St. Paul City Council Member Dai Thao, who represents the northern end of Ayd Mill Road, said he has concerns about Mayor Melvin Carter’s plans to add a pedestrian and bicycle thoroughfare to the busy freeway connector.

“There’s no plan for traffic mitigation,” Thao said. “Traffic in the neighborhoods is already a concern, especially at Dale, Lexington and Snelling. I’m all in support of bicyclists, but how many bicyclists and pedestrians are going to use that, versus the unintended consequences of more vehicles in the neighborhoods?”

Thao called for a traffic study with travel data and traffic modeling.

“Once we have data, maybe we block off southbound traffic for a couple months, and then we’ll know where all the southbound traffic is going to go,” he said. “I’m not for or against it, but we can’t just push this through without doing a cost-benefit analysis.”