MnDOT officially recommends dropping two at-grade options for rethinking I-94

Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press
·6 min read

Over the objection of community and environmental advocates, state transportation leaders behind what could be a sweeping effort to redesign 7.5 miles of Interstate 94 from downtown St. Paul to Minneapolis are recommending not filling in the trench of the highway and reconnecting it to the street grid at grade level. They note the likely increase in cost, crashes and traffic spilling onto local roads among their reasons.

Unless something changes in the next few months, 10 previously floated concepts for a redesigned I-94 will be whittled to four as Minnesota Department of Transportation engineers and design consultants work toward a general concept by spring and then releasing it for public comment.

Right now, “these are preliminary recommendations about which alternatives will move forward,” said MnDOT Commissioner Nancy Daubenberger, addressing members of the “Rethinking I-94” policy advisory committee during a lengthy and sometimes emotional virtual discussion on Friday.

A public comment period at the end of the five-hour Zoom meeting drew impassioned speeches from a heavy number of climate advocates, including several who noted that the four remaining options leave no room for light rail or another mass public transit option beyond buses.

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“I’ve been watching Los Angeles burn down over the past week,” said Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, a sociologist who studies racial inequality. “MnDOT’s analysis pretends that climate change doesn’t exist. That is climate denialism. … We could choose to live in a better way.”

Remaining options

The four remaining options for reconfiguring I-94 include rebuilding the existing freeway by reducing it to three lanes or reconfiguring it so it provides four consistent lanes in each direction. Those designs also would add a managed lane in each direction for bus rapid transit and EZ Pass drivers.

Other options include more minor improvements, such as making consistent road shoulders to improve bus access, or the “no build” alternative, which would entail doing nothing.

MnDOT’s goal is to have a choice in hand by 2026 and designs ready by 2029, paving the way for a multi-billion dollar reconstruction of I-94 from Marion Street in St. Paul to Hiawatha Avenue/Minnesota 55 in Minneapolis in 2030 or thereafter.

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MnDOT engineer Mark Lindeberg emphasized that the department has not pinned down funding or construction dates.

Elected officials left out of vote

Members of the policy advisory committee — many of them elected officials from Minneapolis and St. Paul — objected to losing the two at-grade options without a formal committee vote.

“You’re constantly telling us that you value our input, and you value our community’s input, and it doesn’t feel that way,” said Minneapolis Council Member Robin Wonsley, during the lengthy Zoom meeting. “It feels very disingenuous and very superficial.”

Those concerns were echoed by fellow committee member Mitra Jalali, president of the St. Paul City Council.

“I’m troubled at this stage we don’t have clear mechanisms for registering where the members of this (committee) line up,” said Jalali, addressing MnDOT staff. “We need to look at how this body can take votes along the way and register where we stand.”

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Melissa Barnes, project director for the “Rethinking I-94” initiative, told the policy advisory committee that filling in the freeway will slow travel times without eliminating demand to get to work, school or other destinations. The result could be decreased access to jobs for low-income communities while increasing traffic on local roads.

Traffic modeling found that replacing the interstate with either of two at-grade concepts would add some 17,800 cars per day to the Lake Street/Marshall Avenue bridge, and 9,700 cars per day to the Washington Avenue bridge in Minneapolis, she said. Heavy traffic increases would be felt along University Avenue, Lake Street, Interstate 35E and elsewhere.

“Those land uses don’t change and won’t change overnight,” Barnes said. “(Even calculating fewer trips), we are still looking at nearly a doubling of traffic on the Lake and Marshall bridge. … The overall number of crashes would go up for both at-grade alternatives.”

Preliminary estimates found that filling in the interstate trench would cost $2.4 billion to $3.2 billion, compared to $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion to reconfigure the freeway within its existing footprint.

Impassioned reaction

Russ Stark, chief resilience officer for St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s office, expressed some reservations about the at-grade options, though he suggested not ruling them out entirely. He noted that filling in the interstate would also have some negative impacts for communities living around I-94, including reducing trips between the two cities.

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“My understanding is that the fill would take three years of constant trucks,” Stark said. “And the positive things that would follow would take decades to unfold.”

Several neighborhood district councils in St. Paul and Minneapolis have called for retaining the at-grade options, and speakers during the lengthy public comment period included members of the Summit-University Planning Council, the Hamline-Midway Coalition, the Union Park District Council, the St. Anthony Park Community Council and the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation.

Speakers noted that in 2015, Charlie Zelle, who was then the commissioner of MnDOT, issued a public apology alongside then-St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman for the manner in which I-94 construction unfolded in the 1960s, uprooting some 600 Black families in St. Paul’s Old Rondo neighborhood. Zelle now chairs the Metropolitan Council planning agency, a major partner in “Rethinking I-94.”

“We’re just squandering an opportunity for urban redevelopment,” said Minneapolis artist Reno Taylor. “We’re a city, not a parking lot.”

MnDOT officials said eliminating the two at-grade options would not negatively impact a separate initiative, dubbed “ReConnect Rondo,” that seeks to add a highway lid over several blocks of I-94 near Lexington Parkway. Keith Baker, executive director of ReConnect Rondo, said he supported MnDOT’s work to date.

Some business advocates on Friday expressed relief that the two at-grade concepts had been dropped.

“That would significantly reduce the through-put of travel and goods,” said Bentley Graves, a transportation policy director with the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. His concerns were echoed by John Hausladen, president of the Minnesota Trucking Association.

During the comment period, industry was heavily outnumbered Friday.

“MnDOT needs to consider when there’s this wide of a gulf between what you think and what your community thinks,” said Michael Childers. “This is a 60-year-old mistake that you now have the opportunity to fix. … The current systems are not sustainable.”

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