Washington Avenue Transit Bridge

Twin City Sidewalks takes on the Washington Avenue Bridge.

Finally, after almost thirty years of planning, the Central Corridor Light Rail line is going to run thorugh the U of MN campus, and tomorrow the Metro Council is going to vote to close off Washington Avenue to passenger cars, and turn all this space under the bridge into a pedestrian-and-transit mall like Nicollet Avenue downtown.

I’d say that nearly everyone in Minnesota has some memory of walking across this bridge, whether as a student at the U or not. I used to spend a lot of time on the bridge in High School, rollerblading with friends, and with living near the River Road, I’ve driven under it thousands of times. When they painted the underside of the bridge maroon with big gold M’s on it, I thought it was a great decision - it made the bridge stand out even more. And driving eastbound under the pedestrian bridge was made a treat by the Gerhy designed Weisman Art Museum.

It will be interesting to see how the bridge changes over the next ten years. I look forward to seeing another transit line, and I think serving the University will be a good use for it. But I also believe that making the Central Corridor run on the street level is a mistake and a major shortfall made by the fiscally cheap administration.

But on the other hand, TC Sidewalks believes that moving car traffic away from Washington Ave might be a good thing.

I think the “compromise” option is actually far better than a tunnel would have been. This way, the campus can maybe start to rethink the relationship between automobiles and people.

I guess we’ll just have to see.