What’s Next for West 7th Reconstruction, Transit? No One Knows

West 7th/Fort Road Federation Executive Director Julia McColley sent an email on October 7 letting elected and policy leaders know that, without warning or knowledge, she came across substantive changes to the city’s “New West 7th Corridor” project page, the City of St. Paul’s attempt to pick up the pieces of the decade-long Riverview Corridor planning process, which itself unceremoniously ended in September of 2024.

The main change, without putting it somany words, was the project wasn’t moving forward as proposed during the full-court-press of community meetings this April. The grand vision presented for a new transit line along West 7th had become only two things, a mill and overlay of the street and the potential for a future ABRT project.

“Our neighborhood deserves transparency and a real voice in shaping a project that will define the West 7th corridor for decades to come,” McColley said in an email, asking decision makers how they came to this place. 

Ultimately, funding the ambitious transit project became too big for any one level of government to bear, especially after Ramsey County reallocated three-quarters of a billion dollars away from the corridor in their proposed Transit and Transportation Investment Plan.

When the new plan for nearly a billion dollars in transportation spending was presented in June, Tom Basgen, a West 7th resident and the Legislative Aide to Ward 3 Councilmember Saura Jost said, ““West 7th has been holding its breath for two decades waiting for the Riverview project. Investment has been delayed, building projects abandoned and the future has been on pause. And that sucks. But there’s good news, we are picking up the torch with the new West 7th project being led by the City with partnership from Met Council and MnDOT. We’re just missing one last partner to invest. That’s you – Ramsey County.”

Additionally, Mayor Melvin Carter asked the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners in a letter, co-signed by then Metropolitan Council Chair Charlie Zelle and MnDOT Metro Engineer Khani Sahebjam, to keep funding for the corridor, saying “Achieving this transformative vision for the West 7th corridor will depend on the financial commitments and advocacy of each of our agencies, including Ramsey County.”

The County Board passed the plan as proposed unanimously on June 10.

“The Roadway Doesn’t Care”

On October 29, State Level elected leaders in the area, including Reps. Dave Pinto and Maria Isa Perez-Vega, along with State Senators Sandy Pappas and Erin Murphy, hosted nearly 200 people at the North Garden Theater to discuss what was billed as “The Future of West 7th.”

Policy makers and elected officials ran through the history of aborted street and transit projects along the corridor, pushing off much needed maintenance of the road itself. 

“The current condition is disgraceful,” said Meg Duhr, Chair of the West 7th/Fort Road Federation. “As you’d expect on a multi-lane road with almost no pedestrian infrastructure at the bare minimum of transit infrastructure and long stretches lacking street trees. Driver behavior can be very risky, and many sections of the sidewalk are inaccessible to people with mobility limitations, and crossing the street is very dangerous.”

Ultimately, though, there is only one project in the foreseeable future on the street, a long-planned $100 million mill and overlay. 

“The current plan is a mill and overlay, which would scrape off the top of the the road and resurface it,” said Pinto. “It would include some ADA and sidewalk fixes as well.”

Pinto said the project is planned, budgeted for and will begin in 2028. Though  he and other leaders acknowledge it is insufficient for what is needed on the road, and a total reconstruction could cost upwards of $400-$500 million – more than the entire annual budget for MnDOT’s Metro District.

“I think all of us agree a mill and overlay isn’t enough, and we would like to do more,” said Russ Stark, the City’s Chief Resilience Officer. “We don’t have anything solid yet, but the concept could include perhaps reconstructing parts of the street, some of the parts that are in the worst shape, both in terms of what’s happening at the level of pavement and also what’s happening at the level underneath the pavement.”

Stark said that a compromise like this could be closer to $200 million, not including any transit enhancements, which would come through a separate process, if at all.

That process has already started with Metro Transit, according to Nick Thompson with Metro Transit’s Planning and Capital Programs Division. 

“If you’ve ridden the B line, which was opened in June, which connects St. Paul and Minneapolis from downtown St. Paul on Selby and Marshall, that’s what we’re we will start planning for now on this corridor,” said Thompson. “It’s a really important time because, by the end of this year, we’re going to pick the next three corridors.”

Those three new transit corridors, J, K and L lines, would begin construction sometime between 2030 and 2035.

During the Q&A section of the event, neighbors shared their skepticism over anything of substance happening in the area.

“What I’ve heard tonight is a bit discouraging, if I might say,” said long-time West End resident Becky Yust. “I heard ‘partners’ spoken by electeds and agency people a number of times. Never once did that include the neighborhoods.”

“In my estimation today this is my 86th meeting I’ve gone to on this topic and I’m exhausted,” said West 7th resident Dana DeMaster. “I came here tonight not expecting much, like completely pessimistically.”

Both DeMaster and Tim Reardon, who lives at the Schmidt Artists lofts, acknowledged frustration over the lack of action on the street.

“I want to know what more can we do in the short term,” Reardon said. “I think there’s a lot of frustration around obviously waiting another five years, but what more can we do now?”

Reardon said he is newer to West 7th, but already has found people navigating the street to attend the twice annual art crawl to be treacherous.

To his credit, St. Paul Public Works director Sean Kershaw, who also live in the neighborhood, volunteered to help with some short-term fixes for crossing near the Schmidt campus.

Short-term actions aside, there are still the long-term needs of the road that have been ignored for far too long with not much information about a path forward.

“The roadway doesn’t care if the agencies can’t figure out a vision, can’t figure out how to implement it, can’t figure out anything else but the roadway, the sidewalks, the pavements, the trees,” Said Dale Gade, a Manager in MnDOT’s Metro District. “Everything keeps deteriorating with the lack of action.”

“I am hearing and feeling the frustration in the room and I think what we need is to come back to you in 60 days with a proposed plan and a funding source,” said City Council President Rebecca Noecker. “We’ve tried that in the past, but I think what we all are hearing tonight, what I’m hearing, is when everyone owns it, nobody owns it, and it shouldn’t be on you to get us to do that work, and to come back with a proposal.”