Mounds Boulevard: Public Realm Upgrades for Pedestrians and Bicyclists

Abstract

The Gateway Corridor is a regional transitway currently proposed to run from the newly restored Union Station in downtown St Paul to the metropolitan region’s eastern edge near Woodbury. The transitway will connect at Union Station to proposed intra-city rail and bus services, the Metro Green rail line and existing bus services, and future Metro intercity and regional rail and bus lines. While an exact alignment and mode for the Gateway Corridor have not been selected at this time, a station has been proposed for Mounds Boulevard as it passes through Dayton’s Bluff, a neighborhood to the northeast of downtown St Paul’s Lowertown district. In contrast to other proposed stations along the Gateway corridor, the Mounds Boulevard station will be urban in character, with passengers coming and going by foot or bicycle rather than parking and riding. As such, this planning phase presents an opportunity to address the state of pedestrian and bicycle connections between the station and the surrounding neighborhood.