Interstate 94

[Wezle]

Unfortunately, I do think that MNDOT is leaning towards highway lane reduction and capping with Reconnect Rondo rather than the Twin Cities Boulevard. They seem to continually call attention to Reconnect Rondo which is disappointing IMO as the boulevard would be a more affordable and return more right of way to development. Once a freeway cap is built, the maintenance cost of the roadway will increase and the freeway will become an even more permanent fixture.

Hopefully public opinion continues to grow for the Twin Cities boulevard concept as I think that long term it is more climate friendly and revitalizes a huge swath of Minneapolis and especially St Paul. Like you said, its bold, but that's the kind of thing that we need right now to make cities more people and climate friendly places.

[Tom H.]

(Do people have a legitimate problem with CityNerd? Or is it just a taste thing? His voice is a bit grating to my tastes, but I enjoy his content.)

[Nick]

When I open up the website youtube.com in my internet browser every couple months to find and watch a movie trailer, it immediately makes me feel like I'm having a seizure.

[MNdible]

I thoroughly enjoy CityNerd. His deadpan delivery is fantastic.

It's truly bonkers to me that OurStreets will deliberately try to swamp public comment periods with their members, and then turn around and with a straight face say that the public comments show that the public supports their position. In this day and age, it should be very obvious that using public comments as any kind of gauge of actual public opinion is a lost cause.

[bubzki2]

A substantial portion of results from the recent MnDOT survey recently came out of places like Woodbury. I'm not sure the Our Streets (Minneapolis) has their hand on the scales of public comment like you seem to be implying.

If anything, the conventional wisdom, "don't change anything" people seem to dominate the discourse without even considering a return to something much closer to what was there before the I-94 trench was cut through the city.

[EOst]

A big surface highway carrying any considerable volume of traffic is nothing at all like what was there before the freeway. Boulevard advocates keep saying that, but people should be very clear that the boulevard is a third, wholly different thing from either the current freeway or the old low-traffic residential and commercial streets that were there before. In 1950, the traffic counts on Rondo and St. Anthony combined were less than 5% of the current traffic levels on 94 and the frontage roads.

[bubzki2]

If you read the report, there is a "restoration" option as well, which is essentially undoing what was done. Did you read the report?

[Silophant]

It's there, certainly, but no one is even paying lip service to it being on the table. All of Our Streets' messaging (that I've seen, at least) has been the Transit Boulevard concept, usually using the "What if we built Hiawatha Ave through Seward" rendering.

[EOst]

If you read the report, there is a "restoration" option as well, which is essentially undoing what was done. Did you read the report?

Don't try to motte and bailey this. Yes, there's a throwaway in the report, but 99.9% of the messaging and letters are about "the boulevard option."

[Wezle]

I'm confused as to how that's a problem. People would be even more averse to the idea of restoring the street grid to the way it was 60 years ago. At least the boulevard will be able to a decent part of the traffic capacity that I94 handles. I94 sees about 150k vehicles daily. The boulevard could probably handle a quarter or third of that.

With a BRT line, bike lanes, traffic rerouting, and traffic evaporation, there would be an adjustment period but I think it's a hell of a lot better than what we have now. It seems like a compromise solution to me as long as it doesn't turn into another Hiawatha.

[twincitizen]

My biggest concern remains that by going after this likely unobtainable result on I-94, OurStreets is inadvertently poisoning the well on other, actually obtainable freeway removals.

I love the "Bring Back 6th" effort on Olson Hwy, they're doing brilliant work there and just got a federal grant to advance the planning on that. I wish OurStreets was pushing hard on the viaduct removal through North Loop, maybe shrinking 394's footprint downtown, fighting the conversion of 252 into a freeway & shrinking 94's footprint through North Minneapolis.

Instead, a tremendous amount of energy and political capital is being spent on this thing that I'm 95% sure isn't going to happen, and even if it did would be more like Hiawatha on steroids by the time MnDOT got through engineering it. I love the energy, but it's being spent on the wrong freeway. I would rather see I-94 capped around both downtowns than doing this odd middle-ground boulevard thing between the downtowns. 100% I would rather build several caps over I-94 between Riverside and Lyndale in Minneapolis. 100% I would rather build several caps over I-94 between Marion and Jackson in downtown St. Paul. I honestly believe those would be better outcomes than this boulevard concept, which oddly spans between the downtowns and doesn't really seem to propose improvements within either downtown.

The thing I absolutely do not understand about the boulevard plan is why anyone would propose to not retain a grade-separated transitway prior to filling in the trench. The proposal for at-grade BRT is so dumb. Why would we do that? Short of full removal of the freeway, the boulevard concept is already about as pie-in-the-sky as it gets, so why not include a box tunnel for high-speed rail or 60mph electric BRT? That aspect of the boulevard plan is just plain goofy.

[Korh]

(Do people have a legitimate problem with CityNerd? Or is it just a taste thing? His voice is a bit grating to my tastes, but I enjoy his content.)

His voice is fine to me and his takes are solid, but what gets me is that he can come off as a bit arrogant and smug like some early 2000s reddit debunk videos that really haven't aged well. He's not as bad as some creators but I can only watch him on occasion.

[NickP]

Valid response. If it helps, I would guess he is on the autism spectrum, and that his tone, manner of speaking, etc, is not intentional. I work with people on the spectrum and my “A”-dar goes off a lot when watching his videos.