Editor’s note: The City of Saint Paul is seeking public comment on the Pelham Boulevard reconstruction project before Thursday, Oct. 31. Whether you bicycle, walk or drive along this route, click here and scroll down to voice your views.
Pelham Boulevard in St. Paul is scheduled for a reconstruction in 2026, and planning is currently underway to determine what the future of this corridor should look like. Pelham connects Mississippi River Boulevard (MRB) on its southern end with Franklin Avenue on the north, crossing Interstate 94 in the process (Figure 1). Because of the river, the freeway, the Town & Country Club golf course and elevation changes, this part of St. Paul has a distinct geography with few direct routes of travel, Pelham being one of the few exceptions to this.
Current Conditions
From MRB to Myrtle Avenue, Pelham is part of the Saint Paul Grand Round, with a two-way, flexpost-separated bikeway on its east side. By St. Paul standards, it’s not a bad bikeway, but there’s a lot of room for improvement in the corridor.
- There is a sidewalk only on the west side of the street south of Beverly Road, leading people to sometimes walk in the bikeway.
- The pavement of both the car lanes and bikeway is in terrible shape, with mixed patching success due to material differences of concrete and asphalt.
- Many of the intersections retain overly wide and rounded corners. That communicates to car drivers that turns can be made at fast speeds and often without adequately looking or stopping.
- The original flexposts were fastened to the ground with hardware instead of a butyl adhesive pad, so many of them have survived. However, flexposts need more frequent replacement near corners, where errant drivers are more likely to hit them. Those replacements are now installed with the weak adhesive, which seems to make the flexposts blow over in a stiff breeze (Figure 2).
- The route has few driveways, which tend to not be much of an issue because of the low traffic counts, though I have witnessed one very close call when a driver with “whiskey plates” turned dangerously close in front of someone using the bikeway.
Opportunities for Safety Improvements
With the current state of Pelham in mind, how could this important section of the Grand Round be improved during reconstruction? First and foremost, the bikeway should be made fully separated and curb-level, like those along much of the rest of the Grand Round, particularly the section along Wheelock. This puts a bigger buffer between people using the bikeway and speeding car traffic and eliminates the issue of flexpost replacement. Currently, this is the plan, according to the project website.
Along with this, the corners at intersections should be significantly narrowed and tightened, so that turning movements happen at safe speeds. Car-lane widths should be narrowed as much as possible, to ensure speed limit adherence. The project should definitely include curb-level raised crossings as well, which were included in much of Wheelock. Such crossings can lead to significant reductions in crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists, with increased likelihood that drivers yield the right-of-way. They have unfortunately been absent from many recent projects, something that represents a real step backwards from a comfort and safety perspective.
Turn restrictions at some intersections would also improve the safety and comfort for all users. Because many of the intersections in this area have non-90-degree angles, visibility can be poor, and improper turning behavior is encouraged. At the southern intersection with MRB, which is a major source of potential conflicts, this could include a right-turn-only restriction onto MRB, a three-way stop at the intersection instead of the current stop for southbound Pelham traffic only and a more robust connection to the paths across MRB. Drivers looking to get to Marshall Avenue/Lake Street can use Otis Avenue, which has a traffic light, instead of turning left at MRB and using the ramp up to Marshall. The more that can be done to minimize possible street and intersection conflicts, the safer the route will be for everyone.
Better water retention and plantings featuring a broader biodiversity than sod would also be nice features.
Network Thinking
Another beneficial addition would be improved bikeway connections on adjacent streets. One of the biggest weaknesses of St. Paul’s current bike infrastructure is that much of it has been installed piecemeal and fails to form a connected network. For example, Beverly Road, which runs along the northern edge of the golf course, is excessively wide and could readily have a Pelham-style flexpost-separated two-way bikeway added to its southern side between Pelham and St. Anthony Avenue. This could even be done with the same flexposts currently on Pelham, making this addition a literal drop in the project bucket. This would help connect Pelham to the Merriam Park and Hamline Midway neighborhoods, providing an alternative to the steep and busy on-street bike route up Marshall Avenue.
Similarly, the current design on Myrtle Avenue, which features a standard painted bike lane going west and a buffered contra-flow lane going east, could easily be consolidated into a two-way, separated bikeway on the south side of the street between Pelham and Raymond Avenue, a nice improvement over the current, often-confusing set-up.
Big Picture: Speak Up!
First and foremost, we need the project staff to focus on safety for the project. This is often compromised in infrastructure projects, because engineering standards haven’t been designed to produce safe infrastructure, and our city engineers generally haven’t been trained in how to design safe streets, either.
Our Public Works staff can buck this trend and ensure that all future projects produce safe and comfortable facilities for all users, as directed by existing city policy. We have yet to see whether the “Common Cent” funds, which are funding this project, will be “transformational” or not.
If all we do is largely put things back in the state where they currently stand, we’re going to fall far short of that promise. The city is seeking feedback on the Pelham Boulevard project through Wednesday, October 30, so if you like some of my suggestions and/or have your own, let them know at the following link: https://www.stpaul.gov/projects/public-works/pw2026pelhamblvdreconstruction