Riverview Corridor B̶u̶s̶ S̶t̶r̶e̶e̶t̶c̶a̶r̶ Bus

[twincitizen]

MnDOT is interested in turning back West 7th to city or county ownership. It could be that just the portion east of 35E gets turned back or possibly the whole corridor from downtown all the way to the bridge.

Would this involve re-routing MN-5 onto Shepard Rd? This has always felt like such a simple swap, but I'm sure there's some historical or legal reason why it can't happen. (Hopefully, as a state highway, Shepard Rd could be put into a state of good repair, which it clearly is not as a city street.)

It wasn’t a big point of discussion, but I would guess probably not. My guess is if MnDOT were to turn back all of West 7th to the county or city after rebuilding it, they’re not going to take ownership of another street, especially one in such dire need of reconstruction. Furthermore, I don’t think turning Shepard Rd into more of a highway is consistent with St. Paul’s vision and plans for the river. I assume St. Paul would prefer to someday rebuild Shepard as a slower, “parkway style” street.

[Silophant]

My understanding is that the sticking point with rerouting MN-5 onto Shepard is that Shepard doesn't have a full interchange with 35E, just the southern half of a diamond. I guess a turnback would include just officially truncating it at the Mississippi River Blvd interchange at the east side of the bridge?

[Mdcastle]

No historical or legal or reason. In fact at least at one time, the goal was to have trunk highway correspond to principal arterials / NHS segments. Shepard / Warner east of 35E is both, 7th is neither. Besides inertia and needing to negotiate, problems are:

1) There's not really any momentum for moving the direct connection from the bridge from 7th to Shepard, despite there being underutilzed land available to do so.

2) Despite it's current condition, about 20 years ago St Paul's vision for Shepard seems to have shifted to be more like some quaint idyllic parkway rather than as a major state highway designed to serve the needs of people in cars. Back in the 80s there was even a plan for an interchange at Chestnut.

[twincitizen]

For those that haven't been thinking about how to rework this area for a decade or more, we have an old thread with links and maps (both fantasy and from an actual study): viewtopic.php?t=466

Even with the shift in the vision for Shepard Rd (parkway, not highway), it still makes perfect sense to rework the roads in this area, both to remove some vehicle traffic from 7th and to build out a street grid for future development of all the vacant & underutilized land around here.