Not necessarily, say planners and analysts

With more than 200 apartment units nearing completion and another 700 proposed or under construction, the Uptown neighborhood in Minneapolis is expected to experience a sizable population spike in the coming months.

Typically, adding 500 to 700 apartment units to a small area means 1,000 or more new residents, according to John S. Adams, a recently retired University of Minnesota professor of geography and an expert on urban housing and transit.

“The expansion of local residents, local purchasing power and local retail sales — days, nights, weekends — means more traffic, for sure,” Adams said.

But just how much new traffic and parking headaches will ensue? City of Minneapolis planners say they have been preparing for growth since 2006.

“When we adopted the [Uptown] small area plan in 2006, we anticipated a lot of growth and talked about how it can fit into the character and scale of Uptown,” said Amanda Arnold, principal city planner.

In addition to the lakes, the Midtown Greenway and the other assets that make Uptown a commercial and residential magnet, she said, “we knew there were some underutilized, older properties — especially industrial properties north of the Greenway — we expected would turn over into housing.”

Adams noted that some years ago, the city responded to the steady increase in activity in Uptown by turning Lake Street and 29th Street into one-way streets.

“As a result, east-west traffic to and through Uptown runs pretty smoothly,” Adams said. “My guess is that some additional traffic that arises from direct and indirect impacts of 500 to 700 additional housing units will not be excessive.”

Metro transit planners also apparently anticipated the increase in density — opening a transit station in Uptown several years ago as the hub for the Hennepin bus routes that serve downtown and the east-west Lake Street routes that serve the area. Adams thinks those routes can easily handle any extra demand arising from the new housing.

Developers also play a role in preventing or reducing traffic congestion in neighborhoods like Uptown, said Brent Rogers, vice president of development for Minneapolis-based Greco Real Estate Development. Three years ago, Greco opened the first of the neighborhood’s new developments, the 242-unit Blue, and it is building the 216-unit Flux at 2838 Fremont Ave.

Rogers said developers make their biggest contribution by locating projects near major mass-transit corridors and in areas where some essential retailers are within walking distance. Greco’s two projects in Uptown and another proposed project fit those criteria, he said.

“It’s an important part of urban design and responsible development,” Rogers said. “People in those areas will still have cars, but they will use them a lot less” as a result of the proximity.

To encourage residents to consider alternatives to driving, Greco has made bus schedule information available and included lockable, indoor bike storage in its Blue and Flux complexes, he added.

Around the time it opened Blue, Greco surveyed its new tenants to see if they would use car-sharing if it were available. But there was not enough interest to make it worthwhile, Rogers said.

Estimating the impact on traffic is part of the city’s evaluation process for development proposals, said Jon Wertjes, the city’s director of traffic and parking services. He doesn’t expect a significant increase in congestion because of the new residents in the area.

Even so, he says, adding a large number of units in one place can create traffic hot spots. The city studies ways to mitigate those hot spots through traffic changes — adding turn lanes, for example — or site improvements, such as building a second driveway access to an apartment site.

To some degree, drivers also play a role in managing traffic, as they make adjustments, Wertjes said.

“There might be a hot spot in a particular place, and people will learn to take a different route to avoid that,” he said. “Traffic is like a balloon; if you squeeze it over here, it will pop out over there.”

New residents also can make parking more of a challenge.

Generally, the city requires multi-unit housing developers to provide about one on-site parking space per unit developed, Wertjes said. The ratio can be slightly lower for some complexes where residents are less likely to own cars and slightly higher for others.

Today, street parking in Uptown’s residential neighborhoods is “reasonably full — some would say overloaded,” Wertjes said, because of the increased density of apartment complexes.

A city study of parking in Uptown found that there is enough parking for commercial uses, he said. The challenge is making the most of the supply of parking, which requires better communication, Wertjes said. The city’s evaluation indicated that “the knowledge of spaces being available isn’t always communicated well,” he said.

With more apartment development ahead, could density reach the point where traffic congestion and parking shortages become major issues in Uptown?

“As each phase of development comes through [the planning office] to be evaluated, there will be a chance to look at the impact,” Arnold said.

The current and planned development “is a big ‘spike,’ a big change for the area,” Arnold said. “We do think about infrastructure and how each building fits into the surrounding context. People in the Uptown area have been concerned about the balance of daytime and nighttime use. Some of that we can’t mandate, but we certainly think about that.”