The Sad Truth Behind Twin Cities Traffic Congestion.... (Minneapolis, St. Paul: quality of life, law)

[RC01]

Originally Posted by Pooterdunk

More proof that the Twin Cities is deliberately creating congestion and trying to force Mass Transit use at the expense of personal vehicles:

The recently rebuilt I-35W is going to be torn up AGAIN to build a Transit Station at Lake Street! The construction will last FOUR YEARS and not only snarl already congested traffic for years to come, but also remove a lane in each direction along the worst congested part of Lake Street permanently!

This congestion will be so bad, that even the Liberal Rag, Transit Friendly, City Pages wrote a glaring article about it.

In south Minneapolis, I-35W construction will begin August 2017 and never, ever end | City Pages

This isn't proof of anything. Do you even drive on 35W? The section they are rebuilding was not recently rebuilt. They only rebuilt to ~43rd street. The section between 43rd st and downtown is pretty rough and needs to be rebuilt. There already is a bus stop at lake street, that will be relocated to the center so that buses don't have to move across 5 lanes of traffic to use it, which will improve the flow of traffic for everybody (in fact, I think some buses don't even use the lake street stop during rush hour because of this). Also, unless I'm misunderstanding, the lane closure on lake st will only be during construction, which is probably a necessary headache.

[RC01]

Originally Posted by Doctor Z

I contacted the Met Council BEFORE the Light Rail went down University Avenue, and expressed my concern that the then fairly good timing of the stop lights would be changed to create more congestion as happened when the Blue Line started operating along Hiawatha Avenue years before.

The bottom line is if the stop light timing had stayed the same, traffic would be passing those trains at a constant pace. The people in cars would be thinking, why would I ever want to ride that train, it's so slow. Meanwhile the passengers in the train would be watching all the cars go by wondering why they are sitting on the train when they could be cruising down the street in a car?

The Socialist Pigs at the Met Council and our Socialist Governor, WANT you to be sitting in your car watching that train pass you at every light. They also need all the passengers on the train to see how badly the cars are backed up so they'll keep riding.

And that's why you have noticed the horrible timing of the stop lights during your commutes.

There are probably a minimum of 20 people per train. Of course the trains should get priority over the two cars waiting to turn left across the tracks. Plus it is much harder for trains moving st speed to stop than for cars to wait a little longer.

[Pooterdunk]

Originally Posted by RC01

This isn't proof of anything. Do you even drive on 35W? The section they are rebuilding was not recently rebuilt. They only rebuilt to ~43rd street. The section between 43rd st and downtown is pretty rough and needs to be rebuilt. There already is a bus stop at lake street, that will be relocated to the center so that buses don't have to move across 5 lanes of traffic to use it, which will improve the flow of traffic for everybody (in fact, I think some buses don't even use the lake street stop during rush hour because of this). Also, unless I'm misunderstanding, the lane closure on lake st will only be during construction, which is probably a necessary headache.

I have not driven 35W in a few years now. It's too congested for me. I actually have rearranged my life so all my business and errands are outside of Minneapolis because of the horrible congestion. When the last of my family passes on, my plan is to move out of Minnesota completely to a small town somewhere where there is no need of a transit system and I can either walk to bike to everywhere I need to go, not because I have to, but because I WANT TO. God willing.

[Minnesota Spring]

Originally Posted by Pooterdunk

I have not driven 35W in a few years now. It's too congested for me. I actually have rearranged my life so all my business and errands are outside of Minneapolis because of the horrible congestion. When the last of my family passes on, my plan is to move out of Minnesota completely to a small town somewhere where there is no need of a transit system and I can either walk to bike to everywhere I need to go, not because I have to, but because I WANT TO. God willing.

No need to move out to dullsville to do that, you can do that in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

[Minnesota Spring]

Just coming off of a trip to So Cal and having relatives come up from Dallas, the notion that traffic is terrible here is quite comical. It's a breeze compared to a lot of other metros our size like San Diego. Twin Cities traffic seems more comparable to Omaha.

[Min-Chi-Cbus]

Originally Posted by Minnesota Spring

Just coming off of a trip to So Cal and having relatives come up from Dallas, the notion that traffic is terrible here is quite comical. It's a breeze compared to a lot of other metros our size like San Diego. Twin Cities traffic seems more comparable to Omaha.

I think it depends on what part of the metro you're in. My folks came here from San Francisco and they both remark on how bad the traffic is here (perhaps based on their expectations/previous memory of the area), especially in the SW metro. So go figure. But yes, it could definitely be worse if we were more landlocked like some metros are (or much bigger).

[slamont61]

One thing driving the congestion upward is that so many of us are Suburb to Suburb for work and living location. No amount of public transportation can touch those, it's just not doable. There will always be high volumes of congestion along the Suburban highways, it's just the way that it is. You can only expand these so much before it makes no sense. No matter how wide, we all still have exit somewhere.


One thing that drives me nuts is that we can be running along at 60+ and suddenly come to a halt and then right back up to speed. What besides a semi moving into the 'passing lane' could grind it so thoroughly and then suddenly be gone?

[mr roboto]

Originally Posted by slamont61

One thing driving the congestion upward is that so many of us are Suburb to Suburb for work and living location. No amount of public transportation can touch those, it's just not doable. There will always be high volumes of congestion along the Suburban highways, it's just the way that it is. You can only expand these so much before it makes no sense. No matter how wide, we all still have exit somewhere.


One thing that drives me nuts is that we can be running along at 60+ and suddenly come to a halt and then right back up to speed. What besides a semi moving into the 'passing lane' could grind it so thoroughly and then suddenly be gone?

It's usually because there's a major intersection that handles a lot of merging. That's why 494 is so bad from France to the airport. All those terrible cloverleaf in a row. Especially the 35W ramp.

Many of our highways and freeways seem to prioritize a greater number of ramped intersections. When I lived in Illinois the tollways often had 5 miles between ramps so there was a lot less merging but the surface streets were terribly congested because they were only a small number of places to enter the highway.

In the Southwest Metro consider 494 and Highway 62 and all of the ramps every mile or less.

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by slamont61

One thing driving the congestion upward is that so many of us are Suburb to Suburb for work and living location. No amount of public transportation can touch those, it's just not doable. There will always be high volumes of congestion along the Suburban highways, it's just the way that it is. You can only expand these so much before it makes no sense. No matter how wide, we all still have exit somewhere.


One thing that drives me nuts is that we can be running along at 60+ and suddenly come to a halt and then right back up to speed. What besides a semi moving into the 'passing lane' could grind it so thoroughly and then suddenly be gone?

If one person in heavy traffic brakes, it can lead to a complete stoppage in that spot 15 minutes later.

[Doctor Z]

Originally Posted by RC01

There are probably a minimum of 20 people per train. Of course the trains should get priority over the two cars waiting to turn left across the tracks. Plus it is much harder for trains moving st speed to stop than for cars to wait a little longer.

I'm not talking about cars waiting to turn left, I'm talking about going STRAIGHT ahead. Before the train, the traffic lights were coordinated so you could drive 35+ MPH without stopping almost the entire length of University Avenue from Snelling Ave to Rice St. Now you just set at red lights while the train passes you.