Intersection Mobility and Safety Study

The Metropolitan Council and the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) worked with local agencies to analyze and prioritize at-grade intersections on the principal arterial system within the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Planning Area. This study serves as an update the 2017 Principal Arterial Intersection Conversion Study.

Study goals

• Review implementation from the 2017 Principal Arterial Intersection Conversion Study
• Analyze before-and-after conditions of previous projects
• Prioritize intersections into high, medium, and low priorities at a regional scale based on the magnitude of the identified needs
• Identify regional priorities for the 2050 Transportation Policy Plan
• Use regional priorities in project selection processes including the Regional Solicitation

Results

• A before-and-after analysis of recently completed interchange and intersection projects showed that they were highly effective in improving mobility, safety, and multimodal options. 
• Constructed projects, especially the larger ones, are difficult for local partners to manage given all the different funding sources needed to bring the projects to reality. Implementation could be streamlined if competitive funding programs focused their resources on providing a larger share total project costs.
• This study update identified approximately 80 intersections as high regional need locations based on the analysis.  Another 120 intersections were identified as medium priorities and over 300 as low priorities.

Tiering results (PDF)