Rethinking I-94 Transit Scoping and Idea Exploration

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) Rethinking I-94 initiative is examining various community and data informed alternatives for a 7.5-mile stretch of Interstate 94 between Hiawatha Avenue/Trunk Highway 55 in Minneapolis, MN and Marion Street in Saint Paul, MN – including for public transit. In 2022, TGC led the process to develop and evaluate several transit service concepts related to the Rethinking I-94: Phase 2 Environmental Process (Rethinking I-94 Transit Scoping & Idea Exploration), which involved:

• Assimilating existing regional and local goals related to transit, to determine how said goals should impact the identification and evaluation of transit alternatives – Transit Ideas – for the I-94 Transit Study;

• Developing evaluation criteria for Transit Ideas, created early in the process and applied after the identification of ideas;

• Examining multimodal connections, travel patterns, and socioeconomic, equity, and environmental justice data to inform the identification of a wide array of potential Transit Ideas;

• Conducting stakeholder and public engagement to also inform the identification of a variety of potential Transit Ideas;

• Acting on data and engagement to develop several Transit Ideas, utilizing a variety of transit modes, stop locations, and physical running way types; and

• Evaluating each Transit Idea per the evaluation criteria, including potential ridership, accessibility via transit travel time, proximity, and complexity.

Our Rethinking I-94 Transit Scoping & Idea Exploration Technical Memorandum serves as a key resource for MnDOT to strategically consider how to integrate transit improvements into potential highway designs in the I-94 corridor. The resulting combined alternatives will be further refined and evaluated in the overall Rethinking I-94 Scoping Document/Draft Scoping Decision Document (SD/DSDD) process. The major component of the SD/DSDD is the identification of ideas – transit and highway – satisfying the needs of the project and warranting further study in the Tier 1 Environmental Impact Statement process.