are potential customers. If businesses don’t want to cater to these folks and want to create a regional destination, that’s a business choice. I think of the Lynn Hall. I liked going there when it was a cafe/restaurant. Now it’s just an event space. How many times have I visited since it’s been an event space? Zero. How many times will I visit during reconstruction? Zero. How many times will I visit after reconstruction? Zero. That’s a business decision that pivots away from the neighborhood and relies on people driving in. Some owners may have to decide if Lyndale is still the right place for their business. And that’s OK. Cities and neighborhoods change.