Interstate 94

[twincitizen]

Not much advance notice on this, but this event will be of interest to many here: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/metro/news/16/07/14-i94.html

The public is invited to share their ideas for the future of the Interstate 94 corridor between St. Paul and Minneapolis at a community visioning session July 18-19.

The U.S. Department of Transportation recently selected the Twin Cities—one of four communities across the country—as winners of the Every Place Counts Design Challenge. Each winning community receives a two-day workshop aimed at identifying innovative community design solutions that bridge the infrastructure divide and reconnect people to opportunity. The workshop will include design sessions with on-site technical and strategical assistance from subject matter experts in the field.

The public forum portion of the workshop will be held July 18 from 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. at the Griggs-Midway building, 540 Fairview Avenue, Room S-242, St. Paul, Minn. Attendees will have the opportunity to provide feedback and ask questions.
There will be a final presentation held July 19 from 3:30 p.m. – 5 p.m. at the same location, which also is open to the public.

“Since its construction in the 1960s, Interstate 94 has been an important connection for millions of motorists and a divider of several established and diverse neighborhoods in our community,” said MNDOT Commissioner Charlie Zelle. “I am excited about this remarkable opportunity for the region as we begin rethinking I-94 in a way that reconnects people and neighborhoods to new and historic opportunities.”

[seanrichardryan]

I attended today's early workshop for community leaders, designers, and local government stakeholders. It was short notice for all of us too.
(Nate Hood was also in attendance)

USDot identified two areas to focus on for the MSP session, the Rondo Avenue Community specifically the Dale Street Bridge that is scheduled for replacement in 2018, and second, the proposed bicycle corridor along the RR ROW through Prospect Park adjacent to Luxton Park bridging 94. Today was spent identifying themes and issues through group sessions, tomorrow we hope to draw up concrete ideas. It's not often you get to sit down at a table with MNDot, county reps, USDot, engineers and community leaders and brainstorm ideas to better communicate.

[talindsay]

Did anybody talk about replacing the Dale Street bridge with something wide enough to thoroughly mask the freeway? I'm sure a full cap is out of scope, but bridges wide enough to function more like land bridges, or even to have single-story commercial entities on the edge, can do a good job of making the crossing feel more like another city block. In their simplest form these can still be pretty inexpensive and can offer space for future, more complex, plans.

[hoffm83n]

i went on monday and most of the suggestions were in relation to covering the freeway, some emphasis on dale.

[mattaudio]

Just to balance things out, since I was complaining about the 169/41 interchange (though it was really about how it was funded and sold to the public, rather than the interchange itself)...

I present to you, a map I made 5 to 10 years ago for a freeway connector between 94 and 10 on the south side of St. Cloud.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mi ... sp=sharing

This would:
- Take the place of the (planned but not programmed) 94-10 Clearwater freeway connection.
- Provide a bypass routing for MN-23, which is a regional expressway on both sides of St. Cloud but painfully slow through the stroady core.
- Provide connectivity for a (planned but not programmed) midfield terminal at STC airport, should it ever become a more significant reliever airport.
- Make use of the existing Travel Information Center just east of St. Cloud on Hwy 10.

And yes, I know it cuts through an industrial park near the CR 75 exit in St. Cloud. That didn't exist when I first made this long ago.

This is basically Alternative G in a 1996 study: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/d3/projects/ ... URE3_1.pdf

Anyone know why this northerly crossing was dismissed from further study? It seems like it would have provided the added benefit of helping to create a Hwy 23 bypass of St. Cloud, something the other alternatives and the current preferred alternative do not do.

[Mdcastle]

It's been ages since I was at the public meetings, but IRC G was rejected because it added the most distance to motorists shuttling between 10 and 94, as well as one of the more expensive construction costs due to distance and ROW closer to the city. The whole point was to accommodate such traffic, not provide St. Cloud with a free local crossing as much as they wanted this option. Note the lettering is out of sequence so I suspect it was only even considered at St. Cloud's insistence. With the distance and local traffic you'd still have people choosing to use the old MN 24 bridge

(A was rejected due to the length and thus construction costs and the impacts of a new crossing far from any others, B was rejected because it was the only one that would include traffic signals). the others closer to the cities were rejected in part due to the need for improvements on Highway 10)

[mattaudio]

Both the preferred alternative and the St. Cloud bypass (G) would be about 4 miles.

[Mdcastle]

Total distance traveled from points south to points north would have been greater due to the backwards skew of G.

[Mikey]

A cap in Rondo might actually be in the cards...

https://www.minnpost.com/politics-polic ... civic-scar

[min-chi-cbus]

That's cool...I'd be a little surprised if it happened, but maybe it will! Being the development junky I am I'd prefer to see more businesses and housing mixed in with the parks theme, not only because it's infrastructure and promotes density, etc., but also because it reinforces the notion of tying the neighborhood back together. Building a new business district, for example, would be a great way to commemorate the old one that was torn down.

[mplser]

Frogtown lid?

http://greeningfrogtown.com/archive/
(look at the current issue)

talk of a lid over I-94 connecting Frogtown to Rondo from Grotto to Chatsworth

this makes me super excited because i just bought a house on Grotto

[Nathan]

Frogtown lid?

http://greeningfrogtown.com/archive/
(look at the current issue)

talk of a lid over I-94 connecting Frogtown to Rondo from Grotto to Chatsworth

this makes me super excited because i just bought a house on Grotto

You're going to have to change that handle!

[Anondson]

TPT is airing a documentary on I-94 in the Twin Cities tomorrow. It's online for viewing right now.

http://www.tpt.org/interstate-94-a-hist ... ts-impact/

Lotta focus on Prospect Park and Rondo, how each handled the routing and aftermath.

[mattaudio]

St. Paul's Rondo community gets a glimpse of I-94 land bridge designs
The bridge would cover part of Interstate 94, creating space for housing, businesses and parkland.
http://www.startribune.com/st-paul-s-ro ... 470142293/

[Bakken2016]

St. Paul's Rondo community gets a glimpse of I-94 land bridge designs
The bridge would cover part of Interstate 94, creating space for housing, businesses and parkland.
http://www.startribune.com/st-paul-s-ro ... 470142293/

Does anyone have a link to the 5 block design?

[mplser]

not the 5 block design but this looks like a sketch of a 2 block design from the frogtown newspaper last year

[Anondson]

Rethinking I-94 Phase 1 report is out.

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/I-94minneapo ... &utm_term=

[tmart]

Love the idea of creating better connections and caps. But I wish we'd put a greater focus on transit; it barely appears in that document at all, and even then only in a throwaway reference to mixed-traffic MnPass lanes. I guess it's a pipe dream or whatever because there's just too much backlash any time someone suggests taking away lanes from single-occupant vehicles, but especially if we're going to put all this effort into creating better human spaces over and around the interstate, we should (at the very least) be planning ahead so that those spaces could someday be retrofitted to support in-line transit service through the ditch underneath.

[twincitizen]

Rethinking I-94 presentation to Met Council's Transpo Committee (1/28/19): https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... nfo-1.aspx

[tmart]

The slide on travel patterns is interesting. Given that trips are short, including many downtown-to-downtown, and drivers have a strong preference for other routes when using as a bypass, it seems like a grade-separated motorway is pretty poorly-suited to the corridor and isn't very successful in its objectives.

If people are bypassing the bypass, it really calls into question why it's there in the first place. Unless there's a more concrete argument than "it would be disruptive in the short-term to change it," we should really put freeway removal on the table instead of the comparatively expensive, challenging, slow, and less locally-beneficial cap option.