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MnDOT won’t study removing I-94 as part of redevelopment plans (sahanjournal.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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State transportation officials on Friday narrowed down the designs being considered for the reconstruction of Interstate 94 between Minneapolis and St. Paul, eliminating options with strong community support that would have removed the highway.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) is recommending that four of 10 designs, which were first introduced in 2023, move forward into an environmental review process. That review will determine the future of the 7.5-mile stretch of I-94 between Hiawatha Avenue in Minneapolis and Marion Street in St. Paul.

Notably absent were designs that considered replacing the highway with an at-grade roadway, an option supported by several environmental activists and the nonprofit, Our Streets. Several elected officials who sit on an advisory committee for the project and who were in attendance at the Friday meeting with MnDOT criticized that absence.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

“where crashes are more common” is interesting to me. Even if crashes are more common on city roads, I would suspect that the crashes that do occur on the freeway are far more deadly. So the boulevard redesign would have probably reduced traffic deaths overall.

You're thinking exclusively of speed but ignoring that at-grade introduces pedestrians, bicyclists and other transportation forms into the mix. I've not lived in Minneapolis since 2009 and have no idea what the right call is here, but there might be compelling statistical reasons for the direction they're going, even if it's not what the community wants. Urban planning is hard.