It’s been awhile since this topic was brought up, and this is what I brought to the plate;
One of the biggest arguments Minnehaha Country Club had was that the land was a Audubon reserve that should be preserved. I couldn’t agree more. It is some of the most beautiful green space in the entire city, and if you have the money, you can see it. I think my approach would shoot holes in their argument and help the city get federal and state funding for the project. Build a state park in the middle of Sioux Falls.
Then here comes another great argument to finally build the east/west route;
Beings that the top 5 worst intersections in Sioux Falls are 41st Street and Kiwanis Ave, 41st Street and I-29, 41st Street and Louise Ave, 41st Street and Western Ave, and 41st Street and Marion Road, I can clearly see now, as the city council does, that our problem here must be on 57th Street and Bahnson Avenue on the south-Side, which is where there just so happens to be a small segment of land our greed-stricken city planners have their sights on annexing next. Perhaps the money junkies can use that land to move their sacred golf courses to the outskirts of town, as opposed to bottlenecking the entire city on two main routes, sparing the residents of Sioux Falls from 400+ traffic collisions every few dozen months, just so that the money junkies don’t have to go through the horror of driving an additional 15-minutes outside of town to go golfing.
While I agree 100% with Devin, the monied elite will never let this happen. Several mayors (Hanson, Munson & Huether) have all said that putting the golf courses in the center of town was bad planning, but none of them have had the guts to do anything about it. While they have bullied an entire neighborhood on the Southside over a Walmart, they won’t touch the country clubs with a ten foot pole.
Since I live on the extreme west edge of town near 26th Street and I drive downtown or across town pretty often, this has been a annoyance of mine for years. The east/west routes are really a problem.
I have always thought if the politica will was there, we could get something done. I think to some extent that there may be a point from city leaders that there are things in place now that would make this very difficult, but I don’t think necessarily impossible. I think about the importance of a east/west route in the middle on 26th not just to ease congestion on 12th and 41st St, but also for emergency services accessing both hospitals as well.
There is the issue of the retail on 26th and Louise, but you could probably work that out somehow and find right of way.
Then there is a bridge across the river. Expensive, but presumably doable.
Then the golf course. They have a beautiful plot of land with mature trees. That is an issue, how to move them and not harm them too badly. Maybe there is something we could do for the public good where we could give them some sort of compensation and/or a sweetheart deal on new land somewhere else.
One thing always brought up is that obtaining right of way from hundreds of landowners on the older section of 26th street between Kiwanis and Minnesota…because it wouldn’t be wide enough to handle the traffic.
Something I thought maybe woul work…
imagine a new 26th street starting at Johnny Carinos, going over a bridge to the golf course, then have the road literally fork, one segment say the eastbound continuing to 26th street at Kiwanis. Make 26th street from this new leg and Kiwanis to Minnesota one way. Have the other split/fork go through the golf course north up to 22nd and hook up there. Make 22nd one way as well. 22nd could be say one way going westbound, 26th one way going eastbound. Now with your smallish right of way you can have 2 maybe 3 lanes going one direction each (22nd and 26th). That might solve your problem with traffic volumes. One of the objections was that 26th would be one lane each direction and obtaining right of way from hundreds of people wasn’t feasible. This would presumably solve that.
By the way if you look at newer stretches of right of way, like 12th street from Kiwanis to I-29, you see how newer engineering standards really help. By reducing/limiting the points of ingress/egress, having medians, you increase safety and dramatically increase the volumes you can carry. If you look at 41st St, Minnesota, and other stretches of 12th street you can see older standards that cause gridlock, curb cuts every 20 feet etc. You could also make a world of difference if spent some good money on updating older roads and figuring out how to change the ingress/egress to be more like newer stretches. It would take money, but it would benefit EVERYONE.
If nothing’s done, there’s a danger of Harrisburg becoming the new metro center. There’s a desperate need for a crosstown partially limited access thorofare. It doesn’t make sense to cross the golf courses or affluent neighborhoods. Downtown would thrive if there’s ready access from the east and west freeways. There’s a problem with quick transport to the 3 hospitals that could be resolved. There’s city, state, and federal plans for 41st from Marion across I-29 through to Kiwanis that should not be disrupted. 41st Street is to far south and 2016 proposed construction will be a major disruption. Further widening will take away major revenue from sales & commercial property taxes. Besides, a crosstown should be more mid-city. I have a thought I’ll send you via graphic map. You’re welcome to post it. Perhaps it will be the start of reopening this issue. Public interjection and comment here (rather than rigged city survey) could become a better way to formulate an alignment.
I am not a member at Minnehaha Country Club but I can tell you that when the club was built at its present location it was not in the center of the city. It was by fair on the outskirts. Homes west of I29 were not even dreamed of when it was built. If you buy a house out there, unless you are really stupid, you need to figure out that there is not going to be a 18th Street, 26th Street or 22nd Street route through the middle of the city.
I like your idea Greg. Something will eventually have to be done. If I am coming from DT and I have to go to the mall and run other errands along the way, I always take 33rd street to Kiwanis. Never any cars on it.
This whole discussion is moot, because there’s no way to turn 26th east of Kiwanis into an arterial street without using eminent domain to take out dozens of homes, churches, etc. You can’t have scores of residential driveways dumping out onto a 5-6 lane throughfare. With Greg’s proposal – points for creativity – you’d need to do that with twice as many homes.
Greg’s dead on in his last paragraph, but it’s virtually impossible to solve ingress/egress issues after the fact because there’s no way to reorient the driveways on residential properties to divert to side streets. You have to buy them, wipe them out, and start installing cul-de-sacs to cut down on the number of active intersections. And if one is going to even contemplate this, let’s be real – we’re not talking Kiwanis to Minnesota. We’re talking Kiwanis all the way to I-229. Anything short is half-assed and going to move the problems elsewhere. 41st is terrible but Minnesota’s no gem either. Stop at Kiwanis and now you’ve got even larger bottlenecks at Kiwanis/12th and Kiwanis/41st because you’re increasing North/South traffic flow.
Anyway, the uproar from these affected homeowners make the possibility of anything happening nearly zero. Nobody even needs to ask the country clubs or the retail businesses what they think. The residents alone would be enough to stop this dead in its tracks. And in the unlikely chance that the city tried to go ahead, the city would likely have to litigate multiple claims in court. Eminent domain cases take *forever* to resolve because invariably each almost always raises some unique question that allows for ongoing appeals.
The traffic situation on 41st is a lousy situation, to be sure. I don’t think any sane person could question that. But history’s wrought what it’s wrought in terms of the city’s layout. Want a partial answer that uses existing infrastructure? Get people to figure out that, nine times out of ten, it’s faster to get from one side of town to the other by utilizing 229.
Want another partial answer? Just move to the south side, where the city did a vastly superior job of planning and building infrastructure to accommodate future needs.
I’ve been saying this since they first started developing the Marion Road area. Yes, I’m that old. I always rolled my eyes when the city claimed that the new throughways at the southern and northern ends of the city were going to fix the problem. Sure, for those that lived near 57th it was great, but the core (12th-41st) were never helped by that. The 26th to 41st caused even more congestion than it saved as it just took everybody to that same backed-up intersection, and the only reason it happened at all was to create more retail (i.e. help Walmart). Funny how many businesses have come and gone in that area, though.
FWIW – those golf courses were not “put in the middle of town”. There were originally WAY out on the edge of town – WAAAYYY out. I remember quite clearly – when I was a kid I lived on 15th and Prairie. In the 1960’s (20 years after those golf courses were put there).
Other to a few of the grand structures just North of the VA – there were NO STREETS and NO HOUSES west of Western Ave. – NONE. And, in addition, othe3r to “South Sioux Falls” ( a separate city) there were NO STREETS and NO HOUSES south of 33rd street.
Prior to my living at 15th and Prairie, I lived at what was the EXTREME SE of Sioux Falls – 2100 S. 5th Avenue. That was BEFORE Patrick Henry Jr. High or St. Mary’s Cathedral were built there. My neighbors had HORSES.
“Bad planning” – “putting the golf course in the middle of the city” – pure Bull Crap. What’s even more Bull crappy is your persistent to pooh poohing the new Zoning Ordinances, Sub Div. ordinances, Comprehensive Planning and so on. These are very things that DO attempt to THINK AHEAD which wasn’t done too effectively in the 50’s – 60’s.
Traffic across town will never get any worse to what it is right now. As the city continues to expand – more and more services and shipping will follow. In fact, traffic across town may even get better – esp. as SD 100 gets built.
Hornguy,
Well said and well reasoned.
It will never happen for the reasons you stated.
Folks need to be realistic and accept it the way it is.
Scott – of you’re really “that old” – you’ll recall that back in the late 50’s there was a proposed cross-town freeway, ran roughly from 29/12th on the west -> 18th/229 on the East. Part of it would have been elevated (approx. Western->Phillips).
As I’ve mentioned numerous times here – there are still copies of the plans in the archives down at the Central Library. It was almost a done deal, when the whole thing was REFERRED to the voters (as a bind issue) by a group of property owners who would have lost some housing. Got voted down (not by a majority – but by the minority – bond issues requirements @60% you know).
This city had the opportunity and the plans in place a LONG time ago to address this issue. The people didn’t want it. Thank your average Terry/Theresa on the street referenda folks for that – NOT “poor government planning”.
I suspect hornguy is right. The eminent domain issue and the countless residences which would be on high traffic arterials makes this probably impossible. We do not allow residential to have access – driveways – onto arterials anymore for a reason. It probably is too late. Too bad. If there was a way to address.existing roads at least to some degree…somehow maybe encouraging shared ingress egress by businesses etc…but that is probably way easier said than done. I’m not sure why a private entity would want to spend the money and.possibly mess around and cloud their titles with shared easments and such…would be nice though. Anyway…when you drive on newer arterials take note of the differences. They do some really good things now with traffic.
I live close to the 26th Street corridor.
Early on in the EA (Environmental Assessment) process, we spoke with city officials and made it clear that if they intended to use eminent domain to take part of our neighborhood for the I-229 Exit 5 Project we were prepared to make plenty of noise. As the EA process was being finalized, one of those same officials told us our input had been considered and had influenced some of the decisions that were ultimately made regarding this project.
I doubt I-229 to Kiwanis will ever be an arterial street.
Think…Children’s Care Hospital, the VA, Park Ridge, Christ the King Church and School, Horace Mann Elementary, USF campus, multiple businesses including gas stations, a bank, Woodlawn Cemetery, a beloved McKennan Park, and hundreds of homes.
Does anyone really believe this will actually happen….
I doubt it.
perhaps the dangerous intersection problem would be solved by people not driving through the red arrows. you can count on the light turning red and 3 or 4 cars driving through.
26th street provides no workable solution, too many homes. Ditto 33rd and 37th. Sanford commands 18th and 22nd.
Some routes will always be inconvenient. We all just have to get over the fact that we want to drive anywhere in SF in 10 minutes or less like we used to.
It’s not that hard. Everybody just leave a little earlier, take a little more care and time, and arrive safely at your destination. I don’t thinking blaming the past generation(s) by saying they exercised poor planning is acceptable. They made decisions in different times with different technologies (or lack of) and economic circumstances. Those in charge right now think they have a crystal ball or something, but time will tell, after we are all dead and gone, if they did a good or bad job. And then the succeeding generations can point back at this time and wonder “What were they thinking?”
Greg’s idea of a flyover across the golf courses, hmmm? OK but no tunnel under the channel we call the river and under golf courses. Every time the city gets involved in tunnels, it’s a blunder. Fire plugs every 50′, a grade school with no sidewalks, under the railroad but long roadway and sharp turns before/after the tunnel. I’m thinking targets on the flyover piers. A free mulligan for each bullseye. Also, we need a feature for bungy jumping and suicides.
Don’t build it until we get a new mayor. Huether will want to put a roof over it.
So let me get this right, Sanford with the help and support of many of our civic leaders is building a state-of-the-art medical facility on the old Sioux Valley Hospital campus, which many hope will one day revival Mayo Clinic.
They even have plans to build a grand boulevard down 18th Street from Minnesota Avenue to the Sanford Campus to help denote the importance and capability of this “Mayo” dream, while residents living west of I-29, a city in and of itself which is more populated than Aberdeen (the third largest city in the state of South Dakota), will be required to continue to use either 12th Street or 41st Street to make it to Sanford Hospital in an emergency; because some (mostly civic leaders) do not want to disrupt the established aesthetics of tee-time for the affluent at two of South Dakotas most private of country clubs in the State.
If Sanford Health is really about health, then would not direct access to the Sanford Hospital from the westside of Sioux Falls be at least equal if not of greater importance to those who care about excellent health care and literally good access to it, then the concern for building a grand promenade down 18th Street from Minnesota Avenue to the Sanford campus to impress those who might fly in to our airport to visit the Sanford campus for further self promotion of some civic and health care leaders “Mayo” dreams?
If this whole Sanford experience for Sioux Falls is about better health for all, then why are we not as interested in buying-up the country clubs like we seem to be capable and willing to buy-up working class neighbors for the “Mayo” dream and the accompanying 18th Street promenade?
Increasing, all roads seem to be leading to Sanford, but it should be for better health and not merely for image.
Re-design your plan to that of a 4-lane divided bike path [highway].
Lalley starts to opine incessantly about the necessity of the project.
The City’s Transportation Planner take up the cause.
This thing is done in one construction season.
If Sanford really cared about healthcare their nurses wouldn’t be paid 46th in the nation.
Sanford’s “Urgent Care” (essentially a stand-alone ER Clinic) is located on West 41st near the Tea-Ellis road. It will be much more effective to continue to build out remote care facilities than to a huge roadway/transportation corridor to a single central location. In fact, Winston, there is plenty of evidence that both Sanford and Avera “get this”, as both are building numerous “local” clinics around the city.
PS – Get out and about more – it will broaden your perspective. Tunnel vision is not the answer.
Rufusx, I have never gone to a clinic for a real emergency. I will have to try that sometime. Why do we need hospitals then?
It is not “tunnel vision.” It is, however, the truth and some don’t want to hear it.
Plus, easier access from or to the west side of town is necessary not only for health care, but commerce also.