Section 4.7 (Page 054) of the Phase 1 report suggests that this is kind of already happening:Not saying I’m for it but, diverting thru traffic on 94 to 494 and 694 and 35W thru traffic to 100, and 35E thru traffic to 494/694. While slowing speeds decreasing lanes to allow for more transit ROW does sound worth looking into long term. Still it seems like throwing away an iPhone 8 while you don’t have money for a new one and ya only got flip phones in the junk drawer.
Based on that, IMO it doesn't make sense to use a road design adapted to moving people tens or hundreds of miles at high speeds; instead, the corridor should be designed to facilitate shorter trips, and easier access to many destinations. The problem isn't that "short trips cause congestion"; the problem is that grade-separated highways fundamentally don't serve short trips well. And yet from the very start of the project, MnDot hasn't even evaluated concepts that don't include a grade-separated highway!About half of the trips in the Rethinking I-94 study area originate in the neighborhoods along the corridor.
These shorter trips create congestion on this corridor as large numbers of drivers merge on and off the highway in a concentrated area.
Less than one percent of trips are “through” trips that begin and end west of downtown Minneapolis and east of downtown St. Paul.
I am, and I suspect pretty much everyone on this website is, super open to the argument that crosstown transit is not nearly good enough. I think everyone here has a half-dozen pet projects they'd propose on how to fix that problem, most of them good ideas.This is a terrible argument to make to a hypothetical Julie who jus tries to get from Whittier to Lexington pkwy for her job and now his commute takes twice as long even if she decides to take transit
What I'm not OK with is using that problem as an excuse to commit to pouring loads of money into rebuilding this highway right now, and forcing us to live with it for another couple generations. We could use this construction as an opportunity to build better, faster transit. We could delay full reconstruction on I-94, and divert those resources to needed transit improvements. We need to invert the state's mentality where pouring more money into highways is an immediate, unavoidable need, but transit is a delayable, optional, nice-to-have.