St. Paul, North Clinton to become two-way
Work begins this week to convert St. Paul Street and North Clinton Avenue to two-way traffic — a long-discussed shift that is drawing cheers and groans from those living and working along the corridor.
The $2.3 million project should be completed on or before Oct. 20, affecting traffic between Main Street and Cumberland Street, just shy of the Inner Loop. That will give drivers about a month to get used to the new traffic pattern before city buses are added to the mix with the opening of the new downtown terminal.
For Chris Woodworth and others living in the St. Paul Quarter, the two-way traffic conversion means an end to the confusing directions for visitors, inconvenient loop-arounds to get in and out and the regular sight of wrong-way drivers.
"It's definitely tricky to get around," said Woodworth, who has lived in the St. Paul Quarter the past seven years and heard nothing but support for conversion from his neighbors. "Having this other option is going to be much nicer."
For business owner Arnold Kovalsky — whose company, Kovalsky-Carr Electric Supply Co., Inc., has its loading docks on St. Paul Street — the converted roadway could be a concern.
"We get in large trucks all day long, and we now block all but one lane," he said, estimating 20 trucks come and go between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays. "When (traffic) is all going one direction, it's not so bad. ... When it is going two directions, I don't know what they are going to do."
Villager Construction will do the work, undoing the one-way conversions made in the 1960s. The project, paid for with a mix of federal, state and city funds, will reset curbs, install new signage and traffic signals, and repave and mark the streets.
The original push for the conversion came from those living or investing in the St. Paul corridor. City Engineer Jim McIntosh recalled that first meeting in 2007, when the impetus was to further housing redevelopment. Small businesses wanted the increased visibility and a more walkable street. Off-and-on plans for the bus terminal, once solidified, provided the final push as two-way traffic is necessary to accommodate bus traffic in and out of the center that stretches between the two streets.
Still, there is the problem with truck traffic at Kovalsky-Carr.
"We have taken pictures. We have shown (city officials) this is really not the right thing to do," Kovalsky said.
The city has made some adjustments, with plans for limited two-way traffic on Bittner Street to lessen the disruption for Kovalsky-Carr customers. And there is talk of shifting on-street parking from the west side to the east side of St. Paul Street, where the business is located, so trucks block fewer traffic lanes.
Kovalsky expects he will have to send staff out to try and stop traffic when delivery trucks arrive. The business has been on St. Paul since 1956, back when the streets accommodated two-way traffic but the company was much smaller.
A separate project will continue the Clinton Avenue conversion south of Main Street next year, also converting East Broad Street to two-way traffic. But where St. Paul Street becomes South Avenue, south of Main Street, will remain one-way traffic for at least the near future. That conversion is complicated by the entrance and exit to the South Avenue parking garage and, farther down, the elevated on-ramp for Interstate 490.
"The rest of the changes are probably five to 10 years out because there are a lot of players involved," McIntosh said.
Both the two-way traffic conversion and the bus terminal are part of a downtown transformation picking up speed this fall. City Council members are expected to authorize borrowing to fund some of the construction costs on the traffic conversion.
Also likely to be on the agenda is the contract to fill in the Inner Loop's eastern section for redevelopment. With City Council OK, a portion of the sunken highway roughly between Monroe Avenue and East Main Street would close in mid-October or early November, and traffic would shift to Union and Pitkin streets.
BDSHARP@DemocratandChronicle.com