Pedestrian and bicycle crash hotspots in Minneapolis and St. Paul

If you got hit while walking or biking somewhere in the Twin Cities, you're not imagining that certain streets feel more dangerous than others. City crash data backs that up. A small share of Minneapolis and St. Paul streets account for a wildly disproportionate share of the serious pedestrian and bicycle crashes in each city, and city planners and county engineers have mapped exactly where.

This isn't a statewide overview. It's a look at the specific corridors, intersections, and safety projects that matter if you or someone you love was hit crossing a street in Minneapolis or St. Paul.

Minneapolis's most dangerous intersections

The most detailed public analysis of Minneapolis pedestrian crashes, built from a decade of crash reports, found a clear pattern: the intersections with the most crashes cluster in south and north Minneapolis, on streets built wide for speed rather than for people on foot.¹

• Lyndale Avenue South and West Lake Street (Lyn-Lake) recorded 24 pedestrian crashes over the study period, the highest total in the city.¹
• West Broadway Avenue and Lyndale Avenue North came in second, with 23 crashes.¹
• Franklin Avenue and Nicollet Avenue South followed with 21.¹
• On West Lake Street itself, the intersections with Hennepin Avenue (20 crashes), Pillsbury Avenue, and Blaisdell Avenue (17 each) round out the list.¹

The most severe outcomes concentrated at Hennepin Avenue South and West Lake Street in Uptown, where four crashes over the decade resulted in death or serious injury.¹ By crash rate rather than raw count, Grant Street West and Nicollet Mall downtown topped the list, at 0.31 pedestrian crashes per million vehicles passing through, the highest rate measured anywhere in the city.¹

Those numbers aren't confined to a few corners. The full stretch of Lake Street between Hennepin and Bloomington avenues, about 2.25 miles, logged 102 pedestrian crashes in the same analysis, with Blaisdell and Pillsbury alone accounting for a third of them.¹

What the city's current numbers show

Minneapolis tracks this every year through its Vision Zero program. Between 2017 and 2025, an average of about 160 people were killed or seriously injured in traffic crashes annually, adding up to almost 1,500 people.² The worst year was 2022, with 206 fatal or serious-injury crashes; the total has eased some since then. Five pedestrians were killed in Minneapolis in 2025, the same number as in 2024.²

The imbalance is stark. People walking or rolling account for just 17% of trips in Minneapolis but 30% of severe traffic injuries and deaths. People biking make up 3% of trips and 10% of the severe injuries and deaths.² Speeding was a factor in 80% of the city's fatal crashes in 2024.²

City planners have also found that danger isn't spread evenly across the map. Just 10% of Minneapolis streets accounted for 64% of fatal and serious-injury crashes between 2020 and 2024, a concentration the city calls its High Injury Streets network.² An earlier version of the same analysis, covering 2017 through 2021, found 9% of streets carrying 66% of severe and fatal crashes.³

Lyndale Avenue's road diet, and what comes next

Lyndale Avenue South between Franklin Avenue and 31st Street, one of the corridors named above, got a real-world test of what a redesign can do. Hennepin County restriped the four-lane road down to three lanes (one through lane each direction, plus a center turn lane) in 2022, along with pedestrian accessibility upgrades at 25th and 27th streets.⁴ Local reporting on the pilot's results found a 57% drop in total crashes and a 48% drop in injury crashes afterward.⁵

A full reconstruction of that same segment, county-numbered as County Road 22, is still in planning. Hennepin County says it logged more than 59,000 points of community contact across five rounds of engagement before landing on a design, with construction currently scheduled to begin in 2028, a date that has already slipped once.⁴

Minneapolis also started using automated speed cameras in 2025, part of the same Vision Zero effort. The first five went live on October 1, 2025, at Fremont Avenue North near West Broadway, 18th Avenue Northeast near Central Avenue Northeast, 3rd Street North near 1st Avenue North downtown, Chicago Avenue South near Franklin Avenue, and Nicollet Avenue South near 46th Street.⁶ Eleven more cameras were added in early 2026, with the program allowed to grow to as many as 42 locations and run through July 2029; every site has to sit within 2,000 feet of a school.⁶

None of this is theoretical. On July 27, 2026, a man in his 40s was struck and killed crossing 10th Street North at Twins Way near Target Field, in one of the busiest pedestrian corridors in downtown Minneapolis.⁷

St. Paul's numbers, and Summit and Snelling

St. Paul tracks its own pedestrian and bicycle crashes through the police department, and the trend hasn't moved in one direction. The city logged 89 pedestrian crashes and 50 bicycle crashes in 2020, rising to a peak of 214 pedestrian and 79 bicycle crashes in 2022 (a year with six fatalities among those crashes), before falling back to 135 pedestrian and 60 bicycle crashes in 2023.⁸ In the first quarter of 2026 alone, St. Paul recorded 31 pedestrian crashes with 21 injuries and 4 deaths, plus 5 bicycle crashes with 1 injury.⁸

One St. Paul intersection has carried an outsized reputation for years: Snelling and Summit avenues, next to Macalester College. Alan Grahn, a bicyclist, was killed there on May 9, 2018, when a school bus struck him, and the crash renewed long-standing complaints from residents that the intersection puts anyone on foot or on a bike at real risk.⁹ More recent crashes show the danger hasn't stayed in one part of the city: a pedestrian died in a hit-and-run at Front Avenue and Grotto Street North in the Como neighborhood on February 3, 2026, and a man using a mobility scooter died after being hit at Phalen Boulevard and Rose Avenue on February 12, 2026, also a hit-and-run.^{10 11}

Where St. Paul is spending safety money

St. Paul was awarded a $15.7 million federal Safe Streets and Roads for All grant on September 10, 2024, aimed at 40 miles of roadway and 100 intersections across wards 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7, plus planning studies for Como and White Bear avenues.¹² The city's own crash analysis had already flagged those areas as its highest-risk corridors for people walking, biking, and rolling.¹²

Two state projects are already underway on named St. Paul streets. A $30 million rebuild of East 7th Street (from Interstate 94 to Mounds Boulevard) and Arcade Street (through to Roselawn Avenue in Maplewood) started in March 2025 and runs through fall 2026, adding pedestrian lighting, rebuilt sidewalks, and new curb ramps.¹³ Farther west, MnDOT and St. Paul are planning a longer-term rebuild of West 7th Street and Highway 5 between Munster Avenue and Wabasha Street, with design work running through 2027 and construction not expected to start until 2029.¹⁴

Minnesota's traffic deaths overall fell to 370 in 2025, the fewest since 2019, according to the state's Office of Traffic Safety.¹⁵ That statewide progress doesn't erase the history of the specific streets above. If you were hit walking or biking on one of them, the intersection's crash history and the agency data behind it can matter for how a claim gets evaluated. An attorney who handles pedestrian and bicycle cases can help you sort out what your crash report and medical records actually support, and the legal directory is a place to start looking for one.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Star Tribune, "Minneapolis study: W. Lake Street intersections most perilous for pedestrians" - https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-study-w-lake-street-intersections-most-perilous-for-pedestrians/460606453

2. City of Minneapolis, "Safety Data," Vision Zero - https://www.minneapolismn.gov/government/programs-initiatives/visionzero/vz-data-stats/

3. City of Minneapolis, "Vision Zero Action Plan 2023-2025" - https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download/RCAV2/31027/18-Vision-Zero-Action-Plan-2023-2025.pdf

4. Hennepin County, "Lyndale Avenue South Reconstruction" - https://www.hennepincounty.gov/en/residents/transportation/lyndale-avenue-safety

5. Southwest Voices, "It's Safer on Lyndale Avenue Now" - https://www.southwestvoices.news/posts/its-safer-on-lyndale-avenue-now/

6. City of Minneapolis, "Traffic Safety Camera Pilot," Vision Zero - https://www.minneapolismn.gov/government/programs-initiatives/visionzero/actions-taken/traffic-safety-camera

7. Bring Me The News, "Pedestrian fatally struck by motorist near Target Field in Minneapolis" - https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/pedestrian-fatally-struck-by-motorist-near-target-field-in-minneapolis

8. City of St. Paul, "Pedestrian and Bike Crash Data" - https://www.stpaul.gov/departments/police/pedestrian-and-bike-crash-data-city-st-paul

9. MPR News, "Bicyclist dead in St. Paul crash; witnesses say school bus involved" - https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/05/09/bicyclist-dead-witnesses-say-school-bus-involved-in-collision-snelling-summit-avenues

10. CBS News Minnesota, "Pedestrian killed in St. Paul hit-and-run; driver arrested a short time later" - https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/st-paul-pedestrian-killed-hit-and-run-como/

11. CBS News Minnesota, "St. Paul police searching for driver who hit, killed man on mobility scooter" - https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/st-paul-deadly-hit-and-run-pedestrian-mobility-scooter/

12. City of St. Paul, "Saint Paul Secures $15.7 Million Federal Grant to Enhance Transportation Safety" - https://stpaul.gov/news/saint-paul-secures-157-million-federal-grant-enhance-transportation-safety

13. Minnesota Department of Transportation, "East 7th St. and Arcade St. in St. Paul and Maplewood project" - https://www.dot.state.mn.us/metro/projects/e7th-arcade/index.html

14. Minnesota Department of Transportation, "Hwy 5/West Seventh Street in St. Paul Project" - https://www.dot.state.mn.us/metro/projects/w7thst-stpaul/index.html

15. Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Office of Traffic Safety, "New report: Traffic safety programs saving lives, driving down traffic deaths" - https://dps.mn.gov/news/ots/new-report-traffic-safety-programs-saving-lives-driving-down-traffic-deaths