Over the next three years, Kathy Lantry wants to shave off and replace the top of every street in downtown St. Paul through a process called mill and overlay.

“It’s likely that we would start in Lowertown and then move our way to the west,” said Lantry, the director of St. Paul Public Works. “We need an entire outreach plan.”

The 1970s-era concrete pavers lining a series of downtown intersections would have to go, replaced by smooth driving surfaces. The pavers may look historic — they’re not — but maintaining them has proven to be a challenge. Particularly for her department’s budget.

Even the clay pavers around Rice Park and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts could be removed if Lantry has her way, though she acknowledges with a smile the 1980s-era pavers do have their fans. She’s working closely with the city’s new downtown business group, the St. Paul Downtown Alliance, for feedback.

“We’re trying to be judicious with how we use our maintenance dollars,” said Lantry, adding that public works removed stamped concrete from Kellogg Boulevard at Wabasha Street about two years ago and “nobody seemed to care.”

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AMBITIOUS AGENDA

It’s an ambitious agenda for downtown. It will cost upwards of $3 million from the city general fund, state aid and property assessments in the first year alone.

In addition, Lantry is eager to see the second leg of St. Paul’s Capital City Bikeway — an elevated downtown bike loop level with the sidewalk — move forward along 10th street, perhaps as soon as 2020.

For that to happen, Lantry is asking the St. Paul City Council to fund a six-to-nine month study of how converting 10th Street into a one-way street to better situate the bikeway might impact traffic patterns throughout downtown.

“We’re agnostic,” Lantry said. “We want to see if changing 10th Street would allow us to fit more things along the street and meet the operational needs of the existing and adjacent businesses and other property owners.”

Lantry’s $154.6 million St. Paul Public Works budget proposal for 2019 has a lot in it to digest, especially for downtown. The spending proposal is up 6.8 percent from $144.8 million in 2018.

With regard to the mill and overlay work downtown, Joe Spencer, president of the St. Paul Downtown Alliance, said “generally speaking, the businesses and property owners are really looking forward to these improvements.”

“There’s likely a way that we can help coordinate that helps minimize the irritation,” Spencer said. “This is not weeks and months. This is days (of work) for each street.”

That’s not to say the budget is solely focused there. Outside of downtown, for instance, Lantry plans to triple this year’s spending on the replacement of sidewalk panels to $1.5 million, with the goal of replacing 6,300 panels in neighborhoods around the city.

NEIGHBORHOOD STREET REPAIR DOUBLES

Also outside of downtown, spending on mill and overlay work at the neighborhood level would double from $2.5 million to $5 million in her budget proposal, or from 38 to a projected 78 blocks. But the total number of blocks could be less, given other priorities.

“While we are doing our mill and overlays, if there are pedestrian-safety improvements that we need to make, we’re going to do them right there,” said Lantry. “We have to make all the corners (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant.”

For the first time, the Public Works budget proposal includes $500,000 exclusively for bicycle-related projects in its own line item. Usually, funding for bike lanes comes from existing sources as part of road reconstruction projects that were already planned and budgeted.

“We have never had a dedicated source for all of the infrastructure that we’ve had on bike lanes,” Lantry said. “We’ve been absorbing that within our budgets for things like (lane) re-striping.”

The overall Public Works budget includes a hard look at what once was the stuff of science fiction. Through a joint application to the McKnight Foundation, Minneapolis and St. Paul have both received grant money to each hire a policy coordinator focused on readying the city for evolving road technology — from electric scooters to autonomous cars.

“Her work starts Oct. 1 and goes for one year,” Lantry said.

THIRD STREET BRIDGE

Meanwhile, there’s no getting away from the issue of the Third Street Bridge, a major gateway onto Kellogg Boulevard and downtown St. Paul from the city’s East Side.

The city has restricted travel over the bridge — which was constructed in the 1980s and spans 2,100 feet — to the center lanes since 2014, when an analysis raised concern about traffic loads on the outer lanes.

The city has asked for state and federal funding to replace the bridge ever since, without success.

St. Paul is designing a $63 million replacement bridge that is “the most utilitarian bridge that you will ever see,” Lantry said. “There’s no decorative elements on it. We’re not going to make it purple for Prince’s birthday. We’re not going to make it red, white and blue. It’s how people get to a job center. I’m on it everyday.”

STREET MAINTENANCE FEES SHIFT TO TAXES

Residential storm sewer charges grew about 3 percent this year, or about $3, climbing to $95 for a typical one-to-two family property. The bill, however, was mailed separately this year from the city’s traditional street maintenance charges, and many residents assumed this was their first time paying it.

In reality, both assessments are collected annually alongside property taxes (with a slight interest charge) if not paid at the time of billing.

For a typical single-family home with 40 feet of street and alley frontage, street maintenance charges have dropped from $200 to $46 to cover twice-annual street sweeping and street lighting.

That’s because, as a result of multiple lawsuits from churches and nonprofits, the city has moved roughly $30 million in assessments for general street services such as traffic lights and snow plowing to the city’s general fund, which is paid for through property taxes.

Roughly once every eight years, homeowners will receive an additional bill for street seal-coating, and residents on major arterial streets will receive bills for mill and overlay work.

Lantry said she’d like the department to establish a new online information portal, so that plans that contractors might spend 20 minutes waiting to pick up in person at the downtown City Hall Annex building can be accessed online.

ST. PAUL PUBLIC WORKS BUDGET:

$144.8 million (2018)

$154.6 million (proposed 2019)

General fund spending derived from property taxes would increase from $28.88 million in 2018 to $29.42 million next year, or 1 percent. The Public Works budget is largely made up special funds, such as assessments to property owners for street improvements.

KEY GOALS AND SPENDING ITEMS:

DOWNTOWN

The Public Works Department’s 2019 budget proposal asks for $500,000 in general fund money to begin a three-year process milling and overlaying every downtown street. Funds would be paired with $1 million in municipal state aid and assessments to neighboring property owners, for a total of $3 million.

Roughly 140 parking meters will be upgraded downtown, and additional meters will be upgraded near the State Capitol building.

Public Works hopes to hire consultants in 2019 to study how downtown traffic patterns would be affected if 10th Street is converted from a two-way street into a one-way street for the second leg of the Capital City Bikeway, an elevated downtown bike loop.

NEIGHBORHOODS

Spending on mill and overlay street repair work in neighborhoods would double from $2.5 million to $5 million. The increase includes $1.25 million from the general fund, on top of assessments to neighboring property owners. The funding would repair an estimated 78 blocks, up from 38 this year.

Public Works would replace 6,300 sidewalk panels in St. Paul neighborhoods, up from 2,100 panels in 2018, at a total cost of $1.5 million.

A $30,000 study would examine what it would cost the city to complete alley plowing during snow emergencies.

Roughly $100,000 in pedestrian improvements are funding three special projects through the end of 2018: a temporary test closure of Sixth Street, pedestrian-activated traffic beacons along Concordia Avenue in the old Rondo neighborhood, and new traffic signals by Humboldt High School.

GENERAL