Median aims to beautify and pacify Snelling

By Tim Lehman and Ellen Frazel, TC Daily Planet
March 21, 2009

Proposed median mock-up courtesy of Tom Welna

As far as state highways go, Snelling Avenue stirs up a lot of passion. For many in the neighborhood it’s a perilous scab of asphalt. For others it’s simply a means to an end, and the faster one can travel along that means, the better. These competing visions of Snelling’s character have led to clashing opinions about a planned median to be constructed between Grand and St. Clair avenues.

“Snelling has been a contentious issue over many decades because it’s a very busy state highway that moves through the middle of a residential neighborhood,” said Tom Welna, director of Macalester College’s High Winds Fund, which serves as the school’s community liaison and is responsible for maintaining beauty and security in the area surrounding campus. “It’s fast. It’s dangerous. Nobody in their right mind would cross both directions of Snelling.”

The median, measuring ten feet wide, will be covered with grass, trees and a variety of other vegetation. Building the median will result in a loss of parking on both sides of Snelling, though two traffic lanes will remain in each direction. It will make crossing the street safer for pedestrians by enabling them to focus on traffic flowing in one direction at a time. Furthermore, it will potentially lead to calmer traffic because, according to Welna, anytime vertical elements, such as trees or planters, are added to a median, drivers begin to treat the street less like a freeway and more like a parkway.

According to Welna, public opinions collected by Saint Paul Public Works and the Mac-Groveland Community Council about the median were “about three-to-one in favor of moving ahead with a full, landscaped median.”

The majority of those opposed were dismayed that the median would block left turns at Lincoln, Fairmount and Sargent avenues. An employee at Coastal Seafoods said, “We are not fans of the median proposal at all. The plan should include a left turn lane into Lincoln Commons. Otherwise, we will lose business.”

Saint Paul Public Works is considering allowing left turns from Snelling onto Lincoln. This would require turning Lincoln into a two-way street. However, the two-way alteration would reach only as far as the alleyway behind Immanuel Lutheran Church, leaving the avenue’s residential stretch one-way. This proposal is under consideration by the Mac-Groveland Community Council.

“It’s at the city council level right now," said City Engineer John Maczko. "There are some things that are being worked out.” Once the changes at Lincoln are made, the median resolution will be put to a final vote before the city council.

Welna indicated that Ward Three Councilmember Pat Harris was not entirely on board with the project. Harris could not be reached for comment.

There are also those who believe constructing the median would be a waste of taxpayer money. “What we need is more driver and pedestrian education," said Joel Tracy, owner of Stoltz Dry Cleaners on the corner of Grand and Snelling. "The city can’t police us with a median—people are still going to be stupid.”

In addition to $197,000 committed to the project by the Minnesota Department of Transportation, the fiscal year 2009 budget signed into law last week by President Obama contains funding for the median. Federal money was requested because it was a federal judge who disallowed truck traffic on Interstate 35E more than twenty years ago, turning Snelling into the de facto north/south route for trucks.

St. Paul itself will not pay anything, although the city government is contributing traffic and construction engineering to the project.

Should the city approve the project, it would have to break ground by June 30 in order to use state funds. Speaking about construction timelines, Welna listed a couple of different options. “They can shut down the road and do it in two weeks. Or, much more likely, they’ll do it over a six-week or two-month period, where they shut down a lane in each direction and work on it in pieces.”

In the future, Welna believes that the median could be extended further along Snelling. During the public comment period, he said, “we got a lot of comments from people just to the north in the Snelling-Hamline neighborhood, the Merriam Park neighborhood and to the south who said ‘This is a great idea, but why aren’t you doing it in our neighborhood?’”

Tim Lehman and Ellen Frazel are students at Macalester College and interns with the TC Daily Planet.

©2009 Tim Lehman and Ellen Frazel

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    Mr. Welna's Opnions

    Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 03/21/2009 - 11:29am.
    Mr. Welna is entitled to his opinions, however the authoritative statements attributed to him in the article are simply his opinions. As a resident of a neighborhood south of the college and as one who is very familiar with the impact of ill advised traffic calming measures on neighborhoods in Saint Paul, it is my opinion that this is a very bad idea and will result in several things occuring: 1) Snelling is a State Highway and a collector street. The traffic count between Grand and Saint Clair taken in July of 2002 was 26,042 cars per day. Snelling is not and never has been a neighborhood street. When traffic backs up it will find alternative paths through the neighborhood. Traffic on Hamline and Fairview will increase, as will traffic on north-south residential streets. These streets do not have the design capacity of Snelling. 2) Commercial vehicles, including sanitation, delivery, and recycling trucks, will no longer be bale to turn off Snelling and will have to circle within the neighborhood. 3) School children will walk longer to bus stops because the routes have schedules to keep and the School District cannot extend times for buses to circle around and around since they will no longer be able to turn off Snelling and they certainly do not have funds to add additional buses given the economic realities of public education in Minnesota. 4) A broken down vehicle or an accident can gridlock this stretch of street. Narrowing the street by removing parking and installing a wide median just makes it worse. Mr. Welna and his colleagues have presented a very bad idea.

    Save Lincoln Commons

    Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 03/21/2009 - 1:54pm.
    Everything about this makes sense except that there's no left-turn lane at Lincoln Commons. There is currently a left-turn lane, large enough for one car, which is usually adequate. The plans need to follow the current turn footprint at the Commons. These are valuable local businesses and they should be accessible from both directions.

    After reading this article

    Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 03/21/2009 - 10:04pm.
    After reading this article I wondered what the real motivation was behind this proposal. My husband's conclusion - drive the businesses on the East side of Snelling out of business so Macalester can pickup the property. I believe he is correct. Macalester already owns or leases property on the east side of Snelling North of Grand so why not pick up some South of Grand. This proposal makes absolutely no sense. If it is pushed through the traffic lanes should be left the same width and parking should be left on the East side of Snelling. The property sacrificed for this turkey should be Macalester's on the West side since they are pushing it, obviously for their own benefit. And yes, my husband and I are both life long residents of the area and we are very unhappy that we had to learn about this from the Daily Planet.

    The median will is a boon

    Submitted by Ramone (not verified) on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 3:34pm.
    The median will is a boon to the neighborhood in this area. It will FINALLY make Snelling safer to cross, and cut down on accidents, as well as near-misses which occur regularly. The businesses on Grand will NOT go out of business. That's absurd. MNDOT and the city engineers are behind it. The residents are looking for some traffic calming. What about this is so hard for Pat Harris to understand? BTW--the proposal to green up the area and make it safer with a median was his idea in the first place!

    Snelling Median no boon.

    Submitted by Macalester Resident (not verified) on Sun, 06/28/2009 - 12:50pm.
    Just to correct this Macalester sponsored misconception. MNDOT is not behind the median proposal. MNDOT is simply not against the median proposal because it won't make a difference to them. MNDOT has stated publicly with specific regard to the proposed Snelling median, that they "don't do traffic calming". The fact is that Snelling is a state highway and is the only north south truck route south of 94 between downtown St. Paul and Hiawatha Avenue. MNDOT doesn't object to the median because they don't believe it will have any impact on traffic speeds or capacity at all. Macalester also likes to say that the feds have approved their median. In fact, this claim arises out of a federal earmark for beautification that Macalester can tap into to pay for the median. Re: The businesses at Grand and Snelling. Does anyone really think that there is need for a median on this block considering the block is already served by a stoplight and crosswalk? Of course not. Don't be silly. There is need for a safe way for we in the neighborhood to cross Snelling, but there is no safety reason that a median needs to be 10 feet wide and eliminate all that parking that Macalester has counted upon in the past when asking for variances. A smaller median, or a series of pedestrian islands as on Selby east of Lexington would solve the safety issue without all the disruption. Anything else is just a beautification project for Macalester.

    @ Save Lincoln Commons

    Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 3:38pm.
    Lincoln Commons had PLENTY of chances to make their parking more usable--years before this issue came up. Now they stand in the way of a project that would better the neighborhood? For what?

    Current situation unsafe

    Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 7:34pm.
    I live in Mac Grove and travel south on Snelling every day and that current left turn into Lincoln Commons (from southbound Snelling) is a constant hazard. The turn lane, if you can call it that, does not really safely hold one car because no one ever pulls into it properly and squarely. Traffic then backs up into the Snelling/Grand intersection (yikes). As a neighbor who has observed this intersection for 12 years, I'm confident this proposed measure would calm traffic, and I'm in favor of that. I have to chuckle a little at the Chicken Little comments of the other posters. The world will not end because traffic will slow down a little. Heck, we might even prevent a few crashes and allow pedestrians to get a leg up. I will continue to patronize the stores at Lincoln Commons, but like I do now, I will approach them from the south, as I always have. This median will not impede my trips to Coastal Seafoods or Stoltz. The parking there has always been bad and always will be bad, and that's what prevents me from going there more often...the median won't change that. As for children needing to walk further (per the other poster): Good! Have you noticed lately that kids today tend toward the heavy side? Snelling could actually be beautiful with the foliage and such. What a refreshing change.

    Median aims to beautify and pacify Snelling

    Submitted by Gena (not verified) on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 9:33pm.
    I live in the area just east of Snelling and have been involved in this process from the beginning of the public process. I've read the comments of many neighbors and listened to the comments of many more. 1. 70% of neighbors support the project. 2. Every criticism has been addressed at the design table and each redesign improved the project in significant ways. 3. The city, the state and the feds all agree that this is a good project and back it with dedicated funding. 4. Snelling is likely to lose the left turn when MNDOT resurfaces Snelling in 2 or 3 years. MN DOT has declared that left turn inimical to safety. Designed today, there would be no left turn option for southbound Snelling traffic into Lincoln Commons. 5. U-Turns are legal. One can go to the next break in the median and do a u-turn! 5. The real motivation is not property devaluation. If I were at all worried about that I wouldn't be supporting the median. In fact when we considered whether to purchase our home, we considered Snelling a negative. This will actually help keep Snelling from being such a negative. It may even increase our property values. 6. The real motivation behind the median is PUBLIC SAFETY. There were 66 accidents between Grand and Lincoln in a recent three year period - an extraordinary number. As a grid representative I support the median because it is well designed, solves important public safety problems, will beautify the neighborhood, and is supported by 70% of my neighbors.

    Snelling Median

    Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 9:36pm.
    I remember trying to cross Snelling with my dog and kids when they were younger to get to the only green park-like space anywhere near my neighborhood. I love the idea of a median and I hope that Pat Harris steps up to make it happen.

    Traffic Calming is good for neighborhoods.

    Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 9:39pm.
    I applaud the traffic calming measures. In addition to calming traffic, they often beautify the neighborhood and make it a more pleasant place to live, walk and bike.