Wooddale Bike Lane Repainting on Docket for Final Council Approval

The Edina City Council will be making a final decision about the fate of Wooddale Avenue's contentious bike lanes when it meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 16.

Council members voted just last month to remove the advisory bike lanes from Wooddale, which run from 50th Street to Valley View Road, and repaint the roadway's centerline. A dedicated bike lane would then be placed alongside southbound traffic between 50th and 56th streets, with sharrows—markings of a bike with two chevrons above it—painted on the remaining portions of Wooddale to remind drivers the avenue is shared with bicyclists.

A dedicated parking lane will be retained on the east side of Wooddale, under the approved plan.

Council members did indicate they wanted to move forward with the changes last month, but elected to wait until they heard back from Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) staff regarding funding initially provided by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to take official action. 

According to a staff report, the City of Edina recently received confirmation from MnDOT that the changes would not jeopardize federal $250,000 in federal grant money through the FHWA's Transit for Livable Communities (TLC) program.

Neither the FHWA nor TLC will require repayment of that initial funding, though the FHWA would require the City of Edina to provide a final report on the advisory bike lane experiment. Additionally, TLC would expect the City of Edina to report on the existing lane configuration as well as the proposed configuration and its operation.

The City of Edina could simply pay the estimated $29,600 in funds to repaint the roadway as soon as possible, or could look into utilizing Municipal State Aid (MSA) funds for the changes.

Should the city absorb the costs, the re-striping could likely be completed by the end of May. If City Council members opt to try funding the project through MSA funds, it would require a variance from MnDOT and MSA approval of plans. Those approvals could not happen until mid-July at the earliest, since the variance committee does not meet until the end of June.

The last time the matter was before the council for discussion, members seemed in favor of having the City cover the cost of repainting Wooddale, in hopes of getting the situation resolved as quickly as possible.

In March, Council Member Josh Sprague said it felt like the right time to end the advisory bike lane experiment.

"We've gotten some data out of it, there are applications where it works," Sprague said. "All I'm saying is we've gained what we can out of it. It's time to close the door on this treatment, go back to another option that was part of the original plan and move forward."

Also on the City Council agenda are the finalized neighborhood boundaries and names, in addition to a blanket Neighborhood Association Policy. The city's Name Your Neighborhood project started back in January 2012, with a public hearing on the matter held at the Jan. 22 City Council meeting.

A map of the final neighborhood boundaries and names and a copy of the Neighborhood Association Policy are attached at the top of this article.

The City Council meets at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers of Edina City Hall.

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