Dear Mayor, Please Save Hennepin Before It’s Too Late

Last month I asked readers for their “creative but realistic ideas” for getting the city to rethink the Hennepin Avenue makeover plan. Or, if it’s a good plan, why.

The responses included one pleasantly positive take on the plan, while others thought we should put up more of a fight, as the East Phillips neighborhood did against the city’s plans for the Roof Depot site. “We’re just too polite.”

So I thought I’d kick things off with a letter to Mayor Frey. A polite one.

Dear Mayor Frey,

I’m writing to ask you to delay the city’s planned makeover of Hennepin Ave. S. between Douglas Ave. and Lake St. for further review in light of the multiple changes that have occurred in our city since Covid, as well as the safety concerns raised by the Bryant Ave. S. project and the disastrous impact of the previous makeover on one block of Hennepin Ave. S. in Uptown.

Development of the current plan started in 2018, pre-Covid, and received limited in-person public review due to the pandemic. Those who were not part of a larger organized group or did not have the ability to use technology such as Zoom were not heard. However, Our Streets Minneapolis, formerly the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition, with a staff of over a dozen people, was able to flood the city with electronic letters of support.

The current plan no longer fits the reality of either Uptown or Downtown and will cause irreparable damage to the remaining businesses on Hennepin Ave. S.

You know the changes better than anyone:

1. Covid emptied out office buildings across the nation and drastically changed working and commuting patterns. In Minneapolis, Metro transit ridership is down roughly 65%. This plan is based on pre-Covid numbers that are unlikely to return to what they were.Despite low ridership, and security concerns that closed the transfer station just four blocks south, the plan still gives priority to bus lanes and includes two 150’ boarding platforms at W. 25th St. and Hennepin Ave. S. that stretch half a football field in front of existing small businesses.
2. The Bryant Ave. S. “bike and pedestrian friendly project,” an admitted goof by the city, has resulted in a street too narrow for fire trucks, snowplows and garbage trucks to access. This raises serious public safety concerns for the Hennepin project, which also narrows traffic lanes in favor of bus and bike lanes and creates medians to prohibit left turns.In light of the Bryant Ave. S. mistakes, it seems that a more thorough review of the current Hennepin Ave. S. plan is in order, including how delivery trucks will access businesses and how snow plowing will impact all traffic but especially safety vehicles.
3. I applaud your veto of the 24/7 bus lanes that would have removed 93% of the on-street parking permanently, but the plan still prohibits on street parking during the hours of peak bus usage. We can live with that, but can the businesses? We now see that neighborhoods that have had on-street parking removed are suffering.The Star Tribune recently reported that residents and businesses at W. 42nd St. and Bryant Ave. S. want their on-street parking back. Said Jim Landvick, who runs the Cedar Inn Bar & Grill, "My customers are complaining. It's going to destroy my business."The most glaring example of what the loss of parking can do is the dead zone on Hennepin Ave. S. between Lake St. and W. 31st St. in once-thriving Uptown. The small business owners in Uptown who are still hanging on tell me that the city “is killing my business.”For contrast, look no further than 50th and France, where parking is free and businesses are humming.
4. There is no disagreement about the need to drastically reduce carbon, or the benefits of walking and biking over the gas-guzzling car. But since 2018, when planning for this project began, the development and use of electric vehicles has tripled. According to the International Energy Agency, “Global sales of electric cars kept rising strongly in 2022, with 2 million sold in the first quarter, up 75% from the same period in 2021.”

Yet this plan makes little mention of the advent of EVs and includes few if any public charging stations.

We need to change the kinds of cars we’re driving, a more realistic goal than doing away with 60% of car trips, as the city’s Transportation Action Plan calls for. We should model ourselves on Norway, where last year, 80% of new-car sales were electric, and combustion engine cars will no longer be sold after 2025. That’s a goal we can all get behind.

I recognize that putting a hold on the project in light of these changes would cause an uproar at City Hall and bring the wrath of many down on your head, but sometimes leadership demands enormous courage.

No one had the courage to put a stop to Southwest Light Rail while there was still time, and we know what an embarrassing and costly boondoggle that is.

No one wants to look at the empty businesses and bike lanes eight years from now and wonder why those in power didn't stand up and say, “Wait, let’s get this right.”