Traffic planners mull fixes for U and northbound 35W

Drivers who are dreading a ban on cars through the heart of the University of Minnesota campus can take some comfort: The university is working on alternate routes -- including a whole new road.

The university has been very busy ever since it learned that the Central Corridor light-rail line will run on Washington Avenue instead of through a tunnel underneath it. Fearing a gridlocked mix of traffic, trains and pedestrians when the line opens in 2014, the U wants a stretch of Washington closed to cars and possibly buses.

To handle some of the displaced traffic, a new sweeping arc of a road is envisioned to take drivers around the north side of campus, through a planned biosciences complex, underneath the streets of Dinkytown and as far east as Hwy. 280.

"Think Energy Park Drive," said Tim Busse, a university spokesman, referring to the similarly designed St. Paul road.

The proposed street, which is being called Granary Road, has been a dotted line on maps for a while. When the bridges of Dinkytown were rebuilt in the 1990s, engineers made sure there was enough room underneath for a road.

The route doesn't have a lot of neighbors who might object to a new road -- it largely traverses industrial and railroad land. The real obstacle is money.

The U's "very preliminary" estimates for Granary Road start at $32 million. The Central Corridor's $909 million budget includes about $39 million for "traffic mitigation" in the university area, and that number is widely thought to be insufficient.

New downtown escape route?

Meanwhile, just to the west of the West Bank campus, the city of Minneapolis has been looking into a new way to provide access to northbound 35W.

Prior to the collapse of the 35W bridge, the backup of cars leaving downtown during afternoon rush hour would sometimes stretch for 5 or 6 blocks on Washington Avenue S. at the sole northbound entrance ramp. Also, the freeway entrance ramp was so short that metering wasn't practical: the Minnesota Department of Transportation installed a meter years ago, but turned it on only in emergencies.

When the new bridge opens, the traffic will return, but if city plans pan out in coming years, downtown drivers would have another option. They could follow S. 4th Street around the Metrodome, pass under 35W and be able to turn left at a new traffic signal and go up a new ramp to the northbound lanes.

Early estimates of the project's cost are in the $3 million to $4 million range, said Jon Wertjes, the city's traffic and parking director. Money has not been secured; once it is, construction would take a couple of years.

Putting a stoplight on the mini-freeway between the Metrodome and the Washington Avenue Bridge is not seen as a threat to traffic flow, said Wertjes, in part because the light rail's car-less transit mall is expected to reduce the number of vehicles going across the Washington Avenue bridge.

Also, the tangle of roads that ties together the bridge, 35W, Hiawatha Avenue and 3rd and 4th Streets is "overbuilt," he said, meaning they're not near capacity. The area was designed back when the Hiawatha corridor was expected to become a full-fledged Hwy. 55 freeway that would funnel larger numbers of vehicles into downtown.