As harms of urban freeways have become clear over the last few decades, there’s a lot of talk about freeway removal in the U.S. Yet actual progress — the disappearance of concrete and asphalt — has been almost comically scarce. It almost takes an “act of God” to get rid of an urban road, as was the case for San Francisco’s loathsome Embarcadero elevated freeway destroyed by the 1989 earthquake.
Instead, the best-case scenario for harmful urban highways seemed to be burying them, as in Seattle or Boston. Meanwhile, for most needless urban highways, changing the status quo is easier said than done.
That might be finally starting to change. In Minneapolis’ Near North Side, just northwest of downtown, MnDOT, the state’s transportation agency, is poised to begin downsizing one of its oldest and most historically destructive freeways. The agency released conclusions from a study on Olson Memorial Highway (Highway 55), which represent a promising step in the right direction toward a more resilient, humane and sustainable transportation future for Minneapolis.
The eradication of North 6th Avenue
It’s always awkward to talk about the history of Minneapolis’ North 6th Avenue, because there’s almost nothing left of it. If you stand at the corner of Lyndale and North 6th, once a bustling heart of a neighborhood, it’s impossible to imagine what was once there. Every trace of its presence has been eradicated by a series of interventions, dispossessions, and a century of neglect.
The short version goes like this: North 6th Avenue, where Olson Memorial runs, used to be lined with shops and apartments and surrounded by blocks of working-class homes. This was once one of the city’s most diverse and welcoming immigrant enclaves, home to the city’s largest Black community, its first Jewish community, and a bunch of other groups mixed in.
Much like Cedar-Riverside (on the other side of downtown Minneapolis) or St. Paul’s West Side Flats, Near North was where you came when arriving with little more than good will and a few connections. Housing was cheap, quality was not a priority, and scrutiny was rare. The corner of 6th and Lyndale, in particular, bustled with the life of these groups, and the area served as a red light district, commercial center, and music hot spot that was home to early Minneapolis jazz and countless other strains of culture.
The neighborhood began to change in the early 20th century as segregation took root in Minneapolis, concentrating poverty in places like this. Meanwhile, a series of city-led steps, beginning with housing studies (e.g. the 1922 Civic & Commerce Association study) and continuing with federal redlining, labeled Near North as a slum and a problem to be solved.
Like many U.S. working-class enclaves, the one-two government punch for the area was urban renewal and freeways. First there was the Sumner Housing development, built in the mid 1930s, where Minneapolis became one of the first cities in the country to receive funds for public housing. A large swath of the old urban fabric was demolished for new small-scale apartments, at much lower densities than before.
(Ironically, these homes were later demolished again after a class-action lawsuit, and then re-built as a classic 1990s “new urbanist” mixed-income housing project.)
The second big change was the Olson Memorial Highway, completed in 1940 with very early federal highway funding. The highway promised quick access from downtown to brand new suburbs like Golden Valley, the new home of the historically symbolic General Mills Corporation. At the time, the car-oriented landscape was hailed as revolutionary, yet this new access entailed the complete obliteration of buildings along North 6th, condemned and torn down for the new road.
Fast forward fifty years, and Olson Memorial became functionally obsolete when I-394 was built in the early 1990s, connecting downtown to the western suburbs in a wider and faster manner. That left the old highway as an antiquated stub, far too wide for its traffic. For people remaining on the Near North side, the road has been a divisive scar funneling speeding, dangerous, polluting cars into the area.
Ending the empty asphalt status quo
All this means that there’s no Twin Cities freeway with an easier case for removal than this one. Two years ago MnDOT began a study process, inspired partly by the new C Line bus rapid transit project slated for the corridor, exploring options for changing or reducing the highway.
It’s a landmark moment for MnDOT. Despite legislative pressure and the escalating moral imperative of climate change (see also: this astounding “winter”), the state’s transportation agency has been very slow to change its ways. Even stopping the expansion of urban roads seems to be a bridge too far, as many regional highways continue to grow through efforts like the I-494 “auxiliary lanes” or the “Corridors of Commerce” legislative fund that earmarks projects like an I-94 expansion near Monticello.
Last week, MnDOT released its design options for the improved roadway. Each of the four options would be a massive improvement over the empty asphalt status quo, but two of them, in particular, would reduce the lanes and calm traffic while adding dedicated right-of-way for buses. The survey is currently live, and if you care about this history, check it out.
For me, Olson Highway will always be a “memorial drive” in the sense that I can’t look at this massive space without imagining the neighborhood that once stood. There’s no way to bring that community back. Instead, the city and state can use this land in the best way possible, taking this wide right-of-way and remaking it into a space for people.
Two of the options on the table are a great start: Options 2 or 4 both have a lot of merit for transit and traffic calming alike. Depending on how well people respected the bus-only lanes, both would greatly reduce dangerous driving in the neighborhood and should move ahead into final engineering.
This study process has been helped by the fact that local advocacy group, Our Streets Minneapolis, has spent years running a campaign to calm and reclaim this stretch of the highway. The group even created a “traveling museum” that brings the history of the neighborhood out onto the streets to educate people about this history. The advocates’ call to put some of the MnDOT land into a trust for future housing and business incubator space seems like a clear next step that would actually begin to remediate the century of freeway damage.
Check out the survey and weigh in. So far, it’s a rare sign that things might be changing in places like Near North Minneapolis, long scarred by highways and government-led disinvestment. Let’s hope the options are a sign of things to come, as MnDOT begins to reconcile with both its past — and new demands of the 21st century.
Bill Lindeke is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Geography, Environment and Society. He is the author of multiple books on Twin Cities culture and history, most recently St. Paul: an Urban Biography. Follow Bill on Twitter: @BillLindeke.
