I have lived in St. Paul for three and a half years so far. (Yes, I said years, not decades, which is the usual standard of measurement for how long one has lived in St. Paul, depending on the public meetings you attend.) In that time, I don’t think I’ve seen a single temporary pedestrian access route through a construction zone. The St. Paul standard seems to be that the “most livable” city should just close off a sidewalk. That’s all. Like they’ve done now, at Randolph and Cleveland.
Or at Highland and Cleveland.
Or at University and Emerald, right by the Westgate station on the Green Line. Note the safety banner: “Use safety from the start.” Except when it comes to accommodating pedestrians by a transit station.
Or on East 7th at Greenbrier.
You could probably provide countless other examples within the city right now.
I could scour the information from MnDOT on Pedestrian Accommodations through Work Zones. But all I need to read is the background to wonder: If other cities can do it, why isn’t St. Paul?
Minneapolis can provide temporary pedestrian access routes. (Except for when the 4th Precinct was blocked off during protests.)
Washington, D.C. can do it.
And New York City, which doesn’t have any pressure on any of its public spaces and streets at all, can do it.
As a St. Paul resident, I hear so much about it wanting to be “the most livable city” and an 8-80 city. I don’t need to quibble over technical details in the MUTCD to know that if the most livable city truly looked out for 8- to 80-year-old people traveling on foot, it wouldn’t be constantly sending them into the street among vehicle traffic when we know that people on foot usually take the most direct route, and it wouldn’t expect them to cross the street and cross back again on streets that are often not that easy to cross in the first place.
Now imagine if you couldn’t see or if you depended on using a wheelchair to travel through the city.
Photos by the author