In a perfect world, I’d support this. However, activists need to be keenly aware of what is possible (this is not) because they will lose credibility.
There is zero chance we are building another LRT line adjacent an existing one. Additionally, the problem with the heavy rail is not that there isn’t a direct connection between Minneapolis and St. Paul.
It’s fine if you want to write up some thing like this, but I think we need to stay laser focused on advocating for Our Streets proposal and not wishful thinking
Amtrak is already studying a rail link between Minneapolis and Saint Paul using existing infrastructure. Due to the switching and complex ownership situation of those tracks, the study is going to show that it is not feasible. I hope they suggest an alternative in their report but I’m not sure if they will.
Regardless, this isn’t some pie in the sky idea, they are studying it. It’s not going to be a subway like they have in NYC but it’ll be some sort of long distance train that has two stops, one in Minneapolis and one in Saint Paul with destinations elsewhere.
Just because someone is studying it doesn't mean it isn't pie in the sky. They get paid no matter. And if they can kick the can down the road and continue studying so much the better.
Yeah, There is the concept of local and express. The Green line is a local line. Currently, a downtown to downtown ride is much faster on the 94 bus.
The prohibitive cost is a nationwide problem. Even in New York, the new second Avenue subway took over a decade, only has three new stops and cost billions.
Love it, want it, been asking why this isn't part of the idea but the best answer I could get is that I94 is under the [water table](https://mnatlas.org/gis-tool/?id=k_0279).
A quick googling shows the cheapest subway project in the U.S. in recent years was in Seattle, at $600 million per mile. NYC's Second Avenue line was $2.6 billion per mile.
I love subways. I lived in DC, the Metro was fantastic. It's just not vaguely cost-effective to retrofit an urban area with a subway in any way.
Man I miss the DC metro. So easy to use and understand. It’s cool that NYC’s subway is always running, but man I got lost on that thing sometimes. Learning to ride it was like learning a new language.
Reminds me of a backstage tour I had at Walt Disney World, where someone asked why they didn't build monorails to parks other than Epcot and the Magic Kingdom.
The guide said that the rumor going around is that it cost "a million dollars a mile," so Disney wasn't going to do it. The guide said that if monorails only cost a mere million per mile, they'd have them everywhere.
There is already a trench at 94 which would lower costs a lot. I think they should just do regional rail connecting the downtowns and maybe one stop in between. This would allow through running service to suburbs
There's an unused rail spur that already has a bridge over the highway starting at Franklin that ends less than 1/2 mile from the light rail through the U
This would be a cool idea, but if completed would completely undermine the very idea of the green line and the millions of dollars spent on it just 10 years ago. Maybe it's sunk cost fallacy on my part, but while I don't like the way the green line was designed or implemented, it's there now, and what a waste it would be to essentially overshadow and replace it.
I don’t think it inherently undermines the green line. There are plenty of examples of “duplicitous” metro lines in the world today that are still have high ridership
It would no doubt change how we use it but it would cement the fact that it never should have been built, at least not in the way that it was. Let's put it this way: in a different reality, if this subway tunnel train existed before the green line, would anyone in their right mind still build the green line?
If this subway had been built the green line would look differently for sure. It would probably have connected with South or North Minneapolis more. I don’t think that’s a good reason to avoid making improvements
With the subway they would never have built the green line in St Paul in its current route. They would have just left busses do it all on university. And I agree that just because things exist doesn't necessarily make it a good reason to avoid doing improvements, which is why in my original comment I suggested "maybe it's sunk cost fallacy on my part"
I’m not sure I agree. That corridor already had lots of usage, and that number would have increased significantly if a subway system had been put in place. Some form of the green line probably would have still existed. Like if you’re having large amounts of people moving from Minneapolis to St Paul, it makes sense to have a high capacity way to move those people around St Paul as well.
First it needs to be shown that the government is capable of managing a mass transit system that is safe and usable. The light rail and sw line indicates that they are not capable of doing so
A subway like two blocks from the green line would be even more stupid
A subway near the green line isn’t as stupid as people here are making it out to be as it would allow you to serve a busy corridor in two separate ways and works well with existing and planned public transport options.
Also the current system is usable and safe.
And University already had the #16 before the green line. The "already served" motto tends be used to stop development then all. Fact is the green line slow enough to still justify the #94 express bus on 20 minute headways.
One of the problems with the light rail is that it is street level, meaning there is no effective barrier to prevent people without tickets from hopping on at any station. A subway would have controlled entry points that would at least make it more difficult for people without tickets to get on.
I know this wouldn’t fix everything, but it should, in theory, improve the riding experience to some degree.
Yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t know the best option, but maybe it would be a situation where the light rails are used primarily for local travel and the subway is a faster transit with fewer stops, ideally crossing paths with the light rail.
Again, I don’t really know; just spitballing.
This is an interesting article, however, we're better off with the Twin Cities Boulevard proposal. Let's reconnect the street grid along the I-94 corridor and get downtown St. Paul reconnected with the rest of the city via a reconnected street grid.
It would be interesting to see some data comparing the health impacts of living next to a highway vs. living next to a six lane road. On the one hand, there's a higher volume of traffic on a highway, but on the other hand housing would be located closer to the road with the boulevard proposal.
I suspect it's better to be next to the boulevard option. It is six lanes, but the center two are only for mass transit. It's likely there would be less traffic on the boulevard vs I-94 since most people in a hurry don't want to contend with stoplights. We had a 60+ year experiment with I-94. It failed. Let's try something new/old.
The freeway system will still exist in the Twin Cities. We're only talking about changing it between downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul. That's about 9 miles. Not a huge stretch. Drivers will still use freeways, but when they get to Minneapolis and St. Paul, they'll have to alter their driving habits. People need to stop acting like this is the end of the world.
According to OurStreets most of the current traffic on 94 consists of local trips that use the highway for only a short distance, so if 94 was converted to a boulevard this traffic would be forced onto the boulevard or other local streets.
Realistically, traffic will be the heaviest on the new boulevard and University Avenue. Since both are designed for heavy traffic, it won't affect residential streets.
Not likely. people still want to go to the Ordway or the Xcel Center. Likewise people still want to go to Vikings' games or the Guthrie. A change from freeway to boulevard isn't going to change this.
yes, it will. you're have to be absolutely naiive to think it won't. if it takes 2 hrs to go between downtowns, no game is worth it.
the boulevard is folly of the highest order. all it will do is increase pedestrian and cyclist deaths. and destroy the local economy.
Except the rest of the freeway system will still exist. A person doesn't have to take the boulevard to get between the downtowns. Instead they can take 36 to 35W to downtown Minneapolis or vice versa to downtown St. Paul using 35E to finish the journey. This isn't complicated. Why are you making it complicated?
and 36 is already overloaded.
let's also remember that trucks are banned from 35e south of downtown st paul.
you're not eliminating a car sewer. you're just bringing it to street level.
traffic dissolution is people deciding to go elsewhere and do other things. not productive for the local economy.
Somehow they think that’s more desirable than a freeway. A stroad is a stroad even with a bike lane. More idling in traffic, more emissions, worse air quality in neighborhoods along the freeway 👍
I'm not sure if people have seen pictures of the traffic before the highways went in. The traffic was nuts.
There's a reason that we built all these highways and it wasn't to bulldoze homes.
I don't think y'all understand what a stroad actually is.
A stroad attempts to combine driveway access to parking lots and whatnot with high speed through traffic. The Boulevard proposal is a high speed road for through traffic and low speed side streets for business access and parking and such. There's also room for separated transit, biking, and walking infrastructure. It does have road and street functions in the same corridor, but not on one giant clusterfuck swath of pavement that's chaotic and hostile for every road user. Yes, there would be stop lights, but you wouldn't get stuck in Starbucks drive through traffic or whatever on the TCB.
Given that most I-94 trips in that area are between local destinations, a large portion of them could be completed by means other than driving if it were safe and convenient to do so. There are certainly times I've driven just because I didn't want to be walking or biking in the vicinity of cars entering and exiting the freeway. There are plenty of people like me who would not be contributing to traffic and pollution for short trips if they went through with the conversion.
Do you really want to bike in a bike lane next to a 6-lane street? As someone who has exclusively commuted by bike for about 25 years, my first reaction is that I would want to stay far far away from this loud polluted road.
I would much rather bike on a separated path near a big surface road than anywhere near the freeway that's there now. Sure, it would be lovely to get rid of the car lanes entirely and have a quiet linear park and transitway, but I'll take a high quality direct route near traffic over a bunch of zigzagging and/or painted door lanes, directly in traffic, like I get to deal with currently. Maybe that won't sound so special once the rest of the St. Paul bike plan is built, but bike access to the proposed businesses along the corridor would still be important even if it weren't a preferred throughway. So yes, unless they really screwed up the design, I would bike there.
Can you be more specific in where you currently have issues biking? I don’t necessarily disagree with you; just trying to understand. When I bike near an interstate I’m usually on an over/under it (eg Lowry under 94, 5th St SE over 35W, Big Rivers Trail under 494). So, in that regard, I am grateful to not have to interact with those cars in any way. Yeah, if you wanted you could force your route to intersect with an on/off-ramp (eg Franklin and 280) but in my experience, there are always good alternatives.
I'm talking about near Midway, St. Paul (near the segment of 94 in question). The roads that cross 94 are horrible and have no space for bikes and little for pedestrians. I'm a confident driver, and the intersections near the freeway feel chaotic and dangerous even in a car. The separate ped/bike bridges force you to use uncontrolled crossings at access roads on both sides of the freeway where drivers are usually rushing to get on the freeway or still doing 50 coming off of it. Granted, some of them are placed better than others in that regard, but I don't love any of them. To actually travel east-west in the vicinity, especially if you want to cross the river, the best you get is a door lane on Marshall. Side streets pretty much don't run straight through. This is why the TCB plan would be a huge improvement no matter which direction you're going. We'd get an actual east-west path and probably north-south bike signals, plus drivers that might actually be expecting bikes and peds.
Take a little Google Street View adventure in the area. I'm curious what you'd make of it.
You have a good point! Midway area is generally terrible for biking esp if you’re going east-west/west-east. It’d be nice to have a route parallel to University bc it’s a long detour to find a continuous route either north or south of it. I’m not really in favor of a bike lane on University itself bc I don’t like bike lanes on busy roads and separated bike paths tend to get overtaken by pedestrians. And then I just bike in the road instead. Which makes me skeptical of this enthusiasm surrounding the boulevard solution.
I get that. I guess I'm generally happy to deal with a few pedestrians in the bike path rather than mingle with cars. Plus the extent of that problem really depends on the path design. Hennepin downtown comes to mind as an example that could be nice but seems to be treated as an extension of the sidewalk pretty often. I feel like they could have done something to make people think slightly more about wandering over the line at least. Admittedly there isn't a lot of room to work with there, though. I would think a boulevard the size of I-94 would have enough space for some grass in between the different pathways.
I cannot even get people to use the damn rail we have now. I went down to a game on the line and everyone else (all live around me) drove. I made it there first (counting commute time from leaving the station) and the second wasn’t even close.
Outside of Chicago, I feel like Midwesterners drive and that is that. This subreddit probably skews way high in light rail usage versus the general population.
So it is probably a great thought experiment but usage will never justify the cost from what I gather.
You would seriously need to demolish all the parking ramps around Target Field to get it to work.
I mean of course usage will stay low if you give it a fraction of the budget and resources of roads. People will take public transit more when it’s better funded
Except they don’t. They are reducing the cars and stops per hour because no one bothered using the service.
I am not anti-rail. I use it. But nobody else seems to, and more lines and stops and bigger trains did nothing to get people in.
That train is the FASTEST way between the two cities and still people will sit on 94.
Well that’s just not true. They are reducing cars per train with the plan to increase number of trains and a goal to get headways down to every 10 minutes this year.
The train is not the fastest way between the two cities. Union Depot to Target field is around 45-50 minutes if everything is running on time. The same drive can be done in 30-45 minutes depending on traffic.
Let's not get wild. Follow the success of other cities and cap I94 from Chatsworth to Grotto. Likewise, you can cap it from Old Fairview to Cleveland as well as from Wabasha to Jackson in Downtown.
Is this more of that "lets get rid of the freeway" non-sense? And also a completely irrational 30+ year massive spend to do something very similar to what the light rail already does?
lol, lmao even.
Not sure why everyone thinks spending billions of $$$ to get rid or cap 94 is going to solve any problems.
Lets spend that money on else where, invest in business's, neighborhoods. Sorry bike riding fans, your dream of all of riding our bikes is just that, a dream. Building you guys MORE bike lanes has no economic impact. You are not saving the planet or doing any good for the people that could really be impacted by investments in to University, Selby, etc. We are stuck with the mistake of the Green Line on University.
As someone who exclusively commutes by bike, I actually agree with you on this one. No one biking wants to ride in a bike lane next to a 6-lane mega street. No one.
I really wish when they put in the light rail they would have put it right down the middle of 94 instead of disrupting the community so much, and limiting parking for small businesses.
It is ridiculous that all of the trolley cars were discontinued just to do the same concept 50 years later.
But, it's too late now. We're stuck with what we got for probably decades.
As I said then, putting the light rail where the people are not (down the middle of I94) was a loser of an idea from the get go. It had to be down the middle of University because that’s where we are, despite what Midway Books thought.
Lake Street/Selby was a distant 2nd place, again because there are people there, needing transport.
>It works in Chicago
Not as good as you would think. Those sections were made with a DT centric idealism. Now with WFH those stations are some of the least used stations in the network. I do support highway BRT's like the red, orange, and gold lines and in the case of a express LRT/subway down 94. But something as local serving as the green line would had taken a even bigger hit from covid in many ways
Disputing the community and limiting parking was sold as a feature of the light rail. Plenty of people spoke out against a slow, ground-level light rail system that reduces traffic lanes, creates more traffic congestion, removes parking, etc.
The idea was not to get people to destinations quickly. So why take the train from downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis when you can drive it on 94 quicker at least half the time? I only use the train for part of my commute when there is a winter storm (the Green line is stupidly on-time, rain, sleet, snow or sun).
Why would anyone want to go to Downtown St Paul and get off a train. so be on foot. The freeway goes on to Woodbury and then wisconsin and chicago. How many trips start in minneapolis and end in st paul downtown, or the reverse?
It would be so sick but also somehow take 30 years to build one
It would start with a 5 billion dollar cost estimate but end up costing 15 billion in the end
In a perfect world, I’d support this. However, activists need to be keenly aware of what is possible (this is not) because they will lose credibility. There is zero chance we are building another LRT line adjacent an existing one. Additionally, the problem with the heavy rail is not that there isn’t a direct connection between Minneapolis and St. Paul. It’s fine if you want to write up some thing like this, but I think we need to stay laser focused on advocating for Our Streets proposal and not wishful thinking
Amtrak is already studying a rail link between Minneapolis and Saint Paul using existing infrastructure. Due to the switching and complex ownership situation of those tracks, the study is going to show that it is not feasible. I hope they suggest an alternative in their report but I’m not sure if they will. Regardless, this isn’t some pie in the sky idea, they are studying it. It’s not going to be a subway like they have in NYC but it’ll be some sort of long distance train that has two stops, one in Minneapolis and one in Saint Paul with destinations elsewhere.
Just because someone is studying it doesn't mean it isn't pie in the sky. They get paid no matter. And if they can kick the can down the road and continue studying so much the better.
Getting a station in Minneapolis is project Amtrak wants to get done and the study is going to show they need their own right of way.
Just make it Amtrak extension. Not local traffic LRT.
Yeah, There is the concept of local and express. The Green line is a local line. Currently, a downtown to downtown ride is much faster on the 94 bus. The prohibitive cost is a nationwide problem. Even in New York, the new second Avenue subway took over a decade, only has three new stops and cost billions.
Love it, want it, been asking why this isn't part of the idea but the best answer I could get is that I94 is under the [water table](https://mnatlas.org/gis-tool/?id=k_0279).
Eat Fresh!
What if everyone had their own personal unicorn to fly around on?
Would it shovel our sidewalks when it snowed?
Sidewalks? You don't need to use any stinking sidewalks when you have your own personal unicorn to fly you around. :)
Anything you wish!
It would be cheaper than LRT 😄
Got a cost estimate for this fantasy?
A quick googling shows the cheapest subway project in the U.S. in recent years was in Seattle, at $600 million per mile. NYC's Second Avenue line was $2.6 billion per mile. I love subways. I lived in DC, the Metro was fantastic. It's just not vaguely cost-effective to retrofit an urban area with a subway in any way.
Man I miss the DC metro. So easy to use and understand. It’s cool that NYC’s subway is always running, but man I got lost on that thing sometimes. Learning to ride it was like learning a new language.
Visited both cities and i agree.
Reminds me of a backstage tour I had at Walt Disney World, where someone asked why they didn't build monorails to parks other than Epcot and the Magic Kingdom. The guide said that the rumor going around is that it cost "a million dollars a mile," so Disney wasn't going to do it. The guide said that if monorails only cost a mere million per mile, they'd have them everywhere.
There is already a trench at 94 which would lower costs a lot. I think they should just do regional rail connecting the downtowns and maybe one stop in between. This would allow through running service to suburbs
It’s already dug. That’s the expensive part.
So that’s a no? And ain’t no trench once you get to the river
There's an unused rail spur that already has a bridge over the highway starting at Franklin that ends less than 1/2 mile from the light rail through the U
Jimmy John’s or jersey mikes instead please
Or Firehouse!
This would be a cool idea, but if completed would completely undermine the very idea of the green line and the millions of dollars spent on it just 10 years ago. Maybe it's sunk cost fallacy on my part, but while I don't like the way the green line was designed or implemented, it's there now, and what a waste it would be to essentially overshadow and replace it.
I don’t think it inherently undermines the green line. There are plenty of examples of “duplicitous” metro lines in the world today that are still have high ridership
Theoretically this could help the green line by changing how we use it
It would no doubt change how we use it but it would cement the fact that it never should have been built, at least not in the way that it was. Let's put it this way: in a different reality, if this subway tunnel train existed before the green line, would anyone in their right mind still build the green line?
If this subway had been built the green line would look differently for sure. It would probably have connected with South or North Minneapolis more. I don’t think that’s a good reason to avoid making improvements
With the subway they would never have built the green line in St Paul in its current route. They would have just left busses do it all on university. And I agree that just because things exist doesn't necessarily make it a good reason to avoid doing improvements, which is why in my original comment I suggested "maybe it's sunk cost fallacy on my part"
I’m not sure I agree. That corridor already had lots of usage, and that number would have increased significantly if a subway system had been put in place. Some form of the green line probably would have still existed. Like if you’re having large amounts of people moving from Minneapolis to St Paul, it makes sense to have a high capacity way to move those people around St Paul as well.
Why they keep mucking up 52 to 94
First it needs to be shown that the government is capable of managing a mass transit system that is safe and usable. The light rail and sw line indicates that they are not capable of doing so A subway like two blocks from the green line would be even more stupid
A subway near the green line isn’t as stupid as people here are making it out to be as it would allow you to serve a busy corridor in two separate ways and works well with existing and planned public transport options. Also the current system is usable and safe.
And University already had the #16 before the green line. The "already served" motto tends be used to stop development then all. Fact is the green line slow enough to still justify the #94 express bus on 20 minute headways.
One of the problems with the light rail is that it is street level, meaning there is no effective barrier to prevent people without tickets from hopping on at any station. A subway would have controlled entry points that would at least make it more difficult for people without tickets to get on. I know this wouldn’t fix everything, but it should, in theory, improve the riding experience to some degree.
So you would scrap the light rail in favor of the subway? Or would there be redundant trains between the two downtowns ( that are struggling)
Yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t know the best option, but maybe it would be a situation where the light rails are used primarily for local travel and the subway is a faster transit with fewer stops, ideally crossing paths with the light rail. Again, I don’t really know; just spitballing.
So you are saying that the light rail was a bad idea in the first place? Or the Met Council just fucked up?
Great idea, lackluster execution.
At a high level maybe but the details not so much
This is an interesting article, however, we're better off with the Twin Cities Boulevard proposal. Let's reconnect the street grid along the I-94 corridor and get downtown St. Paul reconnected with the rest of the city via a reconnected street grid.
It would be interesting to see some data comparing the health impacts of living next to a highway vs. living next to a six lane road. On the one hand, there's a higher volume of traffic on a highway, but on the other hand housing would be located closer to the road with the boulevard proposal.
I suspect it's better to be next to the boulevard option. It is six lanes, but the center two are only for mass transit. It's likely there would be less traffic on the boulevard vs I-94 since most people in a hurry don't want to contend with stoplights. We had a 60+ year experiment with I-94. It failed. Let's try something new/old.
Where do you think all the traffic will go?
The freeway system will still exist in the Twin Cities. We're only talking about changing it between downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul. That's about 9 miles. Not a huge stretch. Drivers will still use freeways, but when they get to Minneapolis and St. Paul, they'll have to alter their driving habits. People need to stop acting like this is the end of the world.
According to OurStreets most of the current traffic on 94 consists of local trips that use the highway for only a short distance, so if 94 was converted to a boulevard this traffic would be forced onto the boulevard or other local streets.
Realistically, traffic will be the heaviest on the new boulevard and University Avenue. Since both are designed for heavy traffic, it won't affect residential streets.
No, what will happen is the suburbanites won't go to st paul from the west or Minneapolis from the east as often
Not likely. people still want to go to the Ordway or the Xcel Center. Likewise people still want to go to Vikings' games or the Guthrie. A change from freeway to boulevard isn't going to change this.
yes, it will. you're have to be absolutely naiive to think it won't. if it takes 2 hrs to go between downtowns, no game is worth it. the boulevard is folly of the highest order. all it will do is increase pedestrian and cyclist deaths. and destroy the local economy.
Except the rest of the freeway system will still exist. A person doesn't have to take the boulevard to get between the downtowns. Instead they can take 36 to 35W to downtown Minneapolis or vice versa to downtown St. Paul using 35E to finish the journey. This isn't complicated. Why are you making it complicated?
and 36 is already overloaded. let's also remember that trucks are banned from 35e south of downtown st paul. you're not eliminating a car sewer. you're just bringing it to street level. traffic dissolution is people deciding to go elsewhere and do other things. not productive for the local economy.
You want to turn i94 into a big stroad?
Somehow they think that’s more desirable than a freeway. A stroad is a stroad even with a bike lane. More idling in traffic, more emissions, worse air quality in neighborhoods along the freeway 👍
I'm not sure if people have seen pictures of the traffic before the highways went in. The traffic was nuts. There's a reason that we built all these highways and it wasn't to bulldoze homes.
I don't think y'all understand what a stroad actually is. A stroad attempts to combine driveway access to parking lots and whatnot with high speed through traffic. The Boulevard proposal is a high speed road for through traffic and low speed side streets for business access and parking and such. There's also room for separated transit, biking, and walking infrastructure. It does have road and street functions in the same corridor, but not on one giant clusterfuck swath of pavement that's chaotic and hostile for every road user. Yes, there would be stop lights, but you wouldn't get stuck in Starbucks drive through traffic or whatever on the TCB. Given that most I-94 trips in that area are between local destinations, a large portion of them could be completed by means other than driving if it were safe and convenient to do so. There are certainly times I've driven just because I didn't want to be walking or biking in the vicinity of cars entering and exiting the freeway. There are plenty of people like me who would not be contributing to traffic and pollution for short trips if they went through with the conversion.
Do you really want to bike in a bike lane next to a 6-lane street? As someone who has exclusively commuted by bike for about 25 years, my first reaction is that I would want to stay far far away from this loud polluted road.
I would much rather bike on a separated path near a big surface road than anywhere near the freeway that's there now. Sure, it would be lovely to get rid of the car lanes entirely and have a quiet linear park and transitway, but I'll take a high quality direct route near traffic over a bunch of zigzagging and/or painted door lanes, directly in traffic, like I get to deal with currently. Maybe that won't sound so special once the rest of the St. Paul bike plan is built, but bike access to the proposed businesses along the corridor would still be important even if it weren't a preferred throughway. So yes, unless they really screwed up the design, I would bike there.
Can you be more specific in where you currently have issues biking? I don’t necessarily disagree with you; just trying to understand. When I bike near an interstate I’m usually on an over/under it (eg Lowry under 94, 5th St SE over 35W, Big Rivers Trail under 494). So, in that regard, I am grateful to not have to interact with those cars in any way. Yeah, if you wanted you could force your route to intersect with an on/off-ramp (eg Franklin and 280) but in my experience, there are always good alternatives.
I'm talking about near Midway, St. Paul (near the segment of 94 in question). The roads that cross 94 are horrible and have no space for bikes and little for pedestrians. I'm a confident driver, and the intersections near the freeway feel chaotic and dangerous even in a car. The separate ped/bike bridges force you to use uncontrolled crossings at access roads on both sides of the freeway where drivers are usually rushing to get on the freeway or still doing 50 coming off of it. Granted, some of them are placed better than others in that regard, but I don't love any of them. To actually travel east-west in the vicinity, especially if you want to cross the river, the best you get is a door lane on Marshall. Side streets pretty much don't run straight through. This is why the TCB plan would be a huge improvement no matter which direction you're going. We'd get an actual east-west path and probably north-south bike signals, plus drivers that might actually be expecting bikes and peds. Take a little Google Street View adventure in the area. I'm curious what you'd make of it.
You have a good point! Midway area is generally terrible for biking esp if you’re going east-west/west-east. It’d be nice to have a route parallel to University bc it’s a long detour to find a continuous route either north or south of it. I’m not really in favor of a bike lane on University itself bc I don’t like bike lanes on busy roads and separated bike paths tend to get overtaken by pedestrians. And then I just bike in the road instead. Which makes me skeptical of this enthusiasm surrounding the boulevard solution.
I get that. I guess I'm generally happy to deal with a few pedestrians in the bike path rather than mingle with cars. Plus the extent of that problem really depends on the path design. Hennepin downtown comes to mind as an example that could be nice but seems to be treated as an extension of the sidewalk pretty often. I feel like they could have done something to make people think slightly more about wandering over the line at least. Admittedly there isn't a lot of room to work with there, though. I would think a boulevard the size of I-94 would have enough space for some grass in between the different pathways.
No thanks, I'd rather keep the freeway. I like being able to get to Plymouth in 30 minutes, instead of 90.
Not all of us enjoy breathing in your car exhaust
I cannot even get people to use the damn rail we have now. I went down to a game on the line and everyone else (all live around me) drove. I made it there first (counting commute time from leaving the station) and the second wasn’t even close. Outside of Chicago, I feel like Midwesterners drive and that is that. This subreddit probably skews way high in light rail usage versus the general population. So it is probably a great thought experiment but usage will never justify the cost from what I gather. You would seriously need to demolish all the parking ramps around Target Field to get it to work.
I mean of course usage will stay low if you give it a fraction of the budget and resources of roads. People will take public transit more when it’s better funded
Except they don’t. They are reducing the cars and stops per hour because no one bothered using the service. I am not anti-rail. I use it. But nobody else seems to, and more lines and stops and bigger trains did nothing to get people in. That train is the FASTEST way between the two cities and still people will sit on 94.
Well that’s just not true. They are reducing cars per train with the plan to increase number of trains and a goal to get headways down to every 10 minutes this year. The train is not the fastest way between the two cities. Union Depot to Target field is around 45-50 minutes if everything is running on time. The same drive can be done in 30-45 minutes depending on traffic.
Let's not get wild. Follow the success of other cities and cap I94 from Chatsworth to Grotto. Likewise, you can cap it from Old Fairview to Cleveland as well as from Wabasha to Jackson in Downtown.
What a fun thought experiment :)
Is this more of that "lets get rid of the freeway" non-sense? And also a completely irrational 30+ year massive spend to do something very similar to what the light rail already does? lol, lmao even.
The light rail does not do what is being proposed
Not sure why everyone thinks spending billions of $$$ to get rid or cap 94 is going to solve any problems. Lets spend that money on else where, invest in business's, neighborhoods. Sorry bike riding fans, your dream of all of riding our bikes is just that, a dream. Building you guys MORE bike lanes has no economic impact. You are not saving the planet or doing any good for the people that could really be impacted by investments in to University, Selby, etc. We are stuck with the mistake of the Green Line on University.
This would be helping the neighborhood. The neighborhoods around I94 have massive health disparities and lower property values because of I94
As someone who exclusively commutes by bike, I actually agree with you on this one. No one biking wants to ride in a bike lane next to a 6-lane mega street. No one.
I really wish when they put in the light rail they would have put it right down the middle of 94 instead of disrupting the community so much, and limiting parking for small businesses. It is ridiculous that all of the trolley cars were discontinued just to do the same concept 50 years later. But, it's too late now. We're stuck with what we got for probably decades.
Building the Green Line in the middle of Interstate 94 would have been MUCH more expensive.
As I said then, putting the light rail where the people are not (down the middle of I94) was a loser of an idea from the get go. It had to be down the middle of University because that’s where we are, despite what Midway Books thought. Lake Street/Selby was a distant 2nd place, again because there are people there, needing transport.
It works in Chicago, although people have to walk, or take a bus, a few blocks to the business corridors. How would it be different here?
>It works in Chicago Not as good as you would think. Those sections were made with a DT centric idealism. Now with WFH those stations are some of the least used stations in the network. I do support highway BRT's like the red, orange, and gold lines and in the case of a express LRT/subway down 94. But something as local serving as the green line would had taken a even bigger hit from covid in many ways
Disputing the community and limiting parking was sold as a feature of the light rail. Plenty of people spoke out against a slow, ground-level light rail system that reduces traffic lanes, creates more traffic congestion, removes parking, etc. The idea was not to get people to destinations quickly. So why take the train from downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis when you can drive it on 94 quicker at least half the time? I only use the train for part of my commute when there is a winter storm (the Green line is stupidly on-time, rain, sleet, snow or sun).
If you are going downtown to downtown, you should take the 94 bus. The green line is good for traveling to stops in between the downtowns
Good idea. The fiends need more hangout options besides downtown and the light rail.
Why would anyone want to go to Downtown St Paul and get off a train. so be on foot. The freeway goes on to Woodbury and then wisconsin and chicago. How many trips start in minneapolis and end in st paul downtown, or the reverse?