In this article, we shall be talking about the various kinds of roads that are within the city of West Saint Paul, Minnesota. As is seen on the maps, there are many different types of road that go through this city in Dakota County, and thus, to make the describing of these roads easier, we shall be separating these different roads into two categories, which in turn, will be divided further into multiple subcategories. Now, the first category is those roads that are categorized as highways or freeways in the various highway systems within the United States, these include Interstate freeways, US Route Highways, State Route Highways, and finally, the smallest of the bunch, although not in any way less important, County Highways. After we finish describing these roads that are classified as highways to you, we shall continue onward into the second category, which are roads that are not categorized as a highway of any kind, this category of roads includes your regular streets, boulevards, avenues, and drives.
U.S. Highway 52 (also known as the Lafayette Freeway), Robert Street, and Minnesota Highway 62 are three of West St. Paul’s main routes. Interstate Highway 494 runs just south of the city and Minnesota Highway 3 (unmarked Route 952) runs through the middle of the city and into downtown Saint Paul as Robert Street. Robert Street was named for Captain Louis Robert, a Mississippi River boat captain and early French-Canadian settler of Saint Paul.
North of Coates, Highway 52 enters the edge of the Twin Cities area. The route enters Inver Grove Heights where it becomes the Lafayette Freeway north of Concord Boulevard. Highway 52 splits with State Highway 55 north of there. Highway 55 heads to Minneapolis, while Highway 52 heads to St. Paul. Interstate 494 intersects 52 in the northern part of Inver Grove Heights. The St. Paul Downtown Airport is right off Highway 52 in St. Paul. After Highway 52 crosses the Mississippi River in downtown St. Paul, the route intersects Interstate 94 and follows I-94 to the North Dakota state line; U.S. 52 is not signed along the length of this concurrency.
State Highway 62 serves as an east-west route between Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Edina, Richfield, Minneapolis, Fort Snelling, Mendota Heights, and Inver Grove Heights. The route is constructed to freeway standards for most of its length, except for the western 1/2 mile, which is an expressway with two signal-controlled intersections. The eastern section is also an expressway except for the last mile between Mendota Road and Interstate 494 which is again a freeway. The route is in Hennepin and Dakota Counties.
Due to the existence of a second State Highway 62 in the southwest corner of the state between Fulda and Windom, the stretch of Highway 62 in the Twin Cities area starts its numbering at milepost 100. This is unorthodox in that the two state highways have a combined length of 36 miles (58 km). “Mile 100” is calibrated where Hennepin County Roads 101 and 62 meet at the Eden Prairie / Minnetonka boundary line; though the mileposts themselves, starting with mile 104, do not appear until the state-maintained section inside the I-494 beltway.