Freeway development in the Twin Cities, while considered necessary for economic growth and to address traffic congestion, was not particularly kind to the neighborhoods it went through. Where it didn’t destroy neighborhoods entirely, it seriously impacted them. Once construction was complete, the neighborhoods had to contend with the noise and pollution from vehicles using the freeway. The remaining neighborhoods along the freeways were also cut off from each other due to the limited number of bridges across the freeways. The wide expanse of the Minneapolis freeways, often a full block wide, further contributed to this “neighborhood gap”.
A recent post by David Levinson inspired me to take a look at one of these neighborhood gaps. Built in the early 1970s on the east side of downtown Minneapolis, I-35W creates a gap between Downtown East and the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. The 3rd St/4th St trench, built at the same time as I-35W to facilitate traffic from I-35W and downtown to the University of Minnesota campus, further complicates local connectivity, resulting in Washington Ave being the only local connection between Cedar-Riverside and downtown.
Northbound I-35W at the 3rd St/4th St trench. Photo by the author.
Other ideas have looked at the same area, with the idea of reconfiguring ramps or restoring the street grid. A class presentation from a group of U of M students several years ago suggested building a land bridge over I-35W and the trench with the idea of putting the new Twins stadium there. The Downtown Action Plan portion of Access Minneapolis supports changes to the interchange area. My proposal utilizes several of these ideas (sans new Twins stadium, of course) plus a few more.
The author’s proposal to bridge the neighborhood gap between Downtown East and Cedar-Riverside.
By far, the biggest change I propose is filling in the freeway trench and restoring 3rd St and 4th St to the original street grid, which provides several benefits. In conjunction with reconfiguration of the I-35W ramps, it retains all existing access, including direct access across the river to the U of M East Bank. It provides an alternative to the busy Washington Ave for both I-35W traffic and local traffic, and re-creates a direct connection between Downtown East, Seven Corners, and Cedar-Riverside. Provisions can be made for cycletracks along both 3rd and 4th between Chicago Ave and Cedar Ave with connections to both the Hiawatha LRT bikeway and the U of M West Bank.
The I-35W interchange is reconfigured from its current tangle of ramps into a split diamond interchange, serving Washington Ave, 3rd St, and 4th St with full access. To accommodate heavy traffic volumes from downtown, a direct ramp from 4th St to northbound I-35W is included. A reciprocal ramp from southbound I-35W to 3rd St is not included but could easily be added if traffic conditions warrant, although this slightly reduces the amount of land available for air-rights development. Also included are direct median ramps to 3rd St and 4th St for HOVs and buses. These HOV ramps could tie into potential MnPASS lanes on I-35W North, which in turn could potentially connect to the Northeast Diagonal corridor into Ramsey County.
As part of the trench filling, 15th Ave can be restored between Washington Ave and 4th St, as proposed in the transportation section of the Cedar-Riverside Small Area Plan. As part of the I-35W interchange reconfiguration, 13th Ave is restored as a one-way connector between 2nd St and 5th St, with 14th Ave restored between 4th St and 2nd St. These changes restore city blocks that can then be developed with shops, residencies, or parkland.
While not insurmountable, a few engineering challenges exist with this proposal. Filling in the freeway trench will be a major endeavor involving a lot of earth moving and replacing the bridges on I-35W over the freeway trench. Reconfiguring the I-35W interchange and adding the street grid will involve a lot of construction and require ramp closures. The grade of the Central LRT line necessitates moving a potential 4th St/15th Ave intersection slightly north and bridging it over the LRT tracks (not unlike another 4th St/15th Ave intersection in nearby Dinkytown).
To the west, there isn’t enough distance to retain the existing 4th St underpasses at 11th Ave and the LRT tracks and still bring 4th St on top of I-35W. The resulting grade would be too steep. To accommodate this, I have swapped 4th St and the Hiawatha/Central LRT tracks between 11th St and Chicago Ave. This eliminates the need for 4th St to cross the LRT tracks twice, and can also provide for a future LRT station at 11th Ave, proposed in the Downtown East/North Loop Master Plan. Aside from a small corner of a parking lot at the 4th St/Chicago Ave intersection, this swap can be made within the existing right-of-way.
The amount of redevelopment potential this proposal provides is considerable, especially when a lid over I-35W is included. In the Downtown East/Cedar-Riverside area, the average city block is about 2.6 acres. This proposal opens about 15 acres of land for development, some of it existing parking lot, but much of it currently occupied by freeway ramps and MnDOT right-of-way. The lid over I-35W adds about 8 acres of potential air-rights development, minus 1.5 acres if a direct ramp to 3rd St needs to be built. About 2 acres of dedicated open space is added, including expansion of Currie Park over the I-35W lid. That’s a total of 25 acres (almost 10 city blocks) of unutilized or underutilized land opened up.
I-35W has undoubtedly provided numerous transportation and economic benefits to the city and region, but these benefits can’t hide the negative effects the freeway has had on adjacent neighborhoods. Restoring the street grid and decking over the freeway are steps that can be taken to address these negative effects, while restoring neighborhood connections and adding to economic activity. Local, regional, and state leaders would be wise to consider this and take steps to implement it where feasible.
so good! this would have many times the economic development impact of whatever they're planning on doing w/ the football stadium. (probably be cheaper, too? any idea of a ballpark for the cost of this?)
A working group is currently estimating the cost of this (and the estimated ROI) ahead of a potential meeting with some elected officials in the next month or two.
I 100% agree with your plan.. Always hated the chasm between campus and downtown (even if you could get between them through a select few routes).
Here's the questions I have…
1) Honestly, what would it take to get this on the agenda, funded, and prioritized from the state/city's perspective?
2) There seem to be a heap of other challenges to do something with the space once completed.. Has the city of Minneapolis ever formally adopted a better (form-based) code (even if for only a smaller neighborhood)?
3) Has the city/county every proposed changing its property tax policy towards land-based rather than improvement-based to encourage development on the already existing acres upon acres of land downtown, let alone what this could be?
I'd love to see this happen in my lifetime.
I really like this scheme, especially the HOV drop ramps. Lots of plans I have seen try to tie Riverside into 4th St (West of the Freeway). That should be part of the conversation on connectivity. I can't tell from the grades here whether that would be feasible, but reestablishing 4th St/15th Ave intersection would be good. (So 4th and 15th intersects 4th and 15th). Maybe this is a pedestrian only connection, but a motor vehicle connection would have value.
I like this plan, but the area around the Metrodome is mostly woefully undeveloped small buildings and parking lots, so I wonder how much demand really exists for real estate there. (And no, a new stadium won't really change that.) Perhaps the University would like to expand to the east some day.
If I were to select any Minneapolis freeway to cover with a lid, I would pick I-94 between Lyndale and I-35W.
I think there could easily be demand for housing, the place just needs to be zoned right and taxed right to encourage development. We think so myopically – either it's an empty lot or some big developer comes in and puts in a huge condo. There's nothing in between that couldn't make money?
Perhaps a different approach should be taken. One could argue that the freeways we have anywhere near our downtowns have all had horrible effects on the neighborhoods they cut through and what they separate from the downtown (the capitol building from downtown St Paul, for example).
What if 35W, 35E, 394, and 94 stopped being freeways as they got within 5 miles of downtown? What if a network of 4 lane boulevards could handle the traffic at peak times to bring traffic in and "through traffic" going N/S/E/W would take the ring freeways?
Would never happen, especially given the vast sums of money that were just pumped in to the 35 corridor between crosstown and downtown. Would be interested to see us try, though. Many European cities do just fine without 5 lanes each way of freeway and access ramps pouring directly in to their downtowns and dividing neighborhoods up.
Given what’s going on in Stadium Village and Dinkytown right now, I suspect that much new land in that location would be very, very tempting to a lot of developers looking to benefit from the exploding demand for student housing.