Star Tribune
Minneapolis businesses, residents at 42nd and Cedar want their on-street parking back
The newly reconstructed intersection of 42nd Street and Cedar Avenue S. is getting a big thumbs-down from nearby business owners and residents.
Hennepin County closed the south Minneapolis intersection in May to install new pavement, left-turn lanes, sidewalks and traffic signals with audio cues. When the intersection reopened in early June, about 60 on-street parking spaces in the vicinity had disappeared.
“They took it all,” said Jim Landvick, who runs the Cedar Inn Bar & Grill. “My customers are complaining. It’s going to destroy my business.”
Before the redo, both streets had one travel lane in each direction with curbside parking up to the corner. The tight intersection made it challenging for drivers making left turns and was crash-prone, with 88 mishaps between 2006 and 2015, said Tom Musick, coordinator of the county’s Transportation Safety Program.
The county secured a federal grant in 2018 to address safety issues, and since 2020 conducted public engagement sessions, a virtual open house and a community survey to get the word out, Musick said.
But with the COVID-19 pandemic in full swing, the message apparently didn’t get to everybody.
“We may not have connected with everyone. We need to improve on that,” Musick said.
Julia Hatlestad, who runs a furniture store called Groovy’s, said she only learned of the project this spring when she got a letter.
“We were blindsided,” she said. “Nowhere did they say parking would be affected.”
Hatlestad said about 70% of her customers park on the street. Now, with no place to park or stop to load furniture, she fears customers will take their business elsewhere. Foot traffic is already down, she said.
“They never took that into account,” she said. “We won’t make it without parking.”
Residents have not been thrilled, either.
“I want to shop there. I want to give the small businesses my money,” resident Beverly Gores said. “Instead, I had to drive home and eat carrots that were in my refrigerator for lunch. I’m not walking, at 66 years old, three blocks for a taco.”
The new left-turn lanes extend about halfway down the block and seem longer than they need to be, Hatlestad said. Shortening them could bring back some of the lost parking, she said.
Musick said the county has gotten feedback since the intersection reopened and is working in concert with Minneapolis Public Works to evaluate potential adjustments to the lane configurations.
“We have to balance a number of factors, and at the end of the day the safety of all road users will take priority,” he said.
Landvick said he hopes something is done fast. The situation is so desperate that he joked he may have to use a golf cart to provide a shuttle “because nobody is going to walk three-fourths of a block to get a beer.”
Two people from Minnetonka were killed late Friday afternoon when their GMC Suburban ran a stop sign and was struck by a GMC Yukon headed north on Hwy. 169 west of Palisade, Minn.
According to the State Patrol, Marlo Dean Baldwin, 92, and Elizabeth Jane Baldwin, 61, were dead at the scene. The driver of the Suburban, a 61-year-old Minnetonka man, was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.
The Suburban, pulling a trailer, was headed east on Grove Street/County Rd. 3 at about 5:15 p.m. when it failed to stop at Hwy. 169 and was struck by the northbound Yukon. The Yukon then struck two westbound vehicles stopped at the intersection.
Four people from Zimmerman, Minn., in the Yukon, including the driver, were taken to HCMC with life-threatening injuries, while two passengers were treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Three girls in the Yukon ranged in age from 11 to 15.
The drivers of the two vehicles struck by the Yukon were not injured, the State Patrol said. Road conditions were dry at the time of the accident, and alcohol was not believed to have been a factor. All involved in the accident were wearing a seat belt except for Elizabeth Baldwin.
Hill City police and the Aitkin County Sheriff’s Office assisted at the scene.
Amid the cacophony and chaos of the pregame preparation before a recent Minnetonka High School football game, an exceptional group of six girls is gathered together among the school’s deep and talented cheerleading and dance teams.
The cheerleaders, a national championship-winning program of 40 girls, dot the track around the football field. As the clock ticks down to kickoff and their night of choreographed routines begins, the six girls, proudly wearing Minnetonka blue T-shirts emblazoned with “Skippers Nation” and shaking shiny pom-poms, swirl around the track, bristling with excited energy.
Their circumstances are no different from any of the other cheerleaders with one notable exception: The girls on this team have special needs.
They’re members of the Minnetonka Sparklers, a squad of cheerleaders made up solely of girls with special needs.
A football game at Minnetonka High School is an elaborate production. The Skippers’ recent homecoming victory over Shakopee brought an announced crowd of 8,145. And that is just paying attendees; it doesn’t include school staffers, coaches, dance team, marching band, concession workers, media members and others going about their business attached to the game.
The Sparklers program, now in its 12th season, was the brainchild of Marcy Adams, a former Minnetonka cheerleader who initiated the program in her senior year of high school. Adams has been coach of the team since its inception, staying on through her tenure as a cheerleader at the University of Minnesota.
She started the program after experiencing the Unified Sports program at Minnetonka. The unified sports movement at high schools brings together student-athletes with cognitive or physical disabilities and athletes with no disabilities to foster relationships, understanding and compassion through athletics. Many Minnesota schools offer unified sports.
“I grew up in a household that valued students with special needs and valued inclusion,” Adams said. “I saw a need to give to those students. At Minnetonka, we have a strong Unified program, and this was a great opportunity to build relationships and offer mentorship opportunities.”
Elite runners are in a league of their own.
To get a sense of how far ahead elite runners are compared to the rest of us, the Minnesota Star Tribune took a look at how their times compare to the average marathon participant.
The 2022 Twin Cities Marathon men’s winner was Japanese competitor Yuya Yoshida, who ran the marathon in a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes and 28 seconds, for an average speed of 11.96 mph. He averaged 5 minutes and 2 seconds per mile.
That’s more than twice the speed of the average competitor across both the men’s and women’s categories, of 5.89 mph, according to race results site Mtec. The average participant finished in 4 hours, 26 minutes and 56 seconds. That comes out to an average time of 10 minutes and 11 seconds per mile.
And taking it to the most extreme, the fastest-ever marathon runner, Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya, finished the 2023 Chicago Marathon in 2 hours and 35 seconds, for an average pace of about 13 mph. Kiptum averaged 4 minutes and 36 seconds per mile.
Here is a graphic showing these differences in average marathon speed.
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