Bob Collins
Workers in downtown St. Paul may soon get reacquainted with a feature they haven’t experienced in a generation: the sidewalk.
This skyway over 5th Street — between Cedar and Minnesota — is closing down next week. It’s the main “people artery” between everyone who works south of 5th and their lunch. The Bremer Bank building on the corner of 5th and Cedar is being torn down.
People always have the option of going blocks around to another skyway crossing, or they can just hit the pavement and cross the…..
.. or cross the street to use the sidewalk on the other side and….
Tell you what. Just bring a lunch from home; it’s probably healthier for you, anyway.
The construction, of course, is because of the light rail project. The Central Corridor trains will turn to the east at 5th and Cedar, going through the entire block where the building now stands.
Apparently, however, the skyway will somehow reopen in November.
That’s better than the other major skyway disruption many years ago, which left us with the skyway to nowhere across Wabasha Street when the unsightly building across from Macy’s was torn down. There were plans to build another one there, restoring the skyway link to points west, but they never materialized and now the spot is an even more unsightly surface parking lot.
On the other side of the new Central Corridor line, drivers will find some closed ramps starting in the next few days, according to MnDOT. The ramp from 4th Street to southbound I-35W in Minneapolis will close on Wednesday, reopening sometime this summer. The ramp from northbound I-35W to the University of Minnesota East Bank will close next Monday, and won’t reopen until next winter.
