Minneapolis residents discuss the WORST highway exit in the Midwest – And they all say the same thing
Social media was recently in an uproar about the worst highway exit in the Midwest – and the vast majority of Minneapolis residents agreed on the same exit. Specifically, the 8B exit (East and West 94) got the most mentions. Not only this, but the picture featured speaks more than a thousand words. In short, there’s a lot of stationary traffic and not much movement. Unfortunately, locals have come to expect this as the norm and as a result, this exit has gained notoriety over the years.
Not only this but there was also the idea of updating the 94 exit and modernizing it to allow a more efficient traffic flow. It’s no secret that this exit hasn’t been updated for years which certainly doesn’t help its reputation. Of course, this is just an idea from the community – and being put into reality is something completely different altogether.
At this time of year, the prospect of being stuck behind the wheel in the blistering heat doesn’t really appeal to most people. Nonetheless, it’s a harsh reality that many have to live by if you’re forced to go on the 94 route.
Speaking on the issue, one local mentioned, “Living in NE I can take the 94W ramp but damned if I don’t have to stop because some idiot is blocking the lane trying to cut-in to the 94E lane at the last minute.” Elsewhere, another quipped, “Too many people want to continue going East when they are on eastbound 394. Go figure. These ramps were designed expecting more people to head into downtown. The short merge lanes from the entrance ramps at Xerxes, France, and Valley View cause some forced merges now and then. It takes quite a while for traffic speeds to recover from just one of those.”
So, if you believe this route is the worst in the Midwest, or whether it’s somewhere else then let us know in the comments.
The answer, simply, is to exit at the Dunwoody ramp just before the Lowry tunnel. The other answer is to re-rout traffic around the twin Cities by removing the I94 signs just before Brooklyn Park and I494/I694 in Woodbury. The Lowry tunnel is the bottleneck that cannot be undone but should be avoided by all outstate and interstate traffic.
Christ you people are whiny. Having driven this for 20+ years, I agree it’s bad, but not as bad as this makes it out to be. Minor inconvenience, but Minnesota residents react like their firstborn was slain
Go back to hell, people are impatient, cutting into lanes rather than waiting their turn at the end of the line! the Dot people need to stop wasting their time on other less important meetings! Putting up better barricades to prevent other people cutting in the line. Something needs to be done for this crazy exit.
It’s terrible totally agreed, also almost dangerous when drivers try to cut off others to get a head of long line of cars waiting to move , very slow and dangerous specially Winter time , when roads are slippery. What the City can do to help with this issue?
Gov. Walz should have used some of the $17 BILLION surplus to fix this bottleneck and dangerous freeway. However, he prefers to throw the people who paid all those extra taxes under the bus and even ran up another $12 Billion in new spending. He throws most of the money to schools which is a black hole since the teachers can’t teach writing or arithmetic anymore – kids have no idea how to write or even print because it is NOT taught in the schools and they have no idea how to add or subtract unless they have a phone or calculator to do it for them. The schools are failing our kids and yet Walz keeps throwing millions into them because he favors teachers since he is one.
Thankfully I rarely need to drive on 394E and take the 94E exit. But when I do it is a real pain in the butt. If you are one of those that stay in the designated lane to go to 94E, I applaud you. But there are those inconsiderate drivers in the lane to 94W that feel it is ok to move over into the 94E lane at the last minute because they figure someone will let in. Shame on you. You are definitely a big contributing factor for the back up. I’m not exactly sure how to remedy the problem, but I do have a suggestion. Put those heavy duty orange barrels like they use for road construction, between the two lanes approximately 1/2 to 3/4 a mile before the 94W and 94E exits making it impossible for those inconsiderate drivers to cut into the 94E lane at the last minute. Just a suggestion. It is amazing how well the traffic moves along after getting past that mess.
There are plenty of bottlenecks throughout the twin cities and most are caused by either inattentive drivers or over aggressive drivers. If drivers would pay attention to what they are supposed to be doing alot of the bottlenecks would take care of themselves.
When available to me, I use the HOV lanes. This avoids the long backup, but doesn’t help overall throughput, because it just needs to merge into the main 394E-to-94E traffic before the Lowery Tunnel.
They could reassign lanes so that downtown and 94W share two lanes, and 94E gets two lanes in which to do a zipper merge before the tunnel.
Can 94E coming from the north afford to sacrifice a lane to the incoming 394E traffic?
394 East to 94 East should have had two lanes to get onto 94 east! People in this state do not know how to use the zipper method!!!!!