Star Tribune
Minneapolis gets $20 million grant to improve street safety
Drivers, bicyclists, scooter riders and pedestrians in Minneapolis can expect to see more protected bikeways, center median refuge islands and roads with fewer travel lanes in the coming years as the city forges ahead with efforts to make its streets safer.
The U.S. Department of Transportation this month awarded Minneapolis a $20 million Safe Streets and Roads for All grant to pay for treatments that city leaders say will go on streets that see the highest percentage of serious and fatal crashes but have not yet received safety upgrades.
Without the grants, these critical safety improvements would have taken years to accomplish, said Public Works Director Margaret Anderson Kelliher. “Serious traffic crashes and deaths are unacceptable and preventable. This investment will make our streets safer for everyone and accelerate our Vision Zero work.”
Vision Zero is Minneapolis’ goal of ending automobile crashes that result in death or serious injuries by 2027, and creating a more livable, walkable and safer community for all.
An average of 150 people suffered life-altering injuries or were killed in traffic crashes annually on Minneapolis streets between 2017 and 2021, city data shows.
To bring that number down, the grant money will allow the city to upgrade traffic signals at 526 intersections. The money also will allow the city to improve crosswalk signing and striping, add flashers at pedestrian crossings, and deploy mobile speed wagons to help reinforce speed limits. Roads with two travel lanes in each direction could be placed on a “road diet,” also known as a 4-to-3 conversion where roads are reconfigured with one travel lane in each direction separated by a shared center turn lane.
More bike lanes separated from traffic, concrete islands in center medians to create shorter crossing distances for pedestrians and better street lighting are among improvements that could be in place by 2029.
“When we invest in our streets, we invest in our neighborhoods and the people and businesses that call them home,” Mayor Jacob Frey said in a statement. “We know this funding will help us continue to make improvements to the vitality, connectivity, and accessibility of our city streets.”
Free rides for New Year’s Eve
More than 18,000 New Year’s Eve revelers in the Twin Cities left their car in park last year and took free rides on public transportation to and from their celebrations.
The Miller Lite Free Rides program is back this year. Anybody going to a Dec. 31 party or event — or people who don’t want to be driving that night — can ride any Metro Transit bus or train between 6 p.m. and the end of service without having to pay.
The offer is also good on all Minnesota Valley Transit Authority routes.
Vikings fans riding the Northstar train to the 7:20 p.m. game vs. Green Bay at U.S. Bank Stadium will need only to pay for the inbound trip. The return trip will be free through the Miller Lite promotion.
Star Tribune
Man sentenced to more than 30 years in murder of fellow resident at West St. Paul group home
A 43-year-old man was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison Friday for stabbing to death a fellow resident at a state-operated mental health group home in West St. Paul.
John C. Adams II was found guilty in September in Dakota County District Court of intentional second-degree murder in the death of David Rahn, 68, in 2020. Adams will get credit for 1,777 days already served on his 367-month sentence, and was ordered to pay $2,088 in restitution.
According to the criminal complaint, Adams stabbed Rahn dozens of times in the early morning of Feb. 17, 2020, at the home in the 1500 block of Christensen Avenue. After a staff member heard Rahn scream for help and called 911, police found Rahn unresponsive on the floor of his bedroom with stab wounds to his face, neck and back. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and his death was ruled a homicide.
Adams at first claimed self-defense and later said Rahn had stabbed himself. But the medical examiner found evidence that the victim had tried to fend off the attack. Police found a bloody kitchen knife and a pair of blood-soaked gloves inside bags left at a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses across the street.
Adams was convicted of third-degree assault in 2001 in Hennepin County for smashing a glass in a woman’s face in downtown Minneapolis. The court found him to be “a clear danger to the safety of others” and mentally incompetent to stand trial. His sentence was set aside in exchange for him being put under Security Hospital supervision for at least three years.
In October 2018, Adams was granted provisional discharge from the Security Hospital to the home on Christensen Avenue, but that discharge was revoked less than nine months later for violations of the discharge conditions.
The home of one of three group home operated by the state Department of Human Services for people civilly committed for a mental illness and then discharged from a DHS treatment facility.
Staff writer Paul Walsh contributed to this story.
Health insurer UCare has reached an agreement with HealthPartners clinics, which will allow thousands of patients to continue seeing the same doctors without switching health plans next year.
The two companies announced the agreement Friday evening. The terms are effective immediately.
“As mission-driven organizations, UCare and HealthPartners share a commitment to improving health outcomes for our community, and the organizations’ ongoing collaboration reflects that shared goal,” a joint statement said.
The clinics had been out of network for several years, but UCare had waived rules that would have blocked patients from making appointments. UCare said it would start enforcing the network rules Jan. 1.
Star Tribune
Man charged in Brooklyn Park homicide had connection to 2022 Mall of America fatal shooting
A 19-year-old Coon Rapids man, who played a role in a 2022 fatal shooting at the Mall of America, is facing murder charges in connection with an apparent targeted shooting earlier this month in Brooklyn Park.
Citing witnesses, surveillance footage and cell phone data, prosecutors say that Marquan D. Tucker waited in a parking lot Dec. 7 before opening fire on two people when they exited a business in the 8000 block of Brooklyn Boulevard.
The two victims returned fire, though one was wounded and the other, Ramone R. Blue, 23, of Stewartville, Minn., was killed. The complaint, filed Friday, offers no motive for the shooting.
The shooting happened about seven months after Tucker was discharged from court monitoring related to the 2022 fatal shooting of 19-year-old Johntae Hudson in a department store at the Mall of America, according to court records.
Tucker was charged with third-degree riot in the case and was adjudicated as delinquent, or found guilty, court records said. He was one of three teens who confronted or chased Hudson into the store where the shooting happened. The two teens who carried guns received long prison sentences.
Tucker was being held Friday at the Hennepin County jail. It wasn’t clear if he yet had an attorney.
According to the criminal complaint:
Surveillance video shows a black BMW pull into the parking lot in Brooklyn Park around 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 7. As the two victims exit a business, a man leaves the passenger seat of the BMW, hides behind another car and fires about 16 shots. The gunman then flees in the BMW.
