Roundabouts ahead? Northeast University Avenue due for a makeover

In the past three weeks, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) gave presentations to two Northeast neighborhood associations to acquaint members with the pending major reconstruction of University Avenue NE. The street, the longest in the city, is also known as Trunk Highway 47, and is a major corridor for freight and passenger traffic. 

Changes being considered could include roundabouts at the intersections with Broadway and Lowry. 

At the Feb. 11 Bottineau Neighborhood Association meeting, transportation engineering consultant Nikki Farrington said the goal of the project is to improve mobility and safety for all users. 

MnDOT originally considered a pavement replacement and some Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) improvements, but realized quickly that the corridor needed more, so the plan was paused. A study was done in 2023, resulting in a recommendation of a four-to-three lane conversion between Hennepin and Lowry avenues. 

Farrington noted that details were shared with the public last spring and summer, “so we’re here now with more details on the two missing pieces, the Lowry and Broadway intersections. We’re trying to show the full picture of the corridor with this latest round of outreach.” 

Roadway construction  would begin in 2027, with some possible utility work next year. MnDOT Principal Engineer Alan Rindels said MnDOT representatives were able to talk to more than 2,000 people in meetings with neighbors and business owners in 2024.

Farrington said one of the main things planners heard regarding the commercial area between Hennepin and First Avenue NE, was the need for parking. “And so we are putting parking back in, and people are also generally supportive of bike lanes.” 

The plan would call for a four-car parking bay on the west side of that block, and raised bike lanes on both sides. The three-lane conversion would also have raised medians at 10 intersections between First Avenue and Lowry.

MnDOT will also address two busy intersections it considers problematic: Broadway Street and Lowry Avenue. Both have safety issues that need to be improved. 

The Broadway intersection has the second-highest number of crashes along University, after Lowry, partly because of its skewed intersection design (the streets don’t intersect at the standard 90 degrees), and the separate right turn in the southwest corner. 

Sidewalks are too close to moving traffic. A guardrail was installed on the sharp curve on the southwest corner to help protect them from vehicles, but pedestrians, especially people with disabilities or families with small children, often must navigate around telephone poles and other obstacles in the sidewalk due to lack of space. 

Driveway access located close to the intersection creates safety concerns and limits the ability to provide pedestrian improvements, and the current sidewalks do not align with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Add to that the children who need to cross the streets to get to nearby Las Estrellas Elementary School, and it all makes for a difficult pedestrian experience.

Farrington acknowledged that University and Broadway are also freight corridors, and freight movement has to be accommodated. The angles of some of the corners makes turning large trucks with trailers difficult. One proposal is to redo the intersection into a roundabout, a design that generally results in fewer severe crashes due to slower speeds. Vehicles would spend less time idling at red lights. Trade-offs would include taking bits of property on the corners, including McDonald’s and Speedway spaces. She said MnDOT has met with businesses that might be affected by these changes.

Farrington said the Lowry/University intersection “currently produces four times the crash rate you’d expect in an intersection in an urban area like this, a lot of which are injury crashes.” There are also buildings right up against the intersection. Making any change — either a signal intersection or a roundabout  — would require taking some space from all four quadrants. If the traffic were reduced to single lanes, the roundabout would be effective in reducing crashes, but the tradeoff would be more congestion. 

Rindels noted, “We’re struggling with what is the right solution is for the intersection, but it’s a very, very difficult intersection to solve. It’s a very wicked problem. We’ve gone through probably 11 designs to look at this, trying to figure out different ways to get this intersection to work.” 

BNA President Mariam Slayhi said, “This is a serious intersection node that has been a trouble spot for many years, for all of us Northeast residents.” She said she travels the area quite frequently, and avoids the intersection due to the high number of injuries and traffic accidents. She also wondered, “How are the businesses going to manage if we go with something that affects them, especially Stanley’s, which is so close? I don’t want this to affect their business.” 

On Thursday, Feb. 20, as this issue of the Northeaster began layout, Stanley’s, 2500 University Ave. NE, issued a plea on Facebook: “The state of Minnesota is considering acquiring our building as part of the proposed 2027 University Avenue Construction Project, which would mean Stanley’s Northeast Bar Room would not exist after 2027.” The bar asked concerned patrons to contact MnDOT: https://bit.ly/412x3YE.

Two days after the meeting at Bottineau, Farrington and MnDOT West Area Coordinator Christina Perfetti gave the same presentation to members of the St. Anthony West Neighborhood Organization (STAWNO) at the Ukrainian American Community Center. 

Farrington addressed the offset intersection at University and 22nd Avenue, where, she said, “The number of crashes there just jumps out at you … something is going on there with sightlines and people making poor choices going onto University.” A median would be placed at that intersection, allowing only right turns onto or off of University Ave.

At the meeting’s conclusion, Farrington said, “We plan to take all this feedback and go back to our layouts and come with a recommendation for the City of Minneapolis in late spring or early summer for a decision.”  She added, “We’ve been in contact with all of these property owners and businesses in multiple meetings to make sure they were the first to see this in a public meeting. They have given us feedback to make sure we’re understanding all the impacts to their properties with each of these plans.”