Community members ask for traffic safety

Two area projects made the cut when the St. Paul Long-Range Capital Improvement Budget (CIB) Committee wrapped up its work on 2025-2026 neighborhood projects. The recommendations approved Aug. 12 were sent on to Mayor Melvin Carter to be included in the 2025 city budget.

Final decisions on funding will be made by the mayor and city council by year’s end.

This year is a community projects year in the city’s capital budget cycle. The city is to fund projects for 2025 and 2026, splitting $1 million over two years. 

More than dozen people, most of them parents and children from the West End, attended the committee hearing at Rondo Community Outreach Library. A few carried “20 is plenty” signs to make their case for safety. They won a small victory Aug. 12 as the committee recommended that $102,153 be taken from a Mounds Park project and reallocated to safety improvements on Jefferson Avenue in the city’s West End.

CIB Committee Chairman Darren Tobolt said, “In the three (cycles) we have done (community projects), traffic calming is the number one thing people want.”

The amendment and amended list passed anonymously, but not without comments from CIB committee members about the 2025-2026 projects’ process. CIB committee members said that while they agree with the need for equity and more projects coming in citywide, they’d have liked more information on process changes.

“In the future, we have to re-examine the process in general,” Tobolt said.

Committee members agreed with community concerns that the recent process was confusing. One suggestion is to contact all 17 of the city’s district councils to see what improvements they want. Another is to give applicants more time to make requests.

The application process was reopened last spring after fewer than two dozen projects came in. Two council wards had no projects funded at all. Reopening the process citywide was seen as a way to provide equity for all parts of St. Paul, but groups that meet the original deadline were unhappy that the rules were changed.

Having two online polls, for original projects and then all projects, also met criticism.

Twenty-seven projects made the final cut for committee review this year. More than 30 were submitted. That compares to 86 projects for the 2023-2024 cycle. Another change was from a shorter suggestion process to a questionnaire.

The top-ranked request going forward is from Union Park to install flashing pedestrian safety beacon lights between Skyline Tower and Midway Peace Park. At $65,000 it is the smallest project.

Another area project recommended for funding is safety improvements of the Thomas-Griggs intersection, at $225,000.

The six recommended projects, plus money for public art and contingency, totaled $1,567,847. 

Area projects shut out include renovations of Horton Park, Robbins/Transitway lighting improvements, Westgate Commons park shade structures and bicycle connections along Pierce Butler Route and a bike improvements along Wabash Avenue in West Midway.