urbanMSP

That would almost certainly turn 5th St into a two-way from Cedar-Riverside to 11th Ave, no? And with the Vikings wanting to close 5th St south of the new stadium, this would all make sense.

I've also thought that there's enough ROW to turn 6th into a two-way boulevard all the way west to HCMC.

I've also thought that there's enough ROW to turn 6th into a two-way boulevard all the way west to HCMC.

There you go with your darn boulevards again

The new freeway ramps at 4th St and 7th St, and the repurposing of 5th St are all wonderful ideas, IMO.

Well this is pretty interesting:
http://www.startribune.com/local/minnea ... 69831.html

I was very skeptical until I reached the part that talks about repurposing the old 5th St ramp as a connection to the West Bank. This also explains why the city was on board with eliminating 5th in the stadium plans.

Thoughts?

I think this has had some discussion elsewhere, but not sure. Obviously reconnecting 5th to West Bank area for peds/bikes is a great idea (although that plan on Streets.mn also has 5th connecting to Hiawatha as a full street, even better IMO), and the routing of the ramp to 7th instead makes perfect sense. My take is the article frames the priority pretty well, as they use the word 'commuter' and don't really focus on any benefits to the local neighborhoods. This could be a disaster for making life along 7th reasonable if no traffic calming measures are taken once you're off the freeway. Giving commuters 3 lanes, straight to the west side of DT does not encourage safe, slow driving...

This seems like a good idea, but I share the concern for 7th St. turning into even more of a car sewer (Is "car sewer" one of the no-no words on UrbanMSP?) The connection between the existing 5th St. ramp bridge and 15th Ave. in Cedar-Riverside would also be a bit tricky. It would meet the street at an acute angle, and there is immediately a grade-crossing with the Blue Line. Using it only as a pedestrian and bike connection would be possible, although it is fairly duplicative of the Hiawatha Bike Trail (is it called the Blue Line Bike Trail now?). It does make for a somewhat more direct connection between Cedar-Riverside and Elliot Park, however.

I'd like to see 5th Street connected up to 15th Ave, to enhance connections between downtown/Elliot Park with Cedar Riverside. And I'd like to see not only I-94 to 7th, but also I-94 to 8th/Hiawatha Ave South. I dislike the Cedar Ave exit, drive around, and re-entrance.

Yep, this seems like a great idea. Hope they can find the funding to do this now so that the changes can be done in concert with the rework around the Vikings Stadium. I agree a new connection at 15th Avenue seems like the way to go.

For cars? Or just bike/ped?

It seems like the "right thing to do" to reconnect the neighborhoods, but the bike/ped connection already exists. Connecting 5th St to 15th Ave would needlessly duplicate an existing connection. And introducing vehicles to the LRT & Trail crossing just sounds like a terribly dangerous proposition, even moreso because of the acute angle of the intersection.

Wouldn't it just be an unnecessary expense for the city to maintain & plow? Not to mention potentially deadly to LRT and trail users? There has to be better justification for making that connection than the "feel good" aspect of reconnecting areas that freeways severed, especially if said connections can be made today by LRT, bike & ped. Cars can access this area just fine, if a little convoluted. They seem to do just fine now. The added danger does not seem worth it. What set of origin-destination points would this connection serve that cannot be made now?

[just so there's no confusion, the above is all referring to the 5th St/15th Av connection. WB I-94 to 7th Street is brilliant and should be started immediately to coincide with the stadium. And it should include a dedicated bus lane all the way to Hennepin]

It wouldn't need to be at an acute angle -- it could very easily be squared off, and wouldn't be any more or less dangerous than the typical condition along Hiawatha further south.

All good points on the vehicular access given the bike/LRT crossing. Maybe they could enhance the bike/ped access across 35W to meet up with 5th since the existing trail snakes along the LRT and dumps people a full 2 blocks north. For those biking/walking from Cedar/Riverside and wanting to head to destinations on the southern edge of DT, this would be a welcome time savings and not at much cost.

Hmm. I feel convinced that we've discussed this before, but maybe all the discussion focused on the CR-122 trench farther north. Here's one thread about reconnecting the West Bank grid in general:

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=943

...which was probably inspired by discussion here:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=15&p=9188#p9163

I thought there had also been some discussion here by Adam Froehlig (ajfroggie), but maybe that was just on Twitter. Anyway, he wrote up a plan for Streets.mn a while back

https://streets.mn/2013/01/22/addressin ... rhood-gap/

Well, getting back to the topic at hand -- would rearranging the ramps do anything to free up land for development by the Cedar-Riverside station? That could be a pretty valuable endeavor.

More specifically, http://blogs.mprnews.org/stadium-watch/ ... nneapolis/

The Minnesota Department of Transportation and the state Department of Employment and Economic Development just announced a housewarming present for the Vikings as they’re headed for their new home in 2016.

This seems a bit off the mark, since it's been in Minneapolis's transportation plan since 2007. The stadium adds some urgency to the situation, but really this change has been needed since they shut down 5th Street for Hiawatha construction over a decade ago.

Rep. Bachmann et al are back again lobbying for an I-94 expansion from the suburbs to St. Cloud... And surprisingly there are a couple of nice viewer comments about finishing Northstar all the way.

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2013/07/3 ... to-dayton/

Not like I-94 doesn't desperately need more lanes, but politicians should find funding for transportation, not designate what little money we have gets spent on.

As an Ohio resident I've seen firsthand how widening congested interestates can alleviate traffic flow (but I do NOT believe in "wider = better"). From Cleveland to Columbus to Cincinnati it's 3 lanes in each direction. From Cleveland to Toledo it's 3 lanes in each direction as well, and that interstate need it, as there are not only people but tons of trucks that criss-cross across the country between the Northeast to Chicago and beyond. The trucks stay in the right two lanes and passenger traffic doesn't have to wait for trucks to leap-frog one-another over and over and over and.........you get the point, especially if you've ever been on some of these U.S. Interstates where trucks outnumber passenger cars.

Similarly, I-94 in Minnesota between the Twin Cities and St. Cloud is extremely congested with passenger traffic and some freight, and not just on summer weekends. It's not quite the freight corridor of I-80/I-90 in Ohio, but it's fairly a moderate route that connects the Twin Cities, Minnesota and the Eastern U.S. to the Northwest, including North Dakota's Bakken Region and Western Canada's Oil Sands. There has to be smooth traffic flow on this fairly vital corridor. Similarly, I think I-90/I-94 from Tomah, WI to Rockford, IL needs to be 3 lanes in each direction as well, and it's one of THE busiest passenger car and freight corridors in the country. IL is finishing their part from the border to Chicago on I-90, and I believe WI is working on expanding I-90 from Madison to the IL border, but the corridor where two, sometimes three interstates merge (I-39 as well) is almost always congested, no matter the day.

I am not sure how much value it brings to the state/city to widen I-94 when all it will do is support continued sprawl, but at the very least the U.S. Government should be interested in keeping the corridor Northwest from Chicago clear and as free-flowing as possible.

How about a compromise: appropriate funds to add a 3rd lane to the interstate all the way to St. Cloud, but implement a moratorium on new interchanges and/or reduce access where appropriate. Both of these will help alleviate mainline congestion and maintain the highway's primary character as an interregional connector. Interstates should not be (primarily) commuter routes.