Bicyclists and downtown landlords both say they want greenery and protected bike lanes along 15 blocks of 3rd Avenue S. through downtown Minneapolis, and that's what they're likely to get.
But they can't agree on whether nine blocks of the revamped road should have three lanes or four. The City Council will take up the matter on Tuesday when a committee hears a new proposal favoring a four-lane design.
Council Member Lisa Bender derided the latest proposal as one that will "make yet another unsafe four-lane road."
But owners of business towers along 3rd are pressing for a consistent four-lane street they say is vital to the health of their properties and downtown.
A $3 million proposal unveiled last fall by the city's Department of Public Works called for protected bike lanes and added greenery. To do so, it kept four lanes in the northern six blocks of 3rd and axed three of the landscaped medians there. But it reduced the road from four lanes to three — one in each direction, plus a center left-turn lane — in the southern nine blocks. The three-lane design accommodated the new bike lanes without sacrificing two more medians.
Six building owners along 3rd want to keep four lanes, preferring instead to sacrifice the medians paid for by businesses and maintained by assessments on their property. In a letter to City Hall, they noted that their properties have 18,000 workers, are worth $812 million and pay $33 million annually in property taxes.
Steve Kotke, the city's public works director, said he dropped the three-lane option at the request of Lisa Goodman, the City Council member who represents 12 blocks of the project. Goodman said the design is a compromise: bikers get lanes and four lanes accommodate vehicle traffic. But she's pained that the medians she championed would be removed. "Usually, you wait until the elected official is dead before you destroy their work," she said.
The city and the property owners say they'll add equivalent greenery at the curb or on private property.
