04-25-2011 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING v Monday, April 25, 2011 - 7:00 o'clock p.m. • (4. THREE RIVERS PARK DISTRICT - DAKOTA RAIL TRAIL PARKING, Continued) improving County Road 19 is not a very high item on the list for Hennepin County given its current demand for roads and that widening of the-road likely will not happen in the foreseeable future. McMillan commented that biking on County Road 19 is not a good idea even with striping and a sidewalk. McMillan stated in her opinion there would be a fair.amount of bike traffic on the sidewalk, which would also need to be considered. Carlson stated the user patterns would need to be examined closely and that an on -street bike lane might be fine for avid bikers but not for family recreational bikers. If the City Council is interested in that option, Three Rivers would need to do a further analysis of that area. McMillan commented the City would also have to have a discussion with the business and residential owners to see whether they are interested in a connection to the trail. McMillan stated Blaine Avenue looks to be a natural connection but that she is not sure what the Navarre community would like and that she would like to get more input from the community on that issue. McMillan asked how the number of 300,090 was determined. Carlson indicated Three Rivers performs counts throughout the entire year except for winter. Their research staff goes out about 25 times throughout the year for two hour spans at various times of the day • and they attempt to get a snapshot of the number of users on the trail within that two hour window. They then use a formula that was arrived at by Hennepin County to come to an approximate number. Based on that, the research staff looks at the demographic data of where the users are coming from. Bremer commented she has a concern with using the city lot,due to the fact there would not be enough parking left for official city use. In addition, the city lot is currently not striped appropriately and some of the land is owned by private land owners, which would reduce the amount of available land. Bremer expressed a concern that if something is not done, the situation would only get worse and that in her view the trail will become more and more popular as time goes on. Carlson commented typically for the first couple of years after a trail is developed there is a lot of interest and then it tends to plateau off. One of the things they have seen with the opening of the Dakota Trail is a decline in the number of users on some of the other trails to the south. The result has been a more generalized spreading out of the existing users. Carlson stated he anticipates the Luce Line Trail has also seen a slight decline since the Dakota Trail opened. One of the issues that will be encountered by a trail that is highly popular is that you will see less people use it if it becomes too heavily populated. Bernier asked if the situation with bikers crossing in front of traffic has improved. Carlson indicated they have attempted to get the message out to bikers to exercise better caution when crossing roadways and that they must stop for oncoming traffic. Printup stated he would like to see more discussion regarding the sidewalk connecting Livingston up to the trail. Printup commented the Shorewood Trail up to Navarre would help complete the trail • connection. Printup noted he was not part of the discussion regarding the hillside topography, but that working with Hennepin County would be a good idea. Page 4 of 25