The officer (and there were several of them over the months) would calmly motion cars to line up two-abreast, and keep people from making illegal turns or stopping traffic. We typically arrived a bit before 10 a.m., just in time to see the last few minutes of the police officer’s performance. Every month or two a few people would gather on the grass beneath the billboard with some donuts and coffee, and see how the drive-thru performed in real life. Paul urban planning advocates, myself included, made it a habit. Over the years of the “carbucks” limbo, a small group of St. To actually understand a situation, it helps to see it in person, to spend time and dwell with an intersection. As they got mowed over, the bollards were re-installed with varying and futile frequency. Meanwhile, coffee-seeking cars routinely blocked the bike lane, so the City began installing plastic bollards to better demarcate the space. For example, after a few drivers mistakenly drove straight over the curb and sidewalk (probably doing damage to their car), the company installed a crude fence at the end of the exit making it clear not to drive over the embankment. Meanwhile, the design of the queue and its intersection with the street triggered a constantly evolving battle between infrastructure and the driver inattention. The resulting queue invariably backed up into the street, and, at times, even blocking the busy Snelling and Marshall intersection. For one thing, there were often far more people interested in drive-thru coffee than places for their cars to idle. The fundamental flaw was a lack of stacking capacity, made worse by the constrained and confusing design. ![]() It became clear early on that the Starbucks drive-thru was causing traffic problems. ![]() The new store was built the following year, at which point the options for city regulators narrowed considerably. Unless you are someone who also has credentials in traffic engineering, professionals almost always trump amateur concerns.Īfter some debate, the variance and conditional-use permit (CUP) was granted by the City Council. When city and county engineers have signed off on a traffic study, as they did in this case, that leaves little room for the public to challenge the findings. Detail of the Starbucks site planPartly, arguing about traffic is a matter of authority.
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