In today’s Strib South (February 5th) section there is an article titled “Region’s No. 1 Concern: Transportation”. It discusses the release of a recent survey at the Metropolitan Council’s State of the Region event.
Now, I’m not mentioning the Met Council just ’cause I’m hoping to get former Chamber President Ludescher to weigh in on this topic. However, I am hoping that perhaps current Chamber President Jeff Hasse may participate in the discussion about the prioritization of transportation as a key issue for our leaders.
The Chamber of Commerce has been crying in the wilderness for many years about transportation issues, particularly Highway 19. At the recent quarterly meeting of the Boards of Directors of the Chamber and the NDDC, this year’s strategy for advocacy was outlined. Of particular interest were the number of task forces, studies, and analyses related to transportation that were recently or are soon-to-be completed. Here’s my off-the-top-of-the-head list:
1. City of Northfield Transportation Plan
2. Northwest Quadrant Study (Dakota County?)
3. Comp Plan Transportation Chapter Revision
4. MNDoT Hwy 19 Access Management Study
5. Rice County County Road 1 (Task Force?)
With item #5, I’m hoping to entice Kathleen Doran-Norton to jump back into the discussion. However, I’m also thinking that there may be some other recent or current efforts that I’m not including. Please add them to the pile on the table.
I think it is everyone’s goal to turn these studies, recommendations, and analyses into action steps. What tasks, projects, or efforts should we be checking off our lists as completed by the end of 2008?
Ross, are not #1 and #3 in your list the same thing? That is, won’t the city Transportation Plan become the Transportation Chapter in the Comp Plan?
Also, the Northfield Parks and Trails plan has transportation components to it, including sidewalks and on-street bikeways. Perhaps this should be added to your list.
Bill:
First off, get a gravatar, preferably one with you wearing a bike helmet. It’s disconcerting for me to see you as a cabbagehead.
Second, the Transportation Plan will be one of the inputs, admittedly a rather significant one, that will be included in the Planning Commission’s thoughtful and wise crafting of the Transportation Chapter. We would also be very open to comments from, say, the Chamber of Commerce, the Non-Motorized Transportation Task Force, the EDA, or anyone else who feels so strongly about the topic that they would show up for the meeting.
Thanks much,
Ross
Ross,
I am surprised you did not mention the joint efforts of the three local planning commissions to set up a joint task force to provide a single transportation plan for the Northfield-Dundas-Bridgewater area. All three of the planning commissions are working to put in front of their respective government units Resolutions calling for the formation of a joint powers task force to address the area’s big transportation concerns through a single combined effort. This is designed to put the results of the recent CSAH1 Corridor study ($100K spent to get a consensus), along with other issues you raised, into a combined plan that all three planning commissions could then put into their respective comprehensive plans.
Because all three comprehensive plans emphasize non-motorized transport, we have also invited the Northfield Nonmotorized Task Force to join in, and the Bridgewater resolution expands the scope even further to include other nearby interested parties.
This single joint effort will replace the old system, where each organization plots and schemes in pizza and smoke filled rooms to build their own plans, then they get together in public with scissors and tape to try to fit all the plans together. At least part of the objective was to reduce the churn and burn of taxpayer’s assets that a disjointed planning process gives us.
This is all fine and good, but where is the plan to connect Northfield to the rest of the world?
There are many people that commute TO Northfield from the cities, as well as many that commute to the cities. These folks are basically on their own to find methods to do so. There are no buses, no transit, no efficient manner (other than our 10 person vanpool) to get his done.
The foundation we are laying is fantastic, but we need to take it to the next level, and begin a county transit plan to connect Northfield and the rest of the county, as well as expanding the regional aspects controlled by the met council to greater than the seven county metro area. Currently our vanpool meets and starts in a lot just inside Dakota county. It would be nice to see the city/county get involved and work with the met council and others to bring more transit alternatives to Northfield.
We can spend the next 10-15 years talking about building and expanding roads for vehicles that no one will be able to afford to operate as the oil runs out… or we can formulate plans to move people to where they want to go more efficiently.
I see so many single occupant cars and trucks on my way to work, originating in Northfield. If these folks could just get together, and get two people to a vehicle, it would make such a difference.
Site’s such as NuRide (http://www.NuRide.com) and Metro Transit’s Rideshare site (http://www.metrotransit.org/rideshare/aboutrideshare.asp) are a start, but we need to do something at a local level to enhance ride sharing.
We will be getting a nice commuter center at the trail head behind Walgreens soon. We need to develop local programs to make it more efficient, and utilized.
Pooling, and mass transit, is an easier, low cost solution to effect immediate improvements. The powers that be should be aggressively looking at ways to get this done.
Thank you for your time, and your environmental responsibility…
Ross says to Bill:
“First off, get a gravatar, preferably one with you wearing a bike helmet. It’s disconcerting for me to see you as a cabbagehead.”
Ask and you shall receive Ross, a helmutted Bill. I guess I’ll put my helmut on. Bruce, Bruce, join the crowd. Any other helmut heads out there? I feel a transportation revolution coming on.
A link to a really cool helmut:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/index.html
maybe it’s the genius beneath the helmut that I admire.
The idea of shared transportation is just fine as long as you have close proximity of destination and similar working hours. I work in Lakeville, which I’m sure others do, also. But I haven’t heard of anyone working from 8:30 am to 9:00 pm, Wed., Thur., Fri. & Sat. I’d be delighted to meet someone and share rides with them if they work around these hours. This seems to be the greatest problem with public transportation from Northfield to the Twin Cities- trying to fit destination and work hours together. Anyone with a good idea could maybe start a cottage (carriage?) industry.
Hey Bruce:
I guess the message here is that unless you’ve (the Three Musketeers, excuse me, Planning Chairs) have spent $100,000 on consultant-generated report, it’s hard to get taken seriously. Otherwise you’re potentially dismissed as three guys filling a room with smoke from a joint task force, developing the munchies for some pizza.
Seriously, I sincerely and fervently hope that you and John (Klockeman) will be able to attend the Northfield Planning Commission meeting at which we discuss transportation issues. Just ask the Northfield EQC, we’re genuinely open to input from all interested parties.
Ross
Jerry (comment #6) has thrown the gauntlet down. It’s time for the nonmotorized transportation revolution to begin! Helmet heads unite!
By the way, although biking and walking are the environmentally preferable ways to get around town, the primary reasons I ride a bike are because it is FUN and it keeps the bad chemicals (mostly) out of my head. The reason I wear a helmet is to keep my brain inside my head. If you ride and don’t wear a helmet, STOP IT! I had an accident a little over a year ago that left me with a cracked helmet and a concussion. If I hadn’t been wearing my helmet, I’m quite sure I’d be drooling on my bib right now instead of typing this missive. And you, dear insurance premium-payer and taxpayer, would be paying for it.
I know that I’ll p!*% off all sorts of folks by saying it, and I know that it isn’t always possible to live near where you work, especially if you live in a two-earner household, but… the best way to solve the getting-to-work-in-a low-environmental-impact-manner dilemma is to live as close to work as possible. Transportation planning should include taking every step possible to ensure that future development of the community is compact, that it is possible to safely walk and/or bike anywhere you need to go in the community, and that mixed-use development be not only allowed, but encouraged.
If the powers that be, can bring a technology business to Northfield, that will support the pay and benefits that I now receive, I will be the first in line to apply.
As it stands, I have the technology and bandwidth that I need to work from home, and I do so as often as I can. But alas, there are meetings that must be attended, so I have to be in the cities.
Close to home works, if the jobs are there.
I would also present this… You have a large amount of folks that work at the colleges, but live in the cities. How would you develop the amenities to draw them to live in Northfield / Dundas / Bridgewater metropolitan area instead of reverse commuting to and from the cites?
I would love to see Northfield develop a virtual office center, where one could go, and “rent” a cube and a VOIP phone for a day. It would have conference rooms with video conference ability. This could start with an unused office space downtown, with say…6 cubes?
One then could escape the challenges/distractions of the home office, while still not having to commute to the cities.
There is a serious demand for commuting options in the south metro. The Apple Valley transit center is so overwhelmed that officials recently bought the Watson’s store on Cedar Avenue just to add the parking capacity to the center. It was nearly full the first day it was available, as I recall. There is serious talk of more bus transit on the Cedar Avenue corridor and the Dan Patch revival debate is getting louder and louder.
It seems Northfield has to reach out and work on regional transportation initiatives to leverage the relatively small population (vote total) it brings to the table.
As for business moving here…the city and property owners have to get the property inventory “staged” to attract businesses and then get the word out to the brokers who will help bring the buyers/tenants. (The Upper Lakes deal happened because Welsh represented both the buyer and seller and had an incentive to close a deal, not because Northfield is a cute town, although that helped.)
We need to do research into what other communities are offering and who they’re attracting and really start tailoring new business parks and other efforts to fit what the market wants.
One real key is that the progress in growth usually is residential, then retail, then office…executives and workers are drawn to an area, the services develop, and as they become more connected to the town they bring their businesses along. This means making newcomers feel welcome, helping them feel connected and appreciated and encouraging them to bring their businesses here.
As for dense mixed use, this is very risky and so far has had only marginal success even in urban core areas. Small town projects are dying, with some condos being converted to assisted living and senior care centers. They may come into their own over time, but it will be a long wait.
Again, we need to really research what’s out there and what will work within the context of Northfield’s heritage and potential.
John T.- Your comment, “Close to home works if the jobs are there,” is one of the most accurate statements I’ve seen in a while.
Bruce- I appreciate your idealism, but I don’t think it fits reality, especially in my profession. Since our society has moved from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy, mobility has been imposed upon us, like it or not. Until someone can develope a mass transportation system that addresses every individual’s needs and solves them, we are going to continue to see increased levels of commuting. I’m sorry, but a bicycle does not even begin to address my transportation needs. And I’m not saying that just to p!*% you off.
Anne, your assumption that “… key is that the progress in growth usually is residential, then retail, then office…executives and workers are drawn to an area, the services develop, and as they become more connected to the town they bring their businesses along” is the typical American suburban formula, but it isn’t the only formula, and certainly not the best one for every community. That particular approach has huge ecological, sociological, and even long-term economic downsides.
Bruce Anderson is right when he says part of the transportation fix is for people to live closer to where they work, or vice-versa. That’s just common sense, but we’re so used to NOT thinking that way that it seems like an anomaly. Since most people don’t want to live in a downtown skyscraper or in a suburban industrial park, they’re not likely to move closer to their jobs. How about trying to build jobs closer to where we live?
Over the past ten to fifteen years, small businesses of less than 20 employees have been the source of forty to seventy percent of net new jobs created every year. There are dueling statistics, but it’s clear that small businesses are a job-growth engine. We don’t have to lure the next Microsoft to Northfield; we’re better suited to encouraging the small-business sector, which is more compatible with our existing strengths and infrastructure.
John Thomas – come on, catch the vision! Quit your job and develop a consulting business based in Northfield. You could be the first regular tenant of the new virtual office center and I can give you the names of a bunch more people in a similar situation. It’s the new economic frontier, and we need pioneers. Who says adventure is dead?
So as I sit here in the little padded room I’m placed in whenever my visionary tendencies threaten to break out of control, it occurs to me again that transportation is a very large subject with a ton of implications. And transportation isn’t (or shouldn’t be) shorthand for “roads”; it’s sidewalks, bike paths, and mass transit too. And as most good traffic engineers know, you don’t solve traffic problems just by building wider roads, so we need to look elsewhere for solutions. I’m enjoying the brainstorming that’s going on in this thread.
I’m not saying the scenario I mentioned is the only way, it’s just the usual way, and the way that small towns throughout the area are rebuilding themselves.
Even here, people move to Northfield, then find a way to work here…so I’m just pointing out that commuters are your best business recruiting prospects.
I’m trying to understand what the strategy is now, and how well it’s working.
I thought I’d throw in a few comments about sidewalks and shared-use paths:
The reading I’ve been doing lately about health problems from physical inactivity leads me to this conclusion, among others:
Even if employees get to their workplace in a car, it is beneficial for them to have access to walkways and even bikeways during the workday. This way an employee can get out and take a walk or a run or a bike ride for a break and get some exercise. Or they can walk to lunch or to a neighboring business. I worked at a corporation in New Jersey that had its own road network as well as unpaved trails on its campus . These got heavy use by walkers, esp. at lunch time.
My goal is to have Northfield-area businesses see that a physically active work force is to their own benefit and to have them lobby not only for good roads but also for walkways and bikeways to their businesses.
Some places where the sidewalk network is lacking in Northfield: along Highway 19 to Three Links and Engage Print and McLane; along Highway 3 to Northfield Montessori.
If a business campus is developed in town, I would hope it would have sidewalk and path access for the reasons I’m describing -- health and business reasons as well as transportation reasons.
See the National Business Group on Health, whose members include over 60 Fortune 100 companies, for more on this kind of thing: http://www.businessgrouphealth.org/
When I lived in Madison, Wisconsin, it was fairly easy for me to use my bicycle to get to and from work at the hospital. Similarly, I lived a block from the hospital where I worked in Rochester, Minnesota. Again, it was easy to walk to work, and from there I was able to catch shuttle buses to some of the other locations where I sometimes worked. Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to do that in Northfield.
John wrote:
Actually, dependence upon the automobile has been imposed upon us by particular planning decisions of the 1940s and 50s, and is not intrinsic to an industrial economy. Unfortunately, is much harder to put that genie back in the bottle than it was to let her out in the first place.
One interesting discussion of that intentional transformation is seen in the fifth episode of Ken Burns’ New York miniseries. (I’m sure there are better discussions of it elsewhere, but this is one that comes to mind at the moment.) This episode discusses the transformation of New York City from a mass transit and pedestrian oriented metropolis to one which is more defined by the highways traveling into and through the city.
Now take my situation, for example:
I am presently employed in a satellite clinic of Northfield hospital. My contract requires me to live in Northfield, so that I have ready access to the hospital for delivery room emergencies. (Being able to live in Northfield was, of course, the biggest appeal of this position over others.) However, Northfield hospital also requires me to see patients on a regular basis at my clinic in Lakeville.
My situation is the result of a self-fulfilling cycle of development. If the car was not the predominant mode of transportation, neither the hospital, nor my clinic, would have been built in the locations in which they are situated. Now that they are they are there, one needs a car to readily access them.
The present mode of transportation planning seeks to anticipate where future development will occur, and attempts to guarantee access to these new locations by automobile by developing an ever-expanding and ever-widening network of roads and highways. Roads are heavily subsidized, while mass transportation is not. There is virtually no direct incentive for a developer or business to build centrally, just as there is no incentive to build neighborhoods dense enough to facilitate non-automotive transport. When the city of Northfield decided to build a new hospital, they chose the path of least resistance. They located the hospital well outside of town, on an undeveloped piece of former farmland. Access to this distant piece of land was not considered significant barrier, because everyone who needs to use it will be able to reach it by car. Building the hospital closer to the city would have required greater immediate expense in obtaining land, and more difficult decisions regarding what might be displaced.
As long as this kind of transportation planning is the dominant model, we shall become ever more dependent upon individual motorized transport to get to where we need to go to work and to get through our day. The only way to interrupt this cycle of development is to make a very conscious decision to do so. This requires a conscious commitment to alternative models.
I can think of no mass transit system that would be likely to meet my commuting needs in the foreseeable future. However, it is possible to start by focusing on mass transit options which will meet the needs of some of our citizenry. Examples of this could include rapid rail transport from Northfield to the Cities. Concurrently, we must continue efforts to keep Northfield’s local economic life as centralized and vigorous as possible.
John G.: I was careful in my comments (#9) you took issue with as idealistic but unrealistic (in #12) to begin with the prefatory comment “I know that it isn’t always possible to live near where you work, especially if you live in a two-earner household.” That is current reality for many people. (Although there are always lifestyle choices one can make that may alter that current reality.) I am happy to be accused of being idealistic, but I also strive to be at least a little realistic (the latter being primarily my wife’s influence).
Current reality need not dictate future reality. We, as a community and a society, build future reality day-by-day. If we truly think it makes sense to live near where you work (or vice versa), rather than shuttling people around by car, carpool, vanpool, and mass transit, we can begin working toward that end as an increasingly large part of the solution..
No transportation solution or set of transportation solutions will be easy and inexpensive to society. We also need to be cognizant that we are very likely already in the twilight of the cheap fossil fuel era (see http://www.sustainablecommunitysolutions.com/index.php/2008/02/05/peak-oil-expert-talks-to-legislators/). Whether our cars/vans/buses/trains are powered by gasoline, diesel, ethanol derived from cellulosic biomass, biodiesel produced from algae grown on power plant carbon-dioxide emissions, or electricity, it is going to be difficult if not impossible to weather the transition to an expensive fossil fuel, increasingly renewable energy-powered society with its vital transportation services and systems operating more or less as they do today. Social and economic chaos are the more likely outcome unless we take aggressive action now.
There is also an emerging scientific consensus that we need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by about 80% by mid-century to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at levels that can avoid catastrophic human alteration of global climate systems. The Minnesota Legislature passed, with the strong support of Governor Pawlenty, the Next Generation Energy Act of 2007 in May 2007 calling for, among other things, this 80% reduction in emissions by 2050. The act established a Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group (see http://www.mnclimatechange.us/). The group is in the process of trotting out their watered-down, compromise-laden recommendations. We’re not gonna get there (there being a stable atmosphere and significant movement toward a post-fossil-fuel era) unless future reality (in the transportation and all other sectors of the economy) looks A LOT different than current reality.
Actually, Patrick, I believe the hospital was put where it is in part because it needs to serve an area much larger than Northfield to survive economically. To support its costs it has had to build clinics and provide services to Lakeville, Farmington, Lonsdale and other areas in the gulf between the Faribault hospital and the hospital in Burnsville.
Putting the hospital closer to downtown and making it pedestrian friendly would have been fine for local patients, but would have made it more convenient for people outside the city to head up to Burnsville or south to Faribault. The competition already is fierce in healthcare, as in other areas, and operating costs demand population service areas far larger than the few people in one small town. And you can argue that adding the clinics cuts vehicle transportation by having you drive to see all your patients close to their homes instead of having all of them drive to see you here.
It’s a very tricky situation…
It’s the same issue for the library. It is great for the people downtown to have a library whithin walking distance, but the library serves the northern part of Rice County. To simply say it doesn’t matter to everyone else where the library is because they have to drive anyway seems to miss the point. Making some people drive more so some people drive less doesn’t solve the problem. I’m not saying the library has to move, just saying that the services we demand and the facilities we demand take large population bases to support. And the situation has to be considered in terms of that total service area, not just a few blocks of it.
One solution back in the 50s would have been to determine the population cores and eliminate any support to Northfield and other towns too small and remote to support efficient growth. Let the towns die and have all the growth spread efficiently from the edges of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
It’s kind of the argument about the Dakotas, that most of it should go back to prairie and the small town folks should just move closer to services. Again, I’m not saying Northfield should have disappeared, just looking at the big picture and seeing it as a very, very complicated puzzle, and one with no single solution. The pieces can be put together in many ways, creating many interesting outcomes.
Anne,
I understand why Northfield Hospital was built where it is. However, the reason that that location could ever be convenient to any of those other places is that people are going to get to and from it by car.
If our transportation system was not so car-dependent, but rather our cities were connected by a viable and reliable mass-transit system, then downtown Northfield might someday be the best place for such a hospital.
I agree with you on what is. However, we need to decide the manner in which our community will grow into the future. Starting to build a mass-transit infrastructure can allow us to continue to be a vibrant and distinctive city. I fear that continuing to favor unfettered car-based development will eventually turn Northfield into another Apple Valley.
Anne,
I just discovered the second half of your message (I only read the part about the hospital the first time).
No one is endorsing anything like the model of development you describe for the Dakotas.
Bruce,
Amen.
p.s. Keep that helmet on! It is your civic duty to protect the valuable community asset situated between your ears.
Patrick,
As I stated in my message, I don’t think the Dakotas strategy is appropriate here, although it might have been at some point. I’m just saying that there are no easy solutions.
Mass transit is nice, but again requires a critical mass to work. So getting transit here is lower on the priority list than getting it up the Big Lake corridor, where there already are riders. The way to get mass transit here is to have more people, and that doesn’t seem to be what people here want.
I guess I’d like to see someone address how we work with what we have and improve or change it, which is the only real option.
I know Apple Valley is an easy scapegoat for all the evils of the world, but the fact is that it’s closer to the population grid than Northfield.
So what can be done, realistically? We can’t put the genie back in the bottle, but isn’t the goal of all those with superpowers to learn how to harness their powers and use them for good?
So how do we harness what we have and begin moving it in the right direction?
nice lid Bruce. I am now sporting my new Trek helmut from Mike’s Bikes. Trek is currently donating $1 from every helmut sale to 1 world 2 wheels.
http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/company/one_world_two_wheels
“The bicycle is a simple solution to some of the world’s most complicated problems.
One World, Two WheelsSM is a Trek commitment to helping the world become a more bicycle friendly place.
A key goal of One World, Two Wheels is to increase US trips taken by bicycle to 5% from the current 1% by 2017. With nearly 40% of car trips taken being under two miles, it’s an achievable goal.
Go by Bike!”
We could start, for example, by using the rails we have, and look to connect a commuter rail system up to the growing network in the Cities. There are already quite a few commuters in this town. If we could create a system that could get a decent number of them off the road and on to trains, we could reduce energy consumption, reduce pollution, and spur pedestrian-friendly mixed residential/retail development along the currently fairly barren Hwy. 3 corridor through downtown. That would, in turn, make Northfield a nicer place than it already is.
While those long-term plans come together, we can work on smaller projects which can make biking and walking in Northfield as safe and practical as possible.
From a planning standpoint, the first step is to stop the bleeding (a/k/a sprawl-style development). This is a large part of what caused the problem in the first place, and exacerbates both the problem itself and the difficulty in finding workable solutions.
For communities on a smaller scale, or those without the critical mass necessary to justify the initial expense of trains, streetcars may be a viable option. In the Northfield area, expanding the scope of service offered by Northfield Transit could be another step in the right direction. I think they already offer shuttle service out to the Park & Ride by the Big Steer. It’s too bad we don’t have cooler options than the clunky van to the Big Steer and the stinky diesel bus up to Burnsville, but you have to start somewhere.
Or maybe we should explore some sort of public-private partnership with the new CareTenders/Eco-Trans, Northfield Lines et al.
The main thing is to take a series of small steps in the same direction with the goal of moving away from the one-person-per-private-vehicle commutes and the American average of nine separate car trips per day just to go about daily life. That involves both personal choice on the part of citizens, and adequate planning to develop a community that does not REQUIRE a car for every need by default.
To add to the discussion about ridesharing. Sites like nurude and the metro site are really for businesses that take an interest for the average commuter sites like RideSearch.com is the better way to go. If cities could put up street signs(like the sites get involved section) that say Carpool. RideSearch.com that might spur more people into carpooling and thus saving a lot of resources.
Bruce & Patrick- All good observations and comments on your parts. My opinion on these lifestyle changes is that it takes a long time to bring them about. I won’t live that long, but there is an importance for my children and grandchildren. All our developements over the last half century+ have gotten us to where we are. I agree that something needs to change, but I’m not sure what. I grew up near the large Amish community in Iowa. There is a group of people who have resisted modernization, and are therefore not affected by many of the things we are discussing here. They also have a small “world” they live in.
I have quite a bit of contact with St. Olaf students. Many of the ones I know have traveled and studied all over the world. My own children have done the same. This would not be possible without some sort of mass transit system. When you get into a foriegn country, especially in the outlying areas, you only travel when the bus or train comes through, unless you want to walk a few hundred kilometers. This definitely affects your lifestyle. It seems in our country, our lifestyle choices have dictated our means of travel, and I think you two are saying the same thing. If we contiunue to think “globally”, we are going to need to have travel systems available to meet those expectations. This is where we differ with the Amish. They have not expanded their horizons, but are content to live locally.
Bruce- In my reference to idealism, I was refering directly to my specific situation, not everyone else’s. I don’t see how a rapid rail system would benefit me that much. The thing would barely get up to speed before it would have to stop to let me off. Then, how do I get from the terminal to my workplace? SInce there is not regular bus schedules past it at this time, I would end up with over an hour commute morning and evening. In as much as I work 12-13 hrs a day, this makes for a difficult situation on my part. That is why I was referencing only my own particular needs.
As far as the hospital being built where it was, it was my understanding that there is better remuneration for medical services in the metro area than in Rice county, and Dakota County is considered metro. I might be wrong on this, but that is what I learned about it a few years ago.
Very interesting. I have no idea whether or not this is true. However, it is the kind of thing that could be true under the arcane reimbursement system.
Clearly, transportation is not the only thing that we need to work on.
Apologies for the threadjack. Please return to your regularly scheduled discussion.
Actually, being in Dakota Co. does make a difference in reimbursements; I forgot about that.
I just find these discussions very interesting. I am fascinated by the way the various choices in some areas affect the outcomes in other areas. For example, would rail service be a good thing in getting Northfielders off the road or open up Northfield to much more development, leapfrogging out from Apple Valley right over Farmington and working against the orderly growth theory. Would it have been better from an overall transportation and cost effectiveness standpoint to have hospitals in Faribault and Burnsville and not have one Northfield? How do you keep Northfield small, yet provide enough population to support downtown retail, a new library, large schools and other amenities? I’m not taking sides on any of these issues, just really fascinated by the many facets of “improving” our little slice of the world.
I think it would be great to do some ‘Sim City’ exercises that tested some of the many options to see how they’d play out.
Being up at 3 AM, drinking hot lemonade, because you have a beastly cold is certain to provide a clear head, n’est ce pas? (sp?)
I vote for “clear head” Tracy, who in her posts 13 and 25 points out the need for a paradigm change. Think functioning, dense neighborhoods and you will begin to eliminate car trips. Just the short ones at first , but emissions are emissions.
It does not matter so much (unless there are other governing reasons, as in the case of the library) where the hospital or library is, since each neighborhood cannot have its own one of EVERY facility. Placing an institution in the center of its user population makes the most equitable travel distance for all, and if that’s in a town center has other benefits, which may include saving car trips by doing other business/errands on one trip.
The hospital had to move to a large piece of land with expansion possibilities, and in a site to capture other clients/patients. The reimbursement issue was a bit of a red herring in that the hospital was being reimbursed at full metro levels ( they said because reimbursement depends on wages paid, and they said they had to pay metro wages to attract best staff) but that full reimbursement was NOT guaranteed, had to be “awarded” each year, so the possibility of losing that was always a threat for them.
Two Comp Plans back, the emphasis was on growing the community from the center out; no leapfrogging allowed! (And I’m sure the new one will go back to that premise, won’t it, Ross? Tracy?) But when that development principle was violated, all kinds of negative situations developed, both economic and social.
P.S. Patrick: keep driving, no guilt, please….. the days of waiting for the Dr. to come around the bend in his horse and buggy are long gone. And I wouldn’t want my Dr. knocked off his bicycle by a Hummer, either.
Northfield continues to struggle with some core issues related to transportation. Are we going to create an elevated river and rail crossing at Jefferson Road? Are we going to create an east-west link on the north side of the city to connect TH3 and TH19? Are we going to bring Cedar Avenue down to connect to TH19? All these concepts have been included in many past studies, but no action has really been taken.
I chaired a Northfield Industrial Corporation transportation study several years ago that I think did a pretty good job at looking at transportation issues. However, we have trouble with implementation in this community.
As a business owner that gets involved in moving bulk goods in and out of the community I know how problematic it can be to bring a vehicle in on Th19 and have to navigate through that intersection. With a bypass route that could be avoided. Sending every sand, gravel, cement, concrete, truss, and other truck shipped deliveries on our ‘city’ streets continues to cause difficulties. Upper Lakes Foods didn’t avoid Northfield because of poor traffic flow, but they will be adding many, many more trucks each day to our roads. It would be good if we had some alternatives being worked on that would lead to improvements.
Ray:
You bring up many of what are, in my opinion, some of the key transportation issues/decisions facing us right now and have been facing us for many years.
Perhaps Griff could post an electronic version of the NIC Transportation Task Force Report; I agree with you Ray, it’s a good starting point for this topic.
Ross
I appreciate the level of discussion here about all aspects of transportation: motorized, nonmotorized, and transit.
In his original post Ross asked what projects/plans/etc. should be completed by the end of 2008. I think he is trying to ask what are our priorities.
Here are a few ideas:
1. It seems as though Highway 19 is a priority for motor vehicle travel, but here we are limited by what MnDOT can do. I think the Council and business people and others should be clear that they communicate their wants with MnDOT about the access management study. There is an opportunity to have a center turn lane that might improve things, though this is no certainty. (Notice I say this even though an added lane might have some detrimental effects on my pet cause of nonmotorized traportation).
2. Create a permanent regional Transportation Commission or Area Council of Governments (as in Rochester) or some other governmental body that would facilitate inter-city planning. This would perhaps lead to fewer planning problems such as those described in #3 below.
3. On nonmotorized transportation, I think we do the greatest disservice to communities when we restrict whole neighborhoods to travel by motor vehicle only. Examples of this are the Mayflower Hill neighborhood east of the golf course (though this will be rectified somewhat by the Woodley St. project) and the neighborhoods of Co. Road 1, mainly in Bridgewater Township. The roads to these areas have had no shoulders or sidewalks, and no shared-use paths connect these communities to the rest of the area.
The Co. Road 1 communities must be connected to the rest of the area via off-road paths, safe road crossings, and usable shoulders or bike lanes on the roads.
We need to make sure that future subdivisions are not built with these defects.
Regarding # 2 in my post (#33), a regional transportation task force, as proposed by Bruce Morlan, the Dundas Planning Commission, and the Task Force on Nonmotorized Transportation, would be an interim solution and a more achievable step for 2008.
Bill, you might be interested to hear one of the rallying cries of the Planning Commission: “Neighborhoods, Not Subdivisions!”
The new Comp Plan underway has language in several areas that lay the groundwork for requiring non-motorized connections within and between neighborhoods, and we’re doing whatever we can to ensure that any future neighborhoods will NOT have the defects you described.
In general, the business development has to be more walk & bike friendly--the other day I dropped my car at Valley Autohaus and walked over to Snap Fitness to work out (I have an injured toe and cannot run outside in the cold)--I had to walk in the street for a ways, climb over snow piles, climb up a hill by the clinic, then cross the parking lot to more snow piles to Tires plus, then across their parking lot and over more snow piles to get to the Snap Fitness parking lot (did somebody really think I was going to walk all the way over to Jefferson drive to walk on a sidewalk and then go along the access road to Snap?)
Anyway, I have walked and biked to Northfield from Dundas, and Northfield has done a poor job of access to highway 3 businessess--the bike trail in front of Target ends at Community bank and you have to cross the drive thru lanes to get on a road.
I think we need to plan for business access for walkers and bike riders--and then you will have more people wanting sidewalks and paths in their neighborhoods. Right now, even if you can get out of your neighborhood your regular errands require traffic skill and some risk if you are walking or biking.
Ross,
As a resident of Northfield and a user of the transportation system, public facilities and local business , I think this is a good discussion about facing transportation and land use issues that affect the future of my family. Good meaning well intentioned and non-contentious.
The discussion mentions transportation networks meeting/connecting business needs, alternative mode choices, and reducing the need to make multiple trips by coordinating civic and private land use.
With the competition between various cities for commercial tax base, public financing and meeting the existing business investment in this community, I wonder how these ideas for transportation infrastructure will/can be funded?
Jane:
You bring up a really good point.
The Chamber of Commerce and the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation, with the support of the Economic Development Authority, conducted a Retail Support Strategies Task Force last year. The membership in the Task Force was drawn equally from the Downtown Retail District and the Uptown Retail District.
The top priority for infrastructure investment for the Uptown folks was just the type of connectivity that you are talking about in your comment: being able to go (by bike, by car or by foot) from one retailer to another in the Uptown District.
Thanks much,
Ross
What about handicapped or just plain limited people? I hear very little
about that around this town and I wonder how much business is lost
because of the very few handicap parking spaces dt, and difficult
door passes?
What a great discussion!
What can we do?
Locally:
1. Agree on community-wide goals so we can speak with one voice to the county and state.
2. Start with taking the dusty 30-year-old plan for a Jefferson Rd. bridge off the map. It won’t happen. It is not supported by the wider community. Why is it even in the new Northfield Comp Plan draft? and why was there NO mention of the year-long corridor study in the new comp plan?
3. Make the Northfield Comp Plan transportation chapter clear. What exactly does ‘preserving the rural character’ of roads on the edge of town mean? Narrow, unsafe, and gravel-topped? Does it mean Northfield plans to ignore the increased maintenance cost of more vehicles than the road was intended for? That certainly does not support safe walking, biking, or car travel!
4. Fill in the empty pages of the Northfield comp plan’s implementation section. It’s all boiler plate.
County-wide:
1. Watch county funding for transportation. It’s been flat for the last two years, while material and fuel costs for the transportation dept have risen.
2. Communicate our local goals to the county, and make certain they make their way into the county’s annual transportation goals. Northfield has 3 county commissioners: Jim Brown, Jake Gillen, and Galen Malecha. Their email addresses are listed on http://www.co.rice.mn.us
3. Look for any signs of follow-up from the county on the corridor plan. Is it dead-in-the-water because our local governments have not recognized it?
State-wide:
1. Encourage the MN legislature to enact pay-as-you-go funding for transportation this session. These ‘no new tax’ years, we’ve been kicking the cost of transportation maintenance and safety to the future by relying on bonding only. It’s catching up to us. I understand we currently spend $50,000,000 on interest annually in our state transportation budget, and that interest expense has never been in transportation budgets in the past.
2. Watch the MN legislature this month. If a transportation plan dies early in the session, there needs to be another effort that works. No more partisan blame games allowed.
3. Get involved in MNDOT’s long range (20 year) plan update this year. Right now we don’t have clear community-wide goals to contribute to this effort, and without clear goals, we will lose out.
4. Ask the MN legislature to clarify that one additional bridge would be allowed over the Cannon River on the south end of Northfield. After a year of DNR saying one more bridge was allowable, the CSAH 1 corridor study group was told at the end of the study that NO bridge could be built over the Cannon River.
5. Pay attention to what is in MNDOT’s work plan for 2010. We may not even get a resurfacing of Hwy 19, much less any safety improvements.
Kathleen, thank you for the detailed suggestions -- they’re excellent.
It’s my understanding that what’s in the Transportation chapter of the draft Comp Plan is just a placeholder until the transportation plan is done later this year, but it helps to have informed people watchdogging the process. Ross and I will be sure the specific suggestions you made here are communicated to the Planning Commission and City staff.
It would be great for the NDDC and Chamber to forward any specific suggestions or problems to the NonMotorized Transportation Task Force. We are working the various city plans to make a list of issues and recommendations to begin closing the gaps in existing trails, paths and routes as the first step in the larger issues of total access.
The legislative session is starting, transportation is a main issue, and so I’m wondering why we’re just starting this discussion now.
Why don’t our leaders have a priority list and a lobbying effort in place? Why aren’t we active players in the existing push by Dakota County to get the Dan Patch line proposal revived and improve park-and-ride service to Apple Valley and create the same in Lakeville.
All the priority lists are in place for the region, so why aren’t we actively involved in pushing them? We don’t have the population or the tax base to go it alone and expect results. Supporting the extension of transit services to our neighbors (where our commuters can at least reduce their drive time) means our neighbors will be more likely to push for us later.
It’s time that we get a priority list, review it each year and start checking off accomplishments. I realize not all issues require state help, so the local list should include issues for the city and county, to be included in the next budget cycle — and the next elections.
MnDOT and other communities and counties have 10-year lists that are updated each year. Northfield should have the same, just like the city needs a 5-year capital improvement plan with priorities and budgets. It’s time to get busy.
Good ideas, Anne!
The Chamber’s transportation concerns revolve around Highway 3, and County Road 1 because they most impact commerce. One of the Chamber’s concerns with regard to NonMotorized “Transportation” is that the focus on non-motorized issues not detract from the substantive transportation concerns.
David,
I can certainly understand and respect the Chamber’s transportation concerns revolving around Highway 3 and County Road 1.
However, I can’t help but get the sense from your use of quotation marks concerning nonmotorized “transportation,” and your concern that “nonmotorized issues not detract from substantive transportation concerns,” that you feel bicycling and walking are non-substantive issues not worthy of serious discussion by serious adults in discussions of transportation planning in the area. Am I completely misreading your comments, or is this your view?
If you do indeed feel this way, please be explicit. I disagree completely, but I don’t want to be setting up a straw man.
I don’t want nonmotorized issues to detract from motorized issues, nor do I want motorized issues to detract from nonmotorized issues (as they have for the past 100 years). I think both need to be taken seriously and addressed in a healthy, thoughtful, holistic way. They haven’t been in the past. Nonmotorized transportation issues have been, for the most part, ignored in this community.
Well said Bruce.
David, please explain your statement regarding non-motorized transportation. Yes, it is transportation. Belittling it does not help your cause. It does, however, make me believe the Chamber is not serious about these issues. I hope I am wrong.
Kathleen- In your post #40, you said “… Start with taking the dusty 30-year-old plan for a Jefferson Rd. bridge off the map. It won’t happen. It is not supported by the wider community…” Are you sure there is not community support for this? When I lived on Jefferson Drive, my morning commute from Jefferson Parkway/Hwy 3 out past Olaf on 19 was horrendous. What with all the highschool students heading into school and the commuters heading out, it was really full. And that was before all the extra developement out on Jefferson Parkway. I would hate to be involved in that now. I have no figures on this, but I wonder how many people living out in the new developements work in the cities? Funnelling this traffic around Cardinal Glass out to where Old Dutch road comes in seems like good sense to me. Like it or not, I think we are stuck with the automobile for quite a few years, yet.
A few years ago, it seems I read that one of the greatest hurdles in routing Jefferson Parkway over the river was what it would do to the softball diamonds. So far, it seems that sports has won out over traffic, but I don’t see that happening forever.
Bruce and Jerry- As far as the non-motarized transportation needs, my personal opinion is that I would like to see the cyclists obey the traffic laws on the current thoroughfares we have. Just a couple weeks ago, I was west bound on that S curve where 3rd. Street turns into Forest Ave. by 3 Links. I met a cyclist heading eastbound right in the center of my lane! This was a 50-ish person, also! That gave me enough adrenalin for the rest of my week. You two seem to have quite a bit of influence with that segment of our population. Is there anything you could do to create a little incentive to obey the laws? I think this is something we need, for BOTH drivers and cyclists, no matter how we change the streets to integrate the two types of vehicles. I won’t even go into how many times I have seen cyclists whizz through the intersection of St. Olaf and Lincoln without so much as even slowing down. And, these aren’t students, either! Actually, in thinking about this, maybe we should put up some concrete barriers on some sreets and designate them for cyclists only. Not real feasible, but just a thought.
John,
I agree, cyclists need to obey basic traffic laws. So do drivers.
Check out the intersection of Maple and Jefferson parkway some morning. The stop sign on Maple is considered to be optional by many drivers. The speed limit, merely a suggestion. It is the rare car that obeys it. Rarely does a car stop behind the white line so I can cross in the crosswalk. I walk this area every morning.
One of my morning rides passes a stop sign where I have the right of way. I have never, I mean never, seen a car stop at this stop sign. Not once. One car blew through it at 55. That same car blew through it at 55 every day. Almost hit me once, not to worry she sped up to thread the needle. I had nowhere to go. I swerve right I’m dead, I swerve left and I’m in the lane of oncoming traffic.
watch the stop signs around town and see how many cars actually stop behind the white line? How many roll through and slow down. How many merely tap the brakes, then gun it. How many drivers talk on there phones while driving. I heard a report that inattentive driving has now passed drunk driving as the leading cause of traffic deaths. Why the sudden increase in inattentive driving? the cell phone.
No doubt, cyclists need to stay off the sidewalks downtown, they need to stop, signal turns and ride on the correct side of the road. I’m not asking for special treatment or even equal treatment. Just what’s written in the law. And I’ll keep riding because I love it. The more riders we have, the more drivers will be aware of us.
I don’t think I carry much influence with other cyclists, but Iagree we could use a lot of education for many.
OK, I just came from a City Council meeting in Roseville, where they are considering a 500,000 square foot corporate complex on a large piece of land along Twin Lakes. The project includes several buildings and parking for up to 2,000 workers — and the main discussion items were minimizing the visual impact of surface parking, creating pedestrian friendly sidewalks and pedestrian friendly building designs and locations. They were trying to balance the idea of creating urban buildings with a streetscape look with the fact that doing so creates a wall of buildings blocking the view of the lake.
The design includes roundabouts for vehicle traffic intersections — in the heart of Roseville just blocks from Rosedale Center — and much consideration for access to the lake for recreation and trails around it, as well as planting enough trees to soften the entire development. And all of this for land that was a industrial terminal in the past.
My point is that if $150 million projects are designed with pedestrian issues as part of the transportation package, then we can incorporate them without threatening out ability to attract and support business. It was a very exciting and encouraging discussion, and one that goes on every day throughout the area. Transportation includes everyone, and developers take pedestrian design for granted, just as they do storm water retention, curbs and gutters.
On the other points: I live a block from Maple along Jefferson and I haven’t had problems with walking or driving in the area. In general I find it very safe, but I grew up outside Chicago, and I do believe our backgrounds affect our sense of safety. I commute to St. Louis Park three to five days a week and have no problem at all getting out of town or getting home. I do think the time for a bridge across the river at Jefferson is past. Now that there are three schools, a senior center, homes and a giant soccer complex along Jefferson, adding through traffic, especially trucks, seems to be asking for trouble. Just my opinion, and I realize my perspective differs from Jerry and John. I’m not questioning their observations, just saying I see it a little differently.