Streets That Don't Scare People Away

Try getting to downtown Robbinsdale without a car. Walk from a neighborhood across Bottineau Boulevard, or bike from the other side of Highway 100. You can do it, but it doesn't feel safe. So most of us drive, even for trips that should be a ten-minute walk.

That's not because people in Robbinsdale don't want to walk or bike. It's because our streets were designed to move cars fast, and they do exactly what they were designed to do.

The roads around downtown

Downtown sits between some big, fast roads:

  • Bottineau Boulevard (County Road 81) comes into Robbinsdale as a 45–55 mph multi-lane road. Hennepin County controls it.
  • Highway 100 is a freeway and a major barrier for anyone walking or biking east to west. MnDOT controls it.
  • 42nd Avenue crosses downtown, and the county controls it.

Bottineau is a classic stroad: a street-road hybrid that tries to move fast traffic and serve driveways, shops and people walking all at once. It fails at both. As Strong Towns puts it, a road is "a high-speed route between productive places," and a street is "a place where people interact with businesses and residences" (Strong Towns).

Why this matters

  • It's deadly. The U.S. has about five times the per-capita traffic death rate of the U.K. The gap opened in the early 2000s as vehicles got bigger (Climate Town).
  • Bigger vehicles hit harder. A person hit by an SUV or pickup is about 41% more likely to die than one hit by a car at the same speed. Tall hoods create blind spots big enough to hide several children (Climate Town).
  • Not everyone can drive. About a third of people can't: kids, many seniors, people with disabilities, and people who can't afford a car. "The price of participation is a car" (Happy Urbanist).
  • It hurts local business. People who walk or bike to a shop visit more often. A downtown you can only reach by car has to compete with every strip mall in the metro (see A Downtown Made for People).
  • It's expensive. Wide roads cost more to maintain than the low-value development along them pays in taxes (Climate Town; Strong Towns).

Design beats signs

People drive the speed the road tells them to, not the number on the sign. A sign is not speed control (Streetcraft).

Wide lanes and long, clear straightaways feel forgiving, so drivers relax and speed up. A little friction keeps them alert: narrower lanes, trees, parked cars, and tighter corners (Happy Urbanist). Good design makes the safe choice the easy one, even for a tired driver on autopilot.

After a crash, we usually blame the last mistake someone made. Real prevention asks why the road made that mistake so easy (Happy Urbanist).

Speed limits are often set at the speed 85% of drivers already go, so fast roads get faster limits. Cities can set limits based on safety instead (Strong Towns).

What works

Slower speeds

Since 2019, Minnesota cities can set their own speed limits on city streets. Minneapolis and St. Paul lowered most of theirs to 20 mph (St. Paul). Robbinsdale can do the same, and back it up with street design.

Traffic calming

Traffic calming comes in three kinds: raising the road, shifting it sideways, or narrowing it (ITE; Streetcraft).

  • Curb extensions (bump-outs): shorter crossings, slower turns and better visibility.
  • Daylighting: clear the last 20 feet before a crosswalk so drivers and people walking can see each other. Paint and posts work as a quick version.
  • Raised crosswalks and speed tables right at the crossing.
  • Pedestrian refuge islands, so people cross one direction at a time on wide roads.
  • Hardened centerlines that force slow, square left turns.
  • Narrower lanes, planters and street trees.
  • Modal filters: planters or bollards that let people, bikes and emergency vehicles through but stop cut-through traffic (Happy Urbanist).

Sneckdowns are a very Minnesota tool. After a snowfall, the unplowed snow shows exactly which parts of the road cars never use. That's where bump-outs should go (99% Invisible).

Roundabouts

Roundabouts have far fewer serious crashes than signals. Speeds are lower, and there are no head-on or T-bone collisions. Carmel, Indiana, has more than 140 of them. Small neighborhood traffic circles work on residential streets (Streetcraft).

Road diets

Turning a four-lane road into two travel lanes, a center turn lane, and bike lanes or wider sidewalks. The Federal Highway Administration counts it as a proven safety measure, and it often moves about as many cars, because left turns no longer block a through lane (Streetcraft).

Quick builds

Paint, posts and planters are cheap, fast and reversible. On West North Bend Road in Cincinnati, about $500,000 in low-cost materials slowed traffic and saved an estimated $5 million in avoided crash costs within months (Streetcraft). Build it, measure it, then make it permanent.

Safe places to walk and bike

  • Protected bike lanes, physically separated, not just paint. Paris cut cycling deaths per trip by 88% while bike trips grew (Climate Town).
  • Sidewalks that get plowed, so walking works in winter too (Our Streets).
  • Safe routes to school, so fewer kids need a ride (MnDOT).

Adding lanes doesn't fix traffic

Adding lanes invites more driving until traffic comes back. It works the other way too. When road space is taken away, some trips shift or disappear (Streetcraft; Our Streets).

What we're asking for

From the City of Robbinsdale:

  1. 20 mph on residential streets, backed by design, not just signs.
  2. A quick-build pilot downtown around West Broadway and 42nd Avenue: daylighting, bump-outs, planters and community-painted crosswalks. Measure speeds before and after.
  3. A sneckdown survey after the first big snow.
  4. Update the 2014 bike and pedestrian plan with a funded schedule and a yearly progress report (2040 Comprehensive Plan).
  5. Plow key sidewalks around schools, downtown and transit.

From Hennepin County:

  1. Redesign Bottineau Boulevard through Robbinsdale for safety: refuge islands, shorter crossings, a lower design speed, and protected bike connections to the Blue Line.
  2. Use roundabouts instead of signals where intersections are rebuilt.
  3. Make every Blue Line station area easy to walk and bike to, not just to drive to (Blue Line Extension).

From MnDOT: safer crossings of Highway 100 for people walking and biking.

What you can do

  • Show up. Street projects usually only hear from opponents (Streetcraft).
  • Write the right people. City streets and speed limits are up to the City Council. Bottineau Boulevard and 42nd Avenue belong to Hennepin County, where Robbinsdale is in District 1. Highway 100 is MnDOT's.
  • Comment on projects from the city, Hennepin County, MnDOT and the Blue Line.
  • Join Our Streets or a local Strong Towns group.
  • Try it once a week. Walk, bike or take transit for one trip, and notice where it feels unsafe.
Email the council

Opens your email app with a message to the Mayor, all four council members and the City Manager. Add a line in your own words, since personal messages count more than form letters. Emails to the city are generally public data.

Sources

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