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Past Projects : 2001-2003 : Northwest Corridor Planning and Development Framework 2000-2001
In this early
study, the Design Center conducted an inventory of urban design resources
in the corridor, explored urban design options in interactive public
workshops, and outlined key principles for aligning road, transit, and
land use investments in the Northwest Corridor.
It was discovered that there is tremendous potential to transform the corridor by carefully integrating efforts to:
- Reclaim and connect natural systems
- Redesign County Highway 81 and enhance the local road network
- Offer more transportation choices
- Create walkable, mixed-use centers
- Engage local and regional communities in a cooperative effort
The project contained several efforts:
An inventory of corridor inheritances at the sub-regional, corridor, and district scales revealed a number of under-utilized resources that could be used to create distinctive communities and connect them together. Especially promising resources include creek corridors and wetlands; poorly-performing commercial and institutional parcels, and the wide highway corridor itself.
A travel market analysis conducted by Meyer, Mohaddes Associates revealed that drivers use County Highway 81 for short- to medium-distance trips, meaning that a four-lane design was feasible for the road redesign, instead of the six through-lanes that were being considered. This analysis utilized an innovative select link screen line analysis of origin-destination data from the county’s transportation model.
In a series of 12 community workshops, local stakeholders explored redevelopment patterns for station areas that would be possible under different roadway and busway design alternatives. These explorations led to a composite redevelopment scenario and walkable center design principles for each study area that incorporated regional guidelines for transit oriented development.
A fiscal impact model, constructed by RGL Consulting, was used to test the effect of the composite scenarios on the local school and city budgets.
This study won the Minnesota APA’s Outstanding Plan award in 2002.
Download the Report:
Download by Chapter
- Cover and Front Matter (4 MB)
- Contents (6 MB)
- Executive Summary (3 MB)
- Corridor Vision (4 MB)
- Study Approach and Findings (4 MB)
- Brief Corridor History (2 MB)
- North Hennepin Subregion (4 MB)
- Northwest Corridor (2 MB)
- Crossroad Districts (3 MB)
- Walkable Centers (0.5 MB)
- 36th Avenue (5 MB)
- 63rd Avenue (4 MB)
- Brooklyn Boulevard (4 MB)
- Central Avenue (3 MB)
- Bibliography (0.1 MB)
Case Studies (from Community Redesign Handbook):
- Creating a Transit Supportive Walkable Center (1,020 K)
- Transforming a Highway Landscape into a Metropolitan Corridor of Districts,
- Walkable Centers and Greenways (656 K)
Return to Northwest Corridor Main Page
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1 Ralph Rapson Hall, 89 Church Street S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455, |