A walking audit of streets and sidewalks with Dan Burden, founder of Walkable Communities, revealed eyesores and problem spots in Albert Lea.

Thirty-eight people joined the expert to ride a bus to various parts of Albert Lea, then walk. As the bus traveled or whenever the group walked, Burden would give pointers on how to make the cityscape more aesthetically pleasing and more pedestrian friendly.

When the bus turned down Bridge Avenue, he asked why there were so many no-parking signs.

He asked why they were erected. City Public Works Director Steve Jahnke said parking was banned on Bridge Avenue because of too many automobile collisions.

“People running into parked cars is a symptom of a greater problem,” Burden said. “These no parking signs are ugly. They say to go faster. It’s OK.”

He recommended allowing parking and adding bike lanes to buffer between the parked cars and the moving cars.

“The wider we make our travel lanes, the more we lose our vigilance as a driver,” he said.

He said bike lanes are an inexpensive investment to many problems. They allow a buffer, and they give cars greater turning radius.

Several times during the tour he mentioned road diets and mentioned cities such as Seattle that have had success with road diets.

Road diets, of which Burden is a national proponent, is where traffic problems are solved by reducing lanes or lane width to increase safety.

In some places, businesses were afraid of having less traffic because of fewer lanes, but the opposite was true. Bike lanes, parking and steady, vigilant motorists resulted in increased business.

He said his skillset is as a photographer. He said he has no degree that applies to his expertise but has acquired it. Being a photographer, he has learned to visualize. He has studied walkability from Florida to Alaska.

“If you don’t learn to see and interpret things, you don’t have a job,” Burden said.

He said he learns a lot from walking and said any good designer also uses the product to see its failings.

As he entered the field of civil planning, he found when engineers designed corners, they would never have to cross the streets themselves. They were not trained to factor in the pedestrians and bicycles.

“That just wasn’t part of the curriculum,” he said.

Walking the streets gives people the ability to see what is right and wrong in the engineer’s design.

While Jahnke was on the tour, Freeborn County Engineer Sue Miller could not make it. Many people felt Burden’s comments will shape the Bridge Avenue plans and were disappointed she couldn’t attend.

Here is what he said about other parts of Albert Lea:

Clark Street

At Newton Avenue, the lack of a building on the corner cuts into the use of the sidewalk. People walk across the parking lot. He said cities need to rethink their tax structure. They reward cheap structures such as parking lots and penalize necessary, job-producting structures such as two- or three-story buildings.

He praised the churches around Central Park as anchors that faced the park and hoped a structure can be built near the Albert Lea Medical Center parking lot, which formerly was a high school. He said the city should make sure to protect the old churches.

Front Street

The Kwik Trip at Front Street and First Avenue has a suburban design meant for automobile traffic, but it is in a residential neighborhood.

“We devalue humans when we put a suburban design in an urban place,” Burden said.

The Shady Oaks senior housing high-rise was built to hold people but little thought was given to the needs of those people, he said. They need hairdressers, groceries, social spots.

The group marched in the 13-below-zero sunny weather from the corner of Front and Fourth Avenue to the Albert Lea Senior Center.

He said the street crossing between Korner Mart and Skyline Plaza makes it difficult for pedestrians to get across. He suggested adding a crossing island so people can concentrate on one lane of traffic at at time when getting to the other side.

He noted the two schools near the area, and considering the neighborhood has the highest density of population in Freeborn County, he made a suggestion.

“This should just be the most walkable place you could imagine,” Burden said.

His suggestion to the owners of Skyline Plaza, particularly with the empty Wal-Mart store, is to bulldoze it and rebuild it as a true village with mixed-use retail and residential. He described places where true-village design has been a way for owners of the dying mall to outperform the new malls.

He also suggested adding a branch library to the neighborhood.

East Main Street

Burden noted the route has four lanes and handles 12,000 cars a day. He said a single lane of traffic can handle 18,000 cars daily and said engineers are too quick to see additional lanes as the solution to auto mobility. Often, more lanes only create other problems, particularly car crashes, and the expansions are made with little thought to walkers and bikers. In some places, road diets were implemented simply by painting new lines on the roadway.

Garfield Avenue.

Burden praised the corner of Garfield and Main Street. He said it has signals, allows for foot traffic and is not overly wide. He said crossing islands could make it even better.

“Engineers were never trained how to design an intersection for people,” he said.

Burden said the biggest factor for safety when looking at an intersection is turning radius. He said too many lanes and too wide of lanes increases the likelihood for problems.

He said if the city’s infrastructure encourages walking and biking, then more people will walk and bike. On the bus, he noted the city with the most bike trails in the United States is Anchorage, Alaska. People bike in the cold months, he noted, though usually not in below-zero weather.

The group walked in the cold from the corner of Garfield and Main to Grace Lutheran Church on Sheridan Street.

Burden liked how Hawthorne School shares space with Hawthorne Park and that the homes and buildings around the area look out toward the park. He talked about how many cities are sharing facilities with YMCAs and similar recreation needs.

Eastgate Park

The bus slowed at Eastgate Park for Burden to point out how there is no sidewalk connecting to it and how the fronts of the houses face the wrong way.

He said homes have an A side and a B side — the A side being the front.

“The A side should face the park. They should look out over the park. That’s as important as using the park,” Burden said.

Downtown

The group walked down Broadway Avenue from the Freeborn County Courthouse to the American Legion Hall, then returning to Albert Lea City Hall.

Burden called the block with Wells Fargo Bank and US Bank a “missing tooth.”

He said there should be no parking lots on downtown streets. He said buildings need “transparency” — the ability of foot traffic to see inside and people inside to gaze out.

Burden said city planners should think about “imageability, an image we are love with. Experiences we are in love with are rich.”

He said engineers and planners need to look for the human scale.

At Fisher’s Jewelers, he said the building holds the corner and has some transparency, but he didn’t like the tin that covers the brick underneath.

“This is from the same generation that brought us shag carpeting,” Burden said.

He called the downtown’s old buildings “outstanding” and that Albert Lea has much more potential to work with than most cities. He praised the Freeborn National Bank building.

He said Sterling Drug needs greater transparency and said pharmacies can have windows that invite shoppers yet remain secure.

Burden even suggested considering roundabout intersections instead of stoplights. He said they are proven to be safer and they don’t stop the traffic.

Why think differently?

As a final word, Burden said there is no perfect block. Even the spectacular Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Calif., has glitches.

“If I tend to get critical on the things I point out, it’s only my job,” he said.

He said many city planners borrowed bad ideas from other cities, which explains lack of sidewalks in many neighborhoods built after World War II, but if they begin to borrow today’s working, good ideas that consider humans in many forms of transportation and their lifestyles, it will spread.

And he said it works commercially “because the human heart figures out how to reward itself.”

“You may only have one block at first to get right, but it will turn the tide,” Burden said.

Reactions

Many city officials said Burden’s considerations were timely considering the community debate on the expansion of Bridge Avenue.

City Manager Victoria Simonsen was among them. She said it also fits well with the recently revised comprehensive plan and a soon-to-be-revised parks inventory.

Mayor Mike Murtaugh said Burden’s first impact likely will be on Bridge Avenue.

“The biggest hope I have is the immediate application is what we need to do with Bridge,” he said.

Albert Lea City Council member Larry Anderson said it was “enlightening.”

He said Burden’s comments will help with bridge and said they should be shared with the Minnesota Department of Transportation.