A 26-year-old woman from St. Paul is dead after she was struck by an SUV in the center lane of westbound I-94, just after midnight on Thursday, under the West 7th Street bridge. The Minnesota State Patrol says the crash happened at 12:20 a.m. on dry roads, and investigators have not yet explained why she was walking in the middle of the freeway when she was hit.
According to the State Patrol's official crash log, the woman was struck by a 2016 Lincoln MKX traveling westbound in the center lane, with the case assigned number 26406212 out of the agency's District 2400 East Metro office. St. Paul Police and St. Paul Fire and EMS responded to assist troopers at the scene. As reported by CBS News, the State Patrol confirmed she died from her injuries, and troopers indicated additional details would be released as the investigation continues.
5 Eyewitness News reports it is still investigating why the woman was in the middle of the freeway at the time of the crash. That question remains the central mystery of the case, since the stretch of I-94 where she was found is a controlled-access highway with no legal pedestrian access.
What State Law Says About Walking on Freeways
Minnesota law gives the state's transportation commissioner and local authorities the power to prohibit or restrict pedestrians, cyclists, and other nonmotorized traffic on controlled-access highways such as interstates, under Minnesota Statute § 169.305. A separate law, Minnesota Statute § 169.21, spells out pedestrian right-of-way rules and explicitly bars pedestrians from suddenly leaving a curb or other safe location to step into the path of a vehicle when it is impossible for the driver to yield in time.
Those statutes exist because high-speed corridors like I-94 are not designed with pedestrian protections in active traffic lanes. Whether speed, impairment, or driver reaction time played any role in Thursday's crash has not been addressed in the available reporting, and the State Patrol's investigation remains open.
A Pattern of Fatal Freeway Crossings
Nighttime is when these crashes overwhelmingly happen. Governors Highway Safety Association data show more than 80 percent of pedestrian fatalities on U.S. interstates, freeways, and expressways in 2024 occurred after dark, since low light sharply reduces how far ahead a driver can spot someone in the roadway. The same organization's analysis of federal crash data found that controlled-access interstates and freeways accounted for 17.6 percent of all U.S. pedestrian fatalities in 2022, a total of 1,321 deaths nationwide.
The trend is visible in Minnesota too. State pedestrian fatalities rose 25 percent in 2024 to 54 deaths across more than 800 pedestrian-involved crashes, according to Minnesota Office of Traffic Safety data cited by the personal injury law firm Betz & Port. St. Paul's own Safe Streets for All crash evaluation has flagged the city's limited-access freeways, including I-94, I-35E, and US-52, as high-risk corridors responsible for a disproportionate share of the city's severe traffic collisions.
Not the First Fatal Crossing Near This Stretch
This is not the first fatal pedestrian crash near I-94 in St. Paul in recent memory. In November 2025, police investigated another fatal pedestrian crash near the interstate at Saint Anthony Avenue and Aldine Street, after an adult woman was struck by an SUV and died at Regions Hospital, according to Patch. In that case, local law enforcement launched an active search for a hit-and-run driver.
Thursday's crash also lands in the middle of a broader, long-term look at the corridor. The Minnesota Department of Transportation is currently running its “Rethinking I-94” initiative, studying long-term safety, walkability, equity, and multi-modal transit options along a 7.5-mile stretch of the freeway between Minneapolis and Marion Street in St. Paul. The project examines potential roadway reconfigurations and better neighborhood connections across the corridor.
Hoodline previously reported on a severe I-94 crash in Woodbury involving a teenage motorcyclist, underscoring how frequently the same corridor turns up in serious East Metro crash reports. The State Patrol's investigation into Thursday's fatal crash remains active, and no further details on the victim or the driver of the Lincoln MKX have been released.
