Nonprofit seeks $6M in state funds for land bridge to reconnect St. Paul's Rondo neighborhood

Residents of St. Paul's Rondo neighborhood, which was torn apart when Interstate 94 was built in the 1960s, are continuing their years-long push to reconnect the predominantly Black neighborhood and right a wrong.

On Tuesday, leaders of the nonprofit Reconnect Rondo testified during a virtual House Transportation Finance and Policy Committee meeting (watch it here) about their proposal to build a land bridge over I-94, which they say will revitalize the community that was devastated by the racist policy decisions that led to a neighborhood being destroyed to build a highway.

To right this wrong, Reconnect Rondo, which has been working with the Urban Land Institute, is pushing for a 12-21 acre land bridge that would cap I-94 between Lexington Parkway and Dale Street in St. Paul, stretching between 2,600-3,200 linear feet.

The land bridge would connect both sides of the neighborhood over the interstate and also make room for additional development, including more than 500 units of housing, space for businesses and community spaces, among other opportunities, Reconnect Rondo says.

The Urban Land Institute in a 2018 study found building a land bridge would create an opportunity for Black leadership and ownership that would enhance livability in the area, and help make up for social injustices of the past.

Marvin Anderson, who was referred to during the meeting as the "Mayor of Rondo" and is the board chair of Reconnect Rondo, described the Rondo neighborhood as the cultural, community and business hub for the Black community in St. Paul in the decades before I-94 was built.

The neighborhood was home to 80% of the city's Black population and despite discrimination and systemic racism, including discriminatory lending and housing practices like redlining and racial housing covenants, Rondo was thriving.

The Interstate Highway system is racist; or how my neighborhood was bisected, isolated and cut off from the rich diversity, smiles and happiness of the rest of my city by the capricious planners of the federal government and how this drove me and my remaining friends into lives of crime, violence, misogyny, rage and drug addiction.

I don't know the St. Paul area or its history, aside from the sketch given in the article, but the general story is familiar. Driving arterial roads through residential neighborhoods is incredibly destructive. Most crossings are eliminated to eliminate lights and speed traffic flow, so the neighborhood is split, and the noise, pollution and general ugliness poisons the blocks along the route. This is how you produce slums. I live in DC, on the east side. Our worst neighborhoods are either along the rail corridors, along commuter sewers or in areas where LBJ/Great Society social engineers dumped too many housing projects. Here in DC -- and I have the impression that it's true in many other places as well -- our worst slums are not organic products of the natural variations of life. They are the product of lousy planning, which dumped most ugly nuisances into the neighborhoods with the least political clout back in the 1960's and 70's. I'm with the black community on this one.

As far as I'm concerned, increase the gas tax and use the proceeds to dig tunnels. Put the commuter sewers where they belong, underground with the sanitary sewers. If you want to build a new arterial road into DC, I'll oppose it, but if it has to be done, build it through BCC, Cathedral Heights, Spring Valley, AU Park, Cleveland Park, etc. Rip apart and poison gentry liberal neighborhoods for a change. And at the other end, route it straight through the cul-de-sacs so the suburban cowboys can share the cost of the infrastructure being built for their convenience. If suburbanites don't want to pay for or live with these reasonable accommodations, they can take the train.

I'm with the black community on this one.

I am, too. Can't get rid of the highway, but you might be able to reunify the neighborhood by building this deck.

When Trump started all these initiatives for the Black community, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s niece, Alveda, called it a down payment on a bounced check, presumably referring to government promises made previously and not kept, as usual. This deck would simply be another payment, in that spirit.

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