Minneapolis Uptown business owners and bike/transit advocates butt heads
I rode my bike to the James Ballentine “Uptown” VFW for a community meeting billed as an opportunity for community members to hear directly from Mayor Frey about the opportunities and challenges facing Uptown (specifically the Lyndale reconstruction) and the path forward for Uptown. I was not sure what to expect, but what I witnessed was local business owners expressing their fear that the planned Lyndale reconstruction would be a repeat of what has happened in the Hennepin Uptown area (years of road construction, crime, loss of street parking, and ultimately the loss of over 50 businesses) and boisterous bike and transit advocates shouting the business owners down.
The current Lyndale reconstruction plan includes two-way protected bike lanes, dedicated bus lanes, new pavement, new curbs and sidewalks, and a center median instead of a middle lane. Bike and transit advocates love it, and business owners hate it. The City Council is set to decide on the plan this month.
I thought the meeting was going to go off the rails when it was saved by Move Minnesota’s Julie Johnson (who leads the Livable Lyndale movement, which advocates for the current plan), who convinced her people that shouting down the business owners was not productive. The meeting was fairly civil after that.
The basic message of business owners was:
- Lyndale currently supports 30,000 cars a day, about 1,000 bus riders, and fewer than 200 bikes – we can’t redesign the corridor for a small minority of bikers and bus riders
- Lyndale businesses need parking
- Lyndale businesses will need financial assistance to survive the inevitable loss of business during construction
- Lyndale businesses need a good traffic flow
- They don’t think bus and bike lanes on Lyndale are necessary
The meeting was clearly designed as an opportunity for business owners to try to convince the Mayor and community members of thier plight and remind everyone that the city can’t afford another Hennepin fiasco.
It felt like about half the attendees came to the meeting to advocate for the current plan that includes bike and bus lanes. I have no idea if anyone’s mind was changed.
Mayor Frey spoke at the end. He came to the meeting expecting a dialogue, but instead he listened. He shared that he has not made any decisions, but he did share some of his thoughts:
- The demise of Uptown/Hennepin was more than the loss of parking – there are several factors
- The current plan saves at least 75% of the current parking – it is not comparable to Hennepin
- Uptown is changing to something different from what it was – don’t pine for what it was
- The city doesn’t have the money to bail out Lyndale business owners during construction
- In the next 5 years, there will be massive changes in the way people get around, for example, electric and autonomous cars – we need to be planning for that
- Uptown needs more doors – by that, he means we need to reconfigure commercial buildings to be able to support businesses that only need a small footprint
My thoughts:
- Andrea Corbin, the president of the Uptown Association and moderator of the meeting, made a final statement that made a lot of sense to me: “Can’t we just take a pause?” Let’s wait a few years to give Uptown more time to recover.
- I don’t believe bike and bus lanes on Lyndale are necessary. There are plenty of alternative bike lanes on nearby parallel streets (see my recent rant on bike lanes in Minneapolis). As for bus lanes, I have made it clear that I believe buses are a failed public policy. I agree with Mayor Frey’s belief that the way people get around will be revolutionized in five to ten years, and we need to plan for that.
This article originally appeared in Catchgroove Gets Political
