Minneapolis Skyway

Minneapolis Skyway service directory, 250 2nd Av S

In only my third post on this blog I confessed my love for Cedar Rapids' Skywalks, which connect a few downtown office buildings between the Doubletree Hotel and the Ground Transportation Center. During a sabbatical that spring, I had walked the Skywalks every day while working out of the downtown library's temporary location. Now that I'm (mostly) retired, I find I can from end to end and back in thirty minutes, a good fitness walk.

During that same sabbatical, I read Suburban Nation for the first time. Authors Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck excoriated skywalks (or "pedestrian bridges") for taking pedestrians off the streets and for separating middle class workers and shoppers from poor people. (See chapter nine for their critique.) I defended my love by saying the twists and turns of Cedar Rapids' Skywalks make them impractical for most pedestrians, and that they put me into historic buildings I would have no other occasion to enter. (At the time those included the American Building, which has since been closed off from the system by United Fire Group.)

The Minneapolis Skyway operates on an altogether different scale. Its various paths and spurs total about ten miles, and cover more than 80 blocks. While Cedar Rapids has a couple of law offices in its skywalks--the Armstrongs Department Store that once was its hub closed in 1990--Minneapolis has restaurants and bars and stores and hair salons and on and on, besides connecting to a Target store. It also connects to US Bank Stadium, home of the NFL's Vikings, and Target Field, home of MLB's Twins.

Target Field: me and Tony Oliva, 2016
(got there by light rail not Skyway, though)

We didn't come close to covering all ten miles of Minneapolis Skywalks, nor to Target Field. We began our ramble at the Minneapolis Central Library:

Getting to the Skyway from the Minneapolis Central Library

Some though not all ramps have street signs...

Skyway ramp with street sign

...and wayfinding signs...

Skyway wayfinding sign

...and there are frequent maps, though not so frequent that one doesn't get lost (part of the Skyway experience, say the websites). East is up on the maps, instead of north, which can be disorienting.

Skyway map 

I'd suggest taking a middle schooler up to the Skyway and giving them some place to lead the group. As soon as they go wrong, put a map or at least a sign there.

The Skyway system is notable for its extensive commercial operations, including cafes...

Skyway cafe

...and clothes shops...

Skyway boutique

...and offices, and barbershops, and all manner of other stuff. There's room for more!

Skyway vacancy at 215 S 4th Street

There are apartments like this one off the Skyway, though I couldn't tell if it actually was connected.

Apartment and courtyard by Skyway

A directory of condos that are connected is at homesmsp.com.

Not all parts of the Skyway are hotspots. Some parts were just tubes...

Skyway empty tunnel

...where the lack of "eyes on the Skyway" can be uncomfortable.

Skyway empty tunnel sign

It felt weird sky-walking into the Public Safety building. I wonder if other people feel that way?

Skyway entrance to Public Safety building,
401 4th Avenue S

Eventually we found our way back to our hotel, which like most if not all downtown hotels and parking garages is connected to the Skyway.

Skyway ramp leading to Westin Hotel, 88 S 6th St

Most of the Skyway is open only during normal business hours Monday through Friday, so we're not establishing an alternative society here. I don't know whether I am happy with that (allows street life to flourish at other times) or would like more extended hours (my rental van was accessible by Skyway until Sunday morning when I needed it).

For dessert, here's a homey scene I found on the way to the parking garage:

50s kitchen display, Northstar Center

Skyway guide at minneapolis.org

Skyway performed by songwriter Paul Westerberg (2:18)

How to get to the Public Library from the Skywalk

Cedar Rapids Public Library (from crlibrary.org)

The Cedar Rapids Public Library is connected to our Downtown Skywalk System, but for over a decade I've struggled to figure out how. The old 1st Street library, now the headquarters of TrueNorth Wealth Management, was simple to find from the skywalks, because the skywalks literally terminated on the second floor of the library. All roads led to..., back then. Now, the connection is through the 4th Avenue Parking Garage. Many have been the hours I've walked up and down the ramps of that garage, looking for the magic portal, before giving up and walking out to the street.

If you are from Cedar Rapids, you probably don't have this problem. Even if you're from out of town, you probably have figured it out long ago. But perhaps you are as easily confused as your humble blogger, or you are planning to visit our town later this summer for the Iowa Downtown Conference and are worried about some sort of Iowa Downtown Association hazing process that would involve finding your way from the skywalk to the library. It is for you, though mostly for me, that I humbly write.

Main route

Follow the Skywalks until you're just above 4th Avenue. Look for this sign by the entrance to the Parking Ramp: 

You are here, on your way there

Enter the parking ramp by the elevator, but don't get on the elevator!

Find the sign, and walk up the ramp to the door

Almost there! Approaching the library entrance

Open this door...

Go down this hallway, and enter the library

Alternate route [might be preferable if you're okay with going up and down stairs]

find these stairs at the point where the skywalks make a 90-degree turn towards the river

Go down the stairs into the parking ramp

You're on level 2! Go up the steps...

...to level 3

Walk up the ramp until you get to the library entrance

See the "main route" for the rest.

Now I can do it, and so can you! It's still not super-intuitive, and involves more walking through the parking garage than you might expect, but the signage helps.

Life lessons from the Skywalk

I've gone on previously about my love for Cedar Rapids Downtown Skywalk System, in spite of its lack of urbanism bona fides. When the section connecting the Doubletree Hotel across 1st Avenue to its parking garage was completed and opened to the public last year, it looked like restoration was complete... except that there was no connection from the garage to the U.S. Bank building mere feet away. So you cannot walk all the way across downtown through the skywalks, as you could have done for years before the 2008 flood.

Efforts to remedy this oversight hit a snag last week. The City of Cedar Rapids thought it had secured money for the patch through a federal transportation grant, but federal and state officials have ruled (after a complaint from Marion and Hiawatha officials) that the Skywalk is not really transportation. They are correct, I'm afraid.

The complexity of this ongoing dispute has revealed a number of problems with the way our governments make planning and design decisions.

(1) Federalism needs boundary lines. There is a role for the federal government in transportation, as there is in other areas of policy as well. The U.S. Department of Transportation, for example, recently awarded a $2.8 million grant to study options for replacing a 100-year-old rail bridge over the Potomac River between Washington, D.C. and suburban Virginia, that could better accommodate multiple users (Lazo 2014)--that's good. However, there needs to be some limitation on the federal role, so that federal tax money is spent on matters of truly national concern, and localities retain decision power and responsibility for local matters. If the national government is perceived as a cash cow, we're inviting wasteful spending and irrational decisions. The Cedar Rapids skywalks aren't Washington's responsibility, they're ours.

(2) Regional agencies need to be structured for constructive cooperation, not rivalry or logrolling. Economies are regional, not local or national, so it makes sense for local economic policy to be made at the metropolitan regional level [see Peter Calthorpe and William Fulton, The Regional City (Island Press, 2001)]. The Corridor MPO is where that could happen, but not as it's currently constructed. Right now they seem to be designed to fight over the distribution of federal money, a fight which the City of Cedar Rapids--with a majority of members on the MPO--routinely wins, to the immense frustration of other stakeholders. As long as the economic development interests of the county and the various municipalities diverge, the fights will continue, with suburban areas wanting more roads and the city wanting more urban development and everyone fighting over federal grants and business tax base. The no-poaching agreement just signed by Cedar Rapids and Hiawatha is a start, but just a start. With revenue sharing and an urban growth limit, members of the MPO can concentrate on what's good for the whole metropolitan area instead of fighting over which town gets which goodies.

(3) There is no free lunch. I don't know how much it would have cost to connect the Skywalk when the Doubletree parking deck was under construction, but the price tag is now $1.4 million. And that's no small potatoes, even for an irrational fan of the Skywalk System like me. Once localities take responsibility for their own infrastructure needs, they realize they can no longer afford sloppy thinking along the lines of  "$1.4 mil is no problem, 'cause we've got a federal grant to cover it." And once regional governments take a unified approach to regional economic development, they ought to make more rational decisions based on comparing costs and benefits. It's hard even for me to believe that the Skywalk patch can stand up to that level of scrutiny.

 SOURCES
Rick Smith, "Skywalk Comes Back to Haunt C.R.," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 17 September 2014, 1A, 13A

Rick Smith, "Fair-Play Deals Guide C.R. Metro Incentives," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 23 September 2014, 1A, 8A

 

Luz Lazo, "Long Bridge Project Gets $2.8 Million from Federal Government," Dr. Gridlock, 18 September 2014

Skywalk install progress report

As the convention center nears completion, the skywalk is being installed this week. This will connect the convention center to its parking garage across 1st Av. I hope it will eventually connect to the main Skywalk System, though that would have to be done through the US Bank parking garage. (It will definitely connect to the 4th St. parkade, so in theory the Skywalk could be back to its original length, at this end anyway.)

As of this morning they are still in the "prep" stage. Here are some pictures I took before I came to work. Vantage point is the trail crossing at 4th St. (which can be for the time being made without anxiety, as 1st Av is closed for this operation)

The thing itself. A passerby remarked "it looks like they cut it a little long," but I think it has to fit into slots in the buildings.

 Wider view.

 The hole in the convention center where it will go.

Harder to see around the railroad crossing post, but this is where it goes into the parking garage.

Friday, May 17:

The skywalk's still on the street as of 8:00 this morning. They must have a lot of prep work to do.

It gives me a chance to show the machine they're using. I couldn't get a good shot of the whole thing, though.

Downtown semester

Spring finals are over at Coe, grades are in at least for seniors, and this weekend features the traditional commencement festivities, starting with the Department of Political Science Salute to Seniors at my house Friday night. That means starting next week I am moving back into my office.

I spent most of my sabbatical leave away from Coe, either at home--with two computers on because I have different programs on them--or, one or two days a week, downtown at the public library. The main branch of the Cedar Rapids Public Library was destroyed by the June 2008 flood, so it's in a temporary storefront location until the new branch opens August 24.

The library shrank last month when construction began on an underground parking garage. The temporary wall is on the left. Some serious crashing noises were coming from behind it today. The door in the back of the picture leads into the rest of what's left of the Armstrong Centre.

The downtown library seemed an appropriate place to think about public policy related to place. For most of the last four months, the library has been my office and the skywalks have been my stomping grounds. I spent four to six hours a day at the library, reading the vast variety of place literature and getting accustomed to the steady trickle of patrons throughout the day. Mostly people came in during work breaks to pick up videos or books, but there were always people spending time on the computers. I got to know some of the regulars, by face or mannerisms. My favorite was a cheerful guy I think of as "My God," not in the John 20:28 sense, but because he would sit at the table with the Gazette and inevitably mutter as he read, "My God... My God..." Seems like a reasonable response to the news.

I evolved a schedule of sorts, breaking about 11 for coffee and about 2 for my sack lunch. There are four downtown coffee places within easy reach of the skywalks. I rotated among all four, and while I like them all and each has its strengths, I eventually decided my favorite is the Early Bird in the Town Centre building. The managers are good-humored, even goofy, and the atmosphere is the most pleasant and relaxed.

My favorite place to eat is on the ramp over 3rd St that leads into US Bank.

 I still don't know if it's for public use or just for their employees, but no one ever questioned me. It gave me a great view of the construction of our hotel and convention center, which opens next month. I could watch the ever-changing marquee over Theater Cedar Rapids, which of late is flirting with the new marquee at the convention center. I also watched the cars go in and out of the bank parking lot. There's an arrow directing entering traffic to the right, which about 5 percent of cars actually did, though I think it's less out of rebelliousness than obliviousness. At least once a day, also, someone got stuck at the gate without the token to make it go up. Better than TV is the US Bank parking lot.

The skywalks used to run from the US Cellular Center, through the Roosevelt Hotel, then through downtown to the bus station and public library. Now the library and bus station have moved, and the US Cellular Center is under construction, so the ends are cut off. What's left starts a little past US Bank. There's a doctor's office I've never had occasion to use...

Some vacant office space in case you're really intrigued by all this and want to move your business here...

Some long hallways decorated with childlike art by Four Oaks...

The entrance to the Armstrong Centre, where the library is located. When we moved here it was still a department store, but it closed within a year. It is the hub of the skywalk's spokes.

If you look carefully you'll find the stairs leading down to the library. (I don't think the escalator has been there since the flood.)

On ground level is the Armstrong Centre food court, which boasts Sub King and Austin Blues BBQ, as well as--this is important--one of three public restrooms downtown. (The others are in the Alliant Building and behind the Blue Strawberry, if you ever need to know.) I tried to rotate among them so as not to wear out my welcome at any.

The bottom of the stairs (see above) and the entrance to the library:

South out of the Armstrong Centre there's a hallway with art:

The historic Sokol building (1908), the future of which is uncertain:

A spur off this route goes towards the Alliant Building. It used to go all the way to the 1st Street parkade, but that was demolished in 2011. Now you are stopped in the Higley Building. This dark, exotic hallway serves the law firm of Scherup Blades

This glamorous stairway leads straight down into a fitness center, or turn left and exit onto 3rd St.

If you walk down 3rd St a little to the Law Building you can join the Skywalk at United Fire and Casualty, which makes a nice loop back to the Armstrong Centre.

Today was rainy, but Tuesday was the nicest day of the year so far, and I sat outside with my coffee in front of Coffee Emporium. That's not always possible to do, because for some reason if anyone's smoking on the sidewalk the smell penetrates the whole block. But Tuesday people were walking up and down 3rd Av.

Several were eating ice cream... Deb's must have been doing a good business. I began to wonder who all these people were. I'd sort of assumed that everyone downtown either worked there or was lost, but many of them clearly fit neither description. Awhile ago, my son Eli was walking the skywalks with his friend Chris, and reported they kept getting strange looks. He interpreted those looks as suspicion, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who is surprised at seeing anyone downtown who isn't working at a bank or law firm.

Has our downtown become--can it be possible?--a destination? Why were these people here? I became very curious to know their stories, as Wim Wenders says happens to him when he goes to a new place. Downtown Cedar Rapids is by now not a new place to me, but the variety of people I saw of whom I knew nothing showed me how little I know of it. In front of the Alliant Building, a young woman spoke sharply into her cellphone, "That's if I let you... I don't know yet... I told you I wouldn't see you if you were using..." Ah, humanity. So many people, with so much going on. I'll probably never talk to them, but maybe I can help make a world they can live in.