Minneapolis Mayor Frey vetoes Hennepin Ave redesign, 24-hour bus lanes

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – After a battle between council members and companies over a redesign of Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis so as to add bike and 24-hour devoted bus lanes was accredited by the Minneapolis Metropolis Council, it has now been vetoed.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey despatched a letter to council members Friday, informing them that he had vetoed each the format for the Hennepin Ave S Avenue Reconstruction Mission (between Douglas Ave and W Lake St.) and a decision directing the Metropolis Engineer to ascertain parking restrictions on Hennepin Ave S between Douglas Ave and W Lake St per the Metropolis Council accredited format.

“I proceed to help the Public Works advisable format, which has been unaltered because it was launched in late 2021. The proposed format options transit precedence lanes, an off-street bikeway, and vital security enhancements – all of which successfully reprioritize how we use public area to enhance the lives of Minneapolis residents,” Frey stated within the letter. “I absolutely help a bus solely lane with specified hours of operation to cut back congestion and car miles traveled. I can not, nonetheless, help retaining bus-only lanes 24-hours a day when buses don’t run 24 hours a day. This is able to ignore the numerous small companies, lots of them BIPOC-owned, who compromised each for the presence of a protected bike lane and prioritized bus lanes on the expense of a considerable quantity of parking. A lot of those self same enterprise house owners and staff have navigated profound financial stressors starting from the worldwide pandemic, the civil unrest of 2020, rising inflation, and a workforce scarcity. Let’s no less than present a willingness to work with them.”

The redesign and reconstruction of one of many metropolis’s busiest streets has been within the works for some time. Public Works beforehand unveiled its ultimate suggestion that proposed reducing car lanes down to 2, including 24/7 devoted transit lanes, and a two-way protected bike lane between Lake and Franklin.

“Though it’s well-intentioned the priority I’ve is that we’re going to finish up with stop-and-go site visitors. All it’s going to take is one particular person parking in that [dedicated bus] lane for that to impression operations and go away busses ready,” stated council member and Public Works committee chair Andrew Johnson at a June 9 assembly. “We’re going to have individuals being ticketed, site visitors backed up, and it’s going to be a multitude – and we don’t actually have any instance of this working efficiently but. The concept is that inside a pair years we’ll determine it out, however I feel that’s backwards… I really feel like that is set-up the place individuals is perhaps promised one factor, and getting one other.”

If accredited as-is, the design would go away behind roughly 20 parking spots, for which companies alongside the road have been combating. 

“We are able to obtain our shared local weather and transit objectives whereas preserving an inexpensive variety of parking areas for group companies by permitting for a versatile operational plan that’s able to providing transit service as much as 24-hours a day,” Frey stated within the letter. “I’m urging you to work with my administration and Public Works management group to do precisely that. This plan have to be pushed by metrics corresponding to transit delay, velocity, and reliability; hall operations; and security.”