In St. Paul, it’s almost decision time for the key western leg of a downtown bicycle loop, and fans and foes are rolling in.
The St. Paul City Council on Wednesday will consider approval of a $2 million project that would install a two-way separated bikeway downtown, largely along Wabasha Street, with the goal of linking Kellogg Boulevard, which overlooks the Mississippi River, to John Ireland Boulevard by the Minnesota State Capitol building.
Planners, cycling advocates and many business owners have pointed to the ready appeal of Wabasha Street, which stretches from the State Capitol down into the city’s West Side, crossing the Mississippi River over access points to Harriet Island and Lilydale Regional Park. Critics, including the operators of the Amsterdam Bar and Hall event venue in downtown St. Paul, worry that a Wabasha Street bikeway will intersect with too many parking ramps, turn lanes and blind intersections, while also making it difficult for music acts to unload their buses to access the concert hall.
The new design would add bike lanes along roughly seven blocks of Wabasha from Kellogg Boulevard to 10th Street, which sits a couple blocks before the State Capitol building.
The bikeway would then travel along 10th Street west to St. Peter Street, and then follow St. Peter over Interstate 94 up to 12th Street, where it would curve around the Capitol property and join with John Ireland Boulevard. To accommodate the bike facility, the city would remove on-street parking on the west side of Wabasha between Kellogg Boulevard and 10th Street, as well as on the west side of St. Peter between 10th and 11th streets.
The city’s transportation committee voted 8-1 in April to support that alignment over an earlier proposal that rested more heavily on St. Peter Street. The segment also received the approval of the St. Paul Bicycle Coalition.
“The previous recommendation was St. Peter, but going back a couple of years … it’s been communicated to the public we were evaluating a couple of corridors,” said Randy Newton, city traffic engineer.
The city’s long-planned Capital City Bikeway includes a segment along 10th Street, most of which was installed last fall. The Jackson Street corridor was completed several years ago, and Wabasha would be west leg. “We’re hoping we can get that done in the next couple of years,” Newman said.
A full road reconstruction along Wabasha between Kellogg and Sixth Street is scheduled in 2022, and mill and overlay work north of Sixth Street is also planned, which makes the bikeway especially timely along that segment.
The Capital City Bikeway’s southern leg along Kellogg Boulevard is scheduled for installation in 2023 and 2025.
WABASHA FOES AND FANS
The Wabasha Street alignment has drawn fans and critics. A series of St. Peter Street business owners have written to the city to express relief that they will not lose parking to the bikeway, which could have complicated truck deliveries and passenger boarding for their shops. A bikeway on St. Peter would have eliminated one of two travel lanes between Sixth and Fourth streets.
“Locating the bikeway on St. Peter Street would negatively impact the economic success of restaurants and retailers along St. Peter and risk the years of growth that our St. Peter Street restaurants, like Meritage, the Loon Cafe, Kincaid’s, the St. Paul Hotel and Sakura have experienced,” reads a letter from a coalition representing some 40 downtown businesses, including Park Square Theatre and Ecolab.
They noted that a bike corridor could help inspire compatible business and real estate development in the empty lots along Wabasha Street. The Wabasha alignment also received a letter of support from Nathan Kranz, general manager for both the Palace Theatre on West Seventh Place and the historic Fitzgerald Theater on Exchange Street.
“We saw more economic development opportunities by placing the bikeway on Wabasha,” Newman said.
TOUR BUS ACCESS
While Wabasha Street does not have as heavy a concentration of ground-level retail as St. Peter, the bikeway does present complications for musical acts attempting to access a popular Wabasha Street performance venue — the Amsterdam Bar and Hall at Sixth Street.
Managers there fear they could lose out on bookings if tour groups are not able to exit their tour bus and roll right into the bar’s relatively-intimate concert space. The owners of Candyland candy store are among those who have opposed a bikeway on Wabasha, as well.
Brenda Peter, venue operations manager for the Amsterdam Bar and Hall, said in a written statement to the city that she and owner Jarret Oulman have been working closely with St. Paul Public Works and communicating how “the new bike lane will create a situation where some artists who travel with busses and trailers or multiple buses and trailers will not be able to have shows at our venue because of the amount of contiguous space they need to park and unload.”
“This poorly designed accommodation will result in artist management deciding to have shows at other venues who can accommodate for professional tours, particularly at comparable sized venues in Minneapolis, drawing people and livelihood away from our wonderful city,” she said.
Letters of opposition also arrived from residents calling St. Peter a safer corridor for cyclists than Wabasha, and the Terrace Group, the contracted management company for the Exchange Street property owned by Mortenson Properties and home to the History Theatre and Upper Mississippi Academy. “As someone who frequently bikes though downtown St. Paul regularly as well as works
downtown, I would like to suggest that the bike lane is better suited to St. Peter rather than Wabasha,” said Adam DeLong, in a letter to the city.
In addition to the loss of street parking, a left turn lane from Wabasha to Seventh Street would also be removed.
St. Peter between 11th and 12th streets would be converted from two southbound lanes to one southbound lane. And 12th Street between St. Peter and John Ireland Boulevard would be converted from two eastbound lanes to one eastbound lane.
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Western leg of downtown St. Paul bikeway could follow Wabasha Street from State Capitol to Kellogg Boulevard - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
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