On St. Pauls West Side, the Minnesota Department of Transportation plans to put more than a half-mile of Robert Street south of the Mississippi River on a road diet.
New lane stripings will be laid in advance of a road resurfacing project this summer that will close the Robert Street Bridge over the Mississippi River for six weeks through August.
MnDOT recently unveiled plans to restripe Robert from Plato Boulevard to Congress Street down to three lanes one travel lane in each direction with a two-way turn lane in the middle. That 0.6-mile stretch of Robert Street is currently five lanes, or two lanes in each direction with a turn lane in the middle.
The five-to-three conversion encompasses an area by Wood Street where a seven-year-old boy crossing the street for a school bus was struck and critically injured by a pick-up truck in late February.
This road diet is so desperately needed, said City Council Member Rebecca Noecker, noting MnDOT had been finalizing plans for a simple road resurfacing when community feedback convinced officials to add the traffic-calming improvements.
The St. Paul City Council approved a resolution on Wednesday supporting the $45,000 road diet, which will be state-funded.
Beginning this summer, MnDOT plans to make minor drainage repairs and road surface improvements to the Robert Street Bridge over the Mississippi River, which will close the bridge for six weeks. Bridge work will take place from July 11 through August.
Robert Street will be seal-coated between 11th Street in downtown St. Paul and Annapolis Street in West St. Paul. More extensive work on the Robert Street Bridge and the Union Pacific Railroad Bridge is scheduled to take place in 2022 and 2025.
In a letter to the city council, officials with the West Side Community Organization said they were generally supportive of anything that makes Robert Street more pedestrian-friendly, but they expressed concern they had been given limited time to gather public feedback on the 5-to-3 lane conversion.
The neighborhood organization recommended adding painted bicycle lanes on Robert Street between Cesar Chavez and Plato Boulevard to connect to the Robert Piram Regional Trail, which is being added to Plato. The St. Paul Bicycle Coalition has also highlighted the fact that the citys bicycle plan calls for bike lanes on Robert.
In addition to a link to the regional trail, the lanes would allow West Side residents better access to Harriet Island and the Mississippi River, as well as the U.S. 52 bike trail into Lowertown, the East Side and Lake Phalen.
This modification is a small revision to the current MNDOT proposal, reads the letter. WSCO believes that this revision is important because it relates to the most densely populated part of the West Side.
More information about the MnDOT project is online at tinyurl.com/RobertStreet2020.
Looking further out, state and city staff have debated the best way to approach more extensive repairs to Robert Street between Kellogg Boulevard and 11th Street by Interstate 94.
The state has proposed to substantially fund a full wall to wall road reconstruction for the half-mile section, which would be led by the city, said Nick Peterson, a city street design engineer.
That portion of the road, currently managed by MnDOT, would be turned back to city ownership. I do believe it is a good thing in the long term for the city, Peterson said.
In response, the city council on Wednesday authorized entering into a memorandum of understanding with MnDOT regarding the future reconstruction and turnback to the city of Robert Street between Interstate 94 and the Mississippi River.
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Robert Street in St. Paul will go on road diet where boy was struck by pick-up - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
