I am going to be without internet for a few days and decided I will not be able to make daily posts, due to not wanting to make posts from a mobile device. To combat this issue this is going to be a 3 piece article about some of my favorite non-standard shortcuts through St. Paul, Minnesota.  If you are not from St. Paul, but from the metro area including Minneapolis these routes can save you some serious travel time.

Maybe it is the poor layout of roads in general through St. Paul, but the first major shortcut through St. Paul definitely changed how I drive as a local St. Paulite with the common knowledge you cannot go from Eastbound I-94 to Southbound I-35E. This roadway of course is Ayd Mill Road and connects to Selby Avenue near Snelling/I-94 at the north end and ties into I-35E at the south end.

The popularity of this road has been kept to a minimum due to lack of signing announcing its presence and that it doesn’t actually make the connection to I-94 to the north adding to its obscurity.  The prime benefits of using Ayd Mill Road is that it bypasses many of the stop lights and 30 mph of other north-south roads in St. Paul, with the largest benefit is that it goes underneath Summit and Grand to avoid parades, marathons, and anything else that blocks traffic for the better part of the day in this area of St. Paul. So whether you want to avoid driving through surface streets in downtown St. Paul when you want to go south on I-35E or you are looking for a shortcut through St. Paul south of I-94, the Ayd Mill Road signs are the ones to look for.

Have you ever stumbled a crossed Ayd Mill road while driving through St. Paul? Did it end up leading where you thought it would go cutting through the neighborhoods like it does?