1) Wait a ridiculously long time for the light at Cedar Lake Road and Penn Ave to change so I can make a right turn onto Penn Avenue, even though there may be little or no traffic on Penn at that time (for mysterious reasons, there is a no right on red sign at the intersection--maybe Jim Mork can tell me who to call about that).
2) Wait at a second light just a block up Penn Ave at the 94 off ramp.
3) Then, because the lights are so poorly timed, drive up less than half a block to the other side of the overpass just in time to be hit by another yellow/red light at the 94 on ramp.
So far, we've gone only 3 blocks, been stopped three times, and it has taken 7-8 minutes at least.
4) Now that the light has turned green, we have to wait for the cars going north on Penn from the access road before we can turn onto the on ramp, since they took away our left turn light a year or two ago. Hopefully the cars will pass quickly enough that at least a few cars can turn onto the ramp and not have to sit through yet another red light. Don't count on it, though.
And that's just to get on to the interstate--it goes downhill from there! Speaking of traffic engineering, who's the genius who designed the interchange between 394 and 94 east? Talk about bottlenecks. Every morning, the line to get to the tunnel is so long that trying to get on at Penn Ave feels like a battle zone. Sometimes I just give up and go to the 94 east on ramp off of Lyndale. Then continuing east, the left exits for 35W and 280 ensure that there is no "fast lane" or "express lane" and that cars are squeezed between folks getting off I94 on the left and on I94 on the right, thus upping the frustration level higher. I've seen folks pull some moves that would have gotten them shot if they had done it on the Jersey turnpike.
We've got a metro transit council. Why can't we have a metro roads council to do some more global thinking about these issues? For example, MNDOT is just in love with their ramp meters. But do they realize that those same ramp meters that control flow onto the interstates also create big traffic jams on surface streets that are less well equipped to handle them? Yes, the ramp meters cause a decrease in accidents on the interstate. But has anyone studied whether or not there is an increase in accidents on the surface streets, either from the added congestion or from folks speeding down surface streets like they're on the interstate, to avoid the congestion at the on ramps?
Michelle Gross Forever sitting at lights in Bryn Mawr
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
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