Park and Portland safety improvements project

We’ve created an interactive comment map of the proposed draft design concept. Follow this link(External link) to leave your feedback on the concept!

We’re working to create an interactive comment map of the draft design concept. Come back soon to use this tool to weigh in on the draft design concept. We’ll collect feedback on the draft design concept throughout the spring of 2025.

Hennepin County is making safety improvements to Park and Portland avenues (County roads 33 and 35) between Interstate 94 and 46^th Street East (County Road 46). The project aims to:

• Provide enhanced crossing opportunities for people walking, rolling and biking.
• Create safe, comfortable and convenient places for people biking.
• Implement design elements to calm vehicle travel speeds

The county values input from the public to inform the development of the new design for Park and Portland avenues. The project team has hosted a range of engagement events so far, including 11 neighborhood meetings, seven pop-up events and two public meetings. Through these events, we have collected your feedback on current conditions in the project area.

Park and Portland listening session with Commissioner Conley

Greenway Glow Ride, Summer 2024

Your feedback provided the project team with insights on which roadway elements could be used to achieve project goals. To improve safety, we assessed design options to increase visibility of people crossing intersections, protect people on bicycles from vehicle traffic and calm vehicle speeds. We aim to achieve these improvements while also minimizing impacts to on-street parking as well as adding more lighting and greening to the project area.

Along with your feedback, we used city and county policies and plans, and technical information to create a draft design concept for the corridor. You can view the draft design concept here.

We’ll collect feedback on the draft design concept throughout the spring of 2025. Then, we’ll use that feedback to create a final design that we’ll bring back to the public in late summer 2025.

Crash data from 2019-2023 demonstrates a clear need for safety improvements on Park and Portland avenues. In that five-year span there were 809 total crashes in this area, 75% happened at intersections while 25% happened between intersections. Of those crashes, 49 involved vulnerable roadway users (29 people walking and 20 biking), 23 serious injury crashes and one crash where an individual lost their life.

The project team evaluated different design options to make the corridor safer for people biking, walking and rolling. Learn more about these design elements:

Delineator-protected bike lanes

Delineator-protected bike lanes are bike lanes with plastic “bollards” (or “delineators”) that create separation between the bike lane and the vehicle lane. These types of bike lanes can help calm vehicle speeds and visually reinforce separation between vehicles and people biking.

Concrete curb protected bike lanes

Example of on-street concrete curb protected bike lanesOn-street concrete curb protected bikes lines provide physical separation between vehicles and people biking. Curb protected bike lanes provide more protection for bikeways by enhanced separation between vehicles and bicycles and reducing vehicles encroaching into the bike lane.

Curb extensions

Curb extensions, or “bump outs”, are when the curb line is extended into the road at intersections. Curb extensions allow for the bikeway to transition to sidewalk level at intersections and create shorter crossing distances, protection for people biking, visibility of people walking, slower turning speeds for vehicles, narrows the road and provides opportunities for greening.

Example of parking lane mediansPark lane medians

Closed center median

Closed center medians are like regular center medians as they allow people walking and biking to cross the road in two phases and calm vehicle speeds by visually narrowing the traffic lane and requiring people driving to steer around them. Additionally, closed center medians prohibit vehicle traffic from crossing the road at a specific intersection, reducing the amount of vehicle traffic at that intersection as well as the number of conflict points between vehicles and all other people on the road. Closed center medians have curb cut outs that still allow people walking and biking to cross.

Example of a closed center median

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Finding these roadway elements in the current design options

The project team used curb extensions, parking lane medians, and closed center medians in the draft design concept. These elements are used throughout the draft design concept and offer safety improvements at intersections. The appropriate intersection treatment was selected by analyzing each intersection based on the following criteria:

• Number of people driving, biking, and walking
• Signalized or unsignalized intersection
• Proximity to activity centers
• Crash history
• Connection to the existing bike network
• Transportation disadvantage (Justice 40)
• Community priority
• Engineering judgement

Intersection treatment options

To provide a recommendation on the best way to improve safety for people biking on Park and Portland avenues we conducted technical analysis, consulted with partner agencies and considered public feedback collected to this point. All this data helped the project team provide the recommendation of concrete curb protected bike lanes to improve the safety of people biking in the project area.

You can view the draft design concept here.

We’ll collect feedback on the draft design concept throughout the spring of 2025. Then, we’ll use that feedback to create a final design that we’ll bring back to the public in late summer 2025.