Editor’s note: Walk the Talk is Streets.mn’s carefully curated, highly partisan collection of both serious and fun-loving events, community meetings and opportunities for engagement that we think will interest our readers. Email your ideas to Hawken Habig, one of our daily editors, at [email protected].
MnDOT Highway 252 Expansion
For the past few years, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has been trying to nail down a vision for the future of the Highway 252 corridor in the twin “Brooklyns” of the metro area, Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park. The state highway — which runs north-south between I-94 and Highway 610 — is considered comparably unsafe due to the dozens of crashes that occur each year along its length, so MnDOT considers improvements for bikes and pedestrians (and transit) paramount.
The only issue is that MnDOT’s remedy to this may be to displace between nine and 64 properties, expand the roadway and replace signalized intersections with freeway interchanges and pedestrian bridges. Is expansion and accompanying traffic and pollution really the best option for those who live, work and commute within the corridor?
Community members tackled those controversial questions at a meeting with MnDOT at the Brooklyn Center Community Center this Wednesday evening, where officials addressed the possibility of pedestrian safety and the broader vision for the project. Learn more about the project here, and learn who to contact about the project here.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article stated that “hundreds” of properties may be displaced for the Highway 252 project; more recent numbers from MnDOT indicate that number is between nine and 64.
State Rail Plan (Update!) — Meetings Tuesday & Wednesday, December 17 & 18
MnDOT is currently in the process of updating its State Rail Plan, which will guide the development and operation of Minnesota’s passenger and freight rail systems for the next 20 years. As part of the visioning process, MnDOT is continuing to host public engagement meetings across the state: Meetings in Duluth and Rochester occurred earlier this month, while meetings in St. Paul and Moorhead are scheduled for next week.
- Moorhead Public Library: Tuesday, December 17, 4 to 6 p.m.
- St. Paul Union Depot: Wednesday, December 18, 10 a.m. to noon.
Full details on the meetings, as well as further project information, may be found here.
Lyndale Avenue Redesign Options (w/a Survey)
Hennepin County recently released the three main design options for the Lyndale Avenue reconstruction in South Minneapolis: a purple option, a blue option and an orange option.
The designs present a difficult tradeoff with mix-and-match multimodal priorities for each option:
- The purple option features a northbound bus lane but no bike trail.
- The blue option features a bike trail but no bus lanes.
- The orange option is “just right,” with both a northbound bus lane north of 28th Street and a bike trail north of the Midtown Greenway, but it is still only half of what it could be.
Granted, there are only 80 to 100 feet of right-of-way to at least partly satisfy constituents, but the project could go further — as Move Minnesota suggests — by extending the bus lanes and bike trail the full length of the corridor.
Hennepin County has an online survey for the project available here. We urge our readers to weigh in!
Minneapolis Community Connections Conference — Saturday, February 8, 2025, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Plan ahead! Minneapolis’ Community Connections Conference will return in 2025 on Saturday, February 8, at the Minneapolis Convention Center downtown. Beginning over a decade ago, the annual conference aims to connect residents to city government by including citizens in decision-making processes and empowering underrepresented communities. Community organizations, non-profits and government are brought together through the free event that features exhibits, workshops, performances and community resources, fulfilling the upcoming conference’s theme: “Participation is Power: Speak, Act, Grow.” More information on the conference may be found here!
Frogtown Radio’s Hoppy Hour — Thursday, December 12, 5:30-8:30 p.m.
Local St. Paul station WFNU Frogtown Radio invites you to their first Volunteer & Community Hoppy Hour, on Thursday, December 12. Join WFNU staff and Frogtowners at the Peddlers Pub at the Radisson Hotel in downtown St. Paul for food, drink and conversation. Find more info here. (Note: Be sure to tune into WFNU at Mondays at 11 a.m. for the latest Streets.mn podcast!)