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The architecture of the Minnesota Vikings Stadium: take it or leave it?

Personally, I think it looks like a cross between a laser jet printer, a drunk Frank Gehry and something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is not a compliment. However, be this as it may, preference on architectural styling, no one should be surprised as this is the usual forgettable stuff that post-modernist firms like HKS Architects have been creating for quite some time.

I’ve been a critic of professional sports financing for a long time and will continue to be; but now that it’s a reality that the Vikings will get a new home, I’d like to see it be as good as possible. That means we need a combination of respectful architecture and urban design. This proposal fails on both fronts.

For all it’s faults, the City of Indianapolis built Lucas Oil Stadium. It’s a large, expensive taxpayer subsidizes stadium, but it does pay homage to classical architecture. It doesn’t always have the best street frontage, but it still pretends the pedestrian exists. Going into tonight, I had my fingers crossed that we’d get something similar to Indianapolis.

The architecture and urban design of the new Vikings stadium are bad, at best. I’ll ignore architecture here. The urban design isn’t shaping out to be an improvement over the current footprint of the Metrodome. Urban design is very important, and for this reason, I ask the City of Minneapolis Council to consider that upon their approval of the site plan.

Along the plaza, facing the current Metrodome light rail station, a large plaza opens up to large glass walls. This will likely be an impressive sight from inside the new stadium, but it won’t do much for pedestrian activity or promoting a lively streetscape during non-game days. The plaza needs more activity.

It’s a large building that adds a small park to the Metrodome’s existing footprint. We need more. But, what’s a green space with an active surrounding? The park like space will likely be empty without adjacent buildings nearby to add activity.

There are no new improved transportation connections between the Downtown East neighborhood and the rest of downtown or the River. It’s basically a new, modern rendition of the Metrodome: an over-sized, unquestionably ugly spaceship that adds nothing to the built environment.

The large plaza will be lively during the football season, but will likely be a wind-swept space during regular 9 to 5 Monday-Saturday. It’s a large, nondescript plaza that pays homage to the stadiums large set of windows, and not to the surrounding environment.

This will arguably be the worst part of the stadium. It’s a large, multistory blank wall. No activity here except a parking lot and some emergency exit doors. It’s blank, dark and ignores the urban environment. This is unacceptable – a 5 to 6 story blank wall? No windows. A few doors. Lots of emptiness.

There really isn’t much here that will act as an improvement in the urban design department, and it is hard to see how a building like this will promote additional development. Who would want to live by a monolithic, mega church of a building that only occasionally pays homage to the cultural Gods of Football. It’ll be empty 95% of the time and chaotic the other 5%.

Now, with e-pulltabs being as they are, all we need to do now is find a way to pay for itself (and, if you don’t care for it, well – if history repeats itself, it’ll likely be torn down in about 20 years).

There is a $20 million sum of state money that may be dedicated to redesign Nicollet Mall. While $20 million could bring some impressive changes to the pedestrian mall, these funds would represent an unfortunate misapplication of limited resources.

We need to reconnect Nicollet Avenue- not re-design Nicollet Mall. It's being discussed over at Streets.MN, too.

Nicollet Mall, the nation’s first pedestrian transit way, is one of Minneapolis’ great success stories.  It’s the heart of downtown Minneapolis and has history of being the Minneapolis’ Main Street.

The Mall came about in a time of urban turmoil across most of the United States. Cities were desperate to attract people downtown while residents were fleeing to the suburbs. Minneapolis got stakeholders together and created what was really one of the few urban success stories of the 1960s. Many cities followed suit. Most of them failed.

Fast forward to 2013. Nicollet Mall is still a great artery running through the heart of downtown. It’s bike, walk and transit friendly. It has retail, food and good amount of street life. One could even argue that Nicollet Mall is downtown Minneapolis.

Minneapolis is still waiting on $20 million in state funding to redesign for the State government. However, the city is still moving forward on a design competition. This is a bad idea for two reasons:

1. There is nothing particuarlly wrong with how Nicollet Mall looks or functions that can’t be fixed by land use tweaks, and
2. To achieve a much higher return on investment, the money would be better spent onother needed projects

First of all - there is nothing wrong with Nicollet Mall that can’t be fixed by a little land use tweaks (and adding some more amenities on the north side of the mall besides parking). If you traverse Nicollet Mall, you’ll quickly notice that building don’t always address the street frontage in a responsible way. That is the main culprit. As a pedestrian space, it’s already really, really good.

Now, there might need to be a brick that needs to be fixed here and there. Add a few climate-appropriate tree. The sidewalk heating system might need some updates and some fountains re-tooled. The Mall was reconstructed in 1991. At the time, a sidewalk heating system was installed – and it’s not worked since. And guess what? It doesn’t matter – the Mall still works because snow shovels still work (and they are much cheaper).

The main problem is that the buildings need to do a better job of addressing this pedestrian elements of the Mall. It needs more cafes, more food trucks, and more informal activity that integrates with building programming. But, by and large, the street does well. If anything, Nicollet Mall needs more small storefronts. It’s as simple as that. It adds to the diversity of the environment and gives people something to enjoy. Large monolithic towers may look good from afar, but often do little for the street.

There is also something to be said about Nicollet Mall as a historic place. While other cities were giving up, Minneapolis fought back. There is something beautiful in that. It not only fought back in 1965, but also in 1991 (which was another decade of big city mistakes). Minneapolis’ endevour worked, and it should be celebrated because it tells the great urban story of resiliency.

Re-design or not – the Mall will still be a central part of Minneapolis life. In the process of acquiring this $20 million in State money, there might be some great re-design submissions. And, I certainly do not mean to criticize city officials for trying to make downtown as great as it can possibly be, it’s just that money can be spent more strategically elsewhere.

If the City of Minneapolis is looking to really create a noticeable difference in a world of limited resources, they need to look at the corner of Nicollet Avenue and Lake Street. One would be hard pressed to find a single decision that would have a greater impact on the lives of Minneapolis residents than opening up south Nicollet to Eat Street and connecting them to the Mall in downtown.

A redesign might make Nicollet Mall more modern, “green” and more landscape urban-y. But, I think we need to concentrate on places where we can get the highest return on investment. When I say, “return on investment” – I’m not just referring to the city’s financial bottom line, I’m talking social and culturally. We can take a hub that has been depressed for 30 years, connect it north and south to downtown – not just for automobile – but for pedestrians and cyclists.

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It’s been talked about for years; and people are going to keep talking about it until it’s fixed:let’s re-connect Nicollet Ave! Let’s get people together and let’s get politicians on board! Today is DFL Caucus Day in Minneapolis – bring it up in your ward! Let’s do something about Nicollet and Lake!

Lowertown in St. Paul doesn’t have a parking problem. I take that back. It does have a parking problem – there’s too much of it.

Here’s a snapshot of downtown St. Paul. These blue spaces represent off-street surface parking lots and parking garages; but do not highlight on-street or underground parking. Also, they represent only, to the best of my knowledge, available public parking. There are a few more small parking lots but Google Maps limited me to 75 shapes per map.

I bring this up because there’s a debate going on in Lowertown about removing up to 22 on-street parking spaces to expand a sidewalk to accommodate outdoor dining.

“The proposed sidewalk expansion would remove 21 or 22 parking spots from either side of the street, allowing sidewalk cafes near the Barrio, Bulldog and Bin Wine Bar restaurants or future bars. Building owners Dave Brooks and Jim Crockarell have embraced the plan and would pay for the sidewalk widening through assessments …” – Pioneer Press [1/3/13]

If you think that 22 spots is a mere drop in the bucket, you’d be right.

Grid.mn brings up that “It seems remarkable that business owners not only want less parking, but are willing to pay $300,000 to do it.” This is true. The most important thing to note is that it seems like a change in attitude, at least from the business stand-point, of how city life should operate.

The opposition to the sidewalk expansion isn’t without a good argument; “Some downtown residents have said that parking lanes act as a buffer between moving vehicles and pedestrians on the sidewalk and that removing those lanes could be a safety hazard.” [Pioneer Press]. This is a good argument straight out of the Jeff Speck Walkable City Playbook. It’s true. Cars can create a great pedestrian buffer zone.

In my mind, this whole debate is moot and has leapfrogged into the realm of ridiculous, including an implied comparison of the construction of Interstate 94 through downtown and the destruction of a historic neighborhood to that of a one-block sidewalk expansion proposal. The sidewalk proposal was also rejected by the Historic Preservation Committee, confusingly so I might add. What’sWhy is the moot? Because the real culprit isn’t parking or cafes, and it shouldn’t be viewed under just those two lenses.

This debate about city life (parking vs. cafes) has a uniquely American bend. I say this because we are ignoring the role that the street plays in this debate. Why does a street through the heart of our downtown need to have two through-lanes? Why can’t we impede upon the traffic flow?

We have all of this space for an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 cars per day [MnDOT]. While it’s not downtown’s sleepiest road, it certainly doesn’t have a lot of traffic compared to other areas that many would consider successful commercial, residential and retail streets. For example, this stretch of street has about 1,000 to 2,000 fewer cars than (smaller) Selby Avenue.

One of the failures of St. Paul is that it’s refused to let go of one-way coupling streets; a move that would be likely lauded by planners and citizens alike (with St Peter St. and Wabasha St. being possible exceptions). St. Paul is still being held hostage by out-of-date auto-oriented transportation planning. And worse yet, it’s so ingrained in our psyche that a situation like sidewalk cafes and parking comes into our public dialogue and we don’t even consider that one-way couplings and our tenacity for traffic flow might be our biggest impediment to a successful downtown. Instead, we pit on-street parking versus cafe seating. Little do we consider that, if we were to slightly impede peak traffic flow, that we could actually have both.

Rice Park is a perfect urban park.

There’s never a bad time of year in Rice Park. In the winter, it illuminates and warms up downtown. In the summer, it has beautiful tree cover. In the fall, you can enjoy the changing colors of the leaves against the beautiful backdrop of the St. Paul Hotel, Central Library and Landmark Center. In the spring, you can walk around and snap photos of Peanuts characters or measure yourself up against the stature of St. Paul favorite writer/alcoholic F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Rice Park is a beautiful island surrounded by equally beautiful local landmarks. It feels almost European.

The park is historic. In fact, the park is a few years older than the State of Minnesota. And, one of its amazing attributes is that it’s changed over time in that sort of beautiful urban adaptability type of way. It was first used to dry laundry and graze animals. A fountain and bandstand were added in the 1870s and electric lights in the 1880s [source]. Now, it’s a pleasant outdoor room with activities, ice sculptures, an occasional hockey rink and kitschy, yet-interesting and well-done statues.

Rice Park is a park, but it’s also an outdoor room surrounded by some of St. Paul’s most distinctive architecture.

The Landmark Center

The St. Paul Hotel & Lawson Commons

The Ordway Center for Performing Arts

St. Paul Central Library

Ice Hockey Rink

Rice Park is magical. I love it. Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Streets.MN is doing an "I Love" series for Valentine's Day Week. To see what other people love; visit Streets.MN.

The word “Stroad” has officially made it into the Urban Dictionary.

“Noun. Portmanteau of “street” and “road”: it describes a street, er, road, built for high speed, but with multiple access points. Excessive width is a common feature. A common feature in suburbia, especially along commercial strips. Unsafe at any speed, their extreme width and straightness paradoxically induces speeding. Somewhat more neutral than synonymous traffic sewer.”

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Driving a car is dangerous. In fact, it’s probably one of the most dangerous activities in your day. If you’re in a collision, you run the risk of death, injury or best case scenario, property damage and increased insurance rates. Many view this as an inevitable, albeit acceptable, consequence to modern life. And that is probably true. While it’d be naive to think design alone could reduce accidents, it can help.

What makes a street safe?

I think there are a lot of elements. The design is the first thing that comes to mind, and it’s followed by speed and traffic volume. I was curious to know how the stroad held up against other alternatives. To do this, I turned to my usual test lab: my hometown of Mankato. I examined Minnesota Department of Transportation crash data & AADT (average daily traffic volume) data in an admittedly non-scientific study.

I selected seven different road segments with comparable volumes and extracted crash data from 2009, 2010 and 2011. I picked the three most recent years available. I selected four stroads, two traditional downtown streets and a medium volume road connecting the west side of town with the university neighborhoods.

The below road segments are ranked by crash ratio. The more dangerous roads are listed on top.

[Note: This is not a scientific study. I used MnDOT CMAT and MnDOT ADT data. Speed limits on each road range from 35 to 45 miles per hour. There were zero fatalities on these roads. Most crashes were not alcohol related.]

The most dangerous road is Madison Avenue. This is Mankato’s Epic Stroad. It has 16,300 vehicles per day and 165 crashes. Compare this to Mankato’s traditional street, now a downtown thoroughfare, that has 19,100 vehicles per day and a mere 28 crashes over the same three year period.

This stretch of Madison Avenue has 14 access points within less than a mile stretch. This number alone wouldn’t be bad if the access points were traditional intersections. In the past year, Strong Towns has pointed to how these access points causes congestion. And studies have shown that these formless, high-volume arterials may also be a root cause of accidents [see Safe Urban Form and Safe Streets, Liveable Streets by Eric Dumbaugh & Robert Rae].

Contrast Madison Avenue to Riverfront Drive. Riverfront Drive is a high-volume stretch of road through Mankato’s first downtown (now marketed as “Old Town”). Make no mistake, Riverfront Drive carries a lot of vehicles. In fact, it carries more vehicles than Madison Avenue with fewer lanes and fewer crashes. It also has on-street parking, sidewalks, street trees and the buildings address the street [Important Note: This segment of town is actually fairly unpleasant. There are lots of vehicles, truck traffic, some existing industrial activity, the buildings aren’t typically well-kept and there seems to be a high rate of business turnover – but, as urban planners say, it has great bones.

Stroads aren’t always less safe. Second Street in downtown and Bassett Drive both have around 6,000 vehicles per day, but Second Street has nearly double the crashes. Of course, maybe that’s because my mom has been padding the stats (Sorry Mom! I love you, but I had to post that).

When it comes to crash statistics, 2nd Street performs poorly. It ranks behind three other local stroads, including the road behind the Wal-Mart (I have no explanation for why this is the case). Bassett Drive is a collector that connects all things suburban–auto dealerships, both failed and successful big and small boxes, misplaced townhouses, gas stations and parking lots.

Bassett Drive is excessively wide and acts primarily as a way to funnel vehicles elsewhere. Yes, it’s safer than 2nd Street (as are two other stroads examined), but what good is it if the street doesn’t add any real value to the community?

Do stroads cause more accidents?

Academic research seems to indicates they do. In my brief Mankato-oriented research, with the exception of 2nd Street, stroads had higher crash ratios than traditional streets. Admittedly, my figures may be too simplistic. Crashes vary in severity, and being that there were few fatal crashes on Mankato roads, I wasn’t able to get a good gauge on the real danger of the selected roads (that’s a good thing by the way). As a society, fatal crashes are what we care about. Whether we like to admit it or not, as long as it doesn’t slow down our commute we really don’t care if someone gets into a minor, non-serious fender bender. These accidents cause minor economic damage, but they don’t yield protestors demanding something be changed.

Safety alone isn’t the best metric of how a street is doing. Don’t get me wrong, transportation safety is absolutely important. Yet, it can’t be an end in and of itself. I’m confident that everyone reading this would rather have a town full of crash-prone Second Street’s than any of the statistically safer stroads.

I mentioned above that while it’d be naive to think design alone could reduce accidents, it can help. But it’s not just the design of the road, it’s the design of the community, the buildings and the people. Now, we can’t afford to go around and retrofit our stroads. What we can do to stroads is simple, and again, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand this.

• Reduce speeds on stroads
• Add on-street parking wherever possible
• Re-stripe stroads to reduce excess capacity

It’s that simple and I guarantee it’ll work. Also, don’t text and drive.

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FYI: You can read this on Strong Towns! Also, follow me on Twitter @Nathaniel1983.