Better than 94:

Community members deliver petition, insist MnDOT study Twin Cities Boulevard

Better than 94 Rally to Restore at the Wilder Center

Better than 94 Rally to Restore

Bike ride to Better than 94 Rally to Restore at the Wilder Center.

Posted Friday, November 7, 2025 9:42 am

LETTER: Some immodest proposals

As a thirty-year St. Paul advocate for transit and active mobility (biking, walking), I have been following Rethinking I-94 and the Summit Avenue cycling trail issue. I have some immodest proposals.

When rebuilding I-94, limit it to electric vehicles (EVs), bicycles, running and walking. Install a genuine bicycle freeway. Deck over the vehicle lanes all the way because, even without fossil fuels, motor vehicles still emit toxic tire and brake wear and tire noise at high speed. Replace current frequent motor vehicle access with throughtrips only and OurStreets’ traditional boulevard on top. Expand Reconnect Rondo to the entire project area. Rondo is not the only vibrant community that got sliced and diced by I-94. I would add congestion pricing, but good luck with that.

I don’t bike any longer because of a bad back, but if I did, I would avoid onstreet routes, including Summit. I would also avoid shared bike/walk paths because walkers on them never get complete safety from bikers and scooters (especially electrics), too many of whom don’t ring, warn or slow.

A bicycle trail through western St. Paul without Summit’s frequent and varied interruptions would cut time and increase safety and cycling substantially. Summit could remain a designated bike route, but I suspect regional cyclers would choose a genuine bike freeway for long-distance and high speed.

I have no illusions about the chances of the above. As a veteran transportation geek, I’ve watched traffic engineers pave over traffic expansions with community lip service over and over again, and Trump’s transportation secretary has recently stated USDOT’s official mission is now “capacity expansion.” (Redoing I-94 will need hundreds of millions of federal gas tax dollars).

But wouldn’t it be refreshing?

Mathews Hollinshead

Former Transit Representative,

Metropolitan Council Transportation Advisory Board, 2017-2024

Twin Cities DSA and Our Streets delivered a petition to the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) insisting it give the Twin Cities Boulevard a thorough study. Over 100 supporters gathered, via public transit and bikes, on Nov. 6 at 5:30 p.m. in front of the Wilder Foundation.

In 2016, MnDOT began the “Rethinking I-94” decision-making process. The highway, built in the 1960s, is at the end of its life and needs to be rebuilt or replaced. The work of community advocates in the initial phases of this process led to the “Twin Cities Boulevard” vision – a plan to fill in the freeway trench, replacing it with a street to reconnect neighborhoods and provide fast, high-capacity transportation for people regardless of whether they ride transit, walk, roll, or drive.

But in January 2025, MnDOT announced its intention to remove the Twin Cities Boulevard (“at-grade”) options from further study – immediately before conducting a thorough environmental review on the different options for the I-94 corridor.

MnDOT announced this intention against the wishes of the Minneapolis City Council, which unanimously passed a resolution urging further study of the boulevard options in September 2024. Elected representatives from across the entire metro also expressed disapproval in a January Policy Advisory Committee meeting in which former St. Paul Council President Mitra Jalali insisted that representatives “want the alternatives to reflect what our communities are asking for.” Others who voiced support for continued study of the boulevard included St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter (via staff), Hennepin County Commissioner Angela Conley, State Senators Omar Fateh and Clare Oumou Verbeten, and State Representatives Samantha Sencer-Mura and Katie Jones.

The Twin Cities community sprung into action, circulating an open letter drafted by residents of the I-94 corridor to urge key decision-makers to keep studying the at-grade options. Since January, the letter has garnered signatures from thousands of individuals and dozens of local organizations, including neighborhood groups, nonprofits, and unions.

Some neighbors support the boulevard vision as a way to repair communities that have been disrupted. “I’m privileged to have been told about the actual history behind the construction of I-94 and the division of neighborhoods like Rondo,” said Merce Lutzker, Macalester College student and Mac YDSA member. “But the thing about something like a highway is that it’s not like that harm ever went away. There’s a very real sense of there being a huge wound.”

The public health impacts of pollution are also a major concern for residents. Mateo Frumholtz, a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health lives along the I-94 corridor and is studying the health consequences of air pollution created by highways. “Every day, I bike across I-94 to take the green line to school. During my commute, I often think about the sheer amount of research that reminds us just how bad for our health living near a highway can be,” said Frumholtz.

Whether MnDOT addresses these concerns is another matter entirely. Twin Cities DSA Co-Chair Brooke Bartholomew insisted, “We are holding this rally because time and time again, MnDOT has shown that they do not respond to community input. They have ignored local elected officials, they have ignored previous petitions, and they have even ignored the results of their own community survey, which showed the boulevard options to be the most popular option.”

To move forward with the Rethinking I-94 process, MnDOT next needs the approval of the Trump administration’s Federal Highway Administration, which recently announced that it would cut funding to projects that sought to reduce the size of roadways.