So driving through this area the other day I noticed the tree addition was eliminating the bike lane entirely - it looked like it was having the bike lane dead-end into a tree and then further down the road the bike lane was magically appearing again but no place specifically for bikes around the intersection other than spilling them into traffic. I guess the rendering shows that too to a degree. Seems like a really poor and dangerous design for a really busy intersection that has become absurdly congested as of late unless I'm missing something.
I know you posted this a while back but you aren't missing anything - this design is just really stupid and how the city allowed them to get away with this is crazy. The bike lanes shouldn't abruptly end like they will and this is a nationally designated bike route too, so not sure how they were even able to do this. Don't get me wrong, the road diet and stuff is great and I personally don't see the increase in congestion as that bad. 2 lane roads and slow traffic is actually good for businesses and much safer than how it was before but the bike lanes, etc. ending like they will is going to get someone killed or injured. Especially in an area with increasing tourism and someone on a bird scooter is not going to be paying attention and the bike lane ends and bam right into a car.
Most likely everything that is done now is going to have to be torn up too because the city rubber stamped stuff without paying attention and whether this will come back to tax payers for the city's mistake in approving the plans, the contractor who is building it all, civil engineer who designed the plans, or Kathy Taylor's foundation who is doing the TIF funding - I don't know yet.
If you look at the new sidewalks that are done, most of them have multiple power poles, utility wires, etc. in the middle of them! Literally taking up the entire sidewalk. How this got through the city, civil engineers, and the contractor with not a single person questioning it blows my mind. Just about none of the designs meet ADA requirements and the sidewalks are essentially useless because in order to get around some of them you'd have to step off the sidewalk into the planter beds or other areas to get around various things blocking the entire sidewalk.
This entire street project has been a dumpster fire and people are going to be pissed when they find out there is going to be massive delays in it opening because of all of this. I wouldn't be surprised if some lawsuits start flying around and the entire thing just stays like this until they can settle who is going to pay for what to fix it. It's been very hush hush to try and keep it under the radar but it'll eventually get around more. I was just up there several times and walked around that area and it was a pancakes moment. I've seen a few others starting to mention it as well.
Question that should be asked too is why weren't these incorporated into the new funding to bury the utilities? Would have avoided this all together if they had just done it properly. Funny thing in the rendering even show the poles in the middle of the sidewalks - problem in real life is the poles are about as wide as the sidewalk - unlike the renderings which show plenty of sidewalk to each side.