[Mpls] Divide and conquer on 35W

[Sean Wherley]

Divide-and-conquer on I-35W

Divide and conquer appears to be more than a slogan when it comes to 
Interstate 35W in South Minneapolis; it appears to be a strategy. The 
Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) learned the concept following 
a defeat in the 1990s and is now set to begin a $462 million construction 
project that is dividing neighborhoods and conquering opposition.

In 1991, MnDOT announced plans to expand I-35W from Burnsville to downtown 
Minneapolis, a project that would have added lanes in each direction and 
leveled 1,300 housing units in Minneapolis and Richfield. In response, 
neighborhoods lining the highway joined forces to protest the poorly 
conceived project, highlighted by the May 1992 hearing attended by 1,200 
people. Ultimately, the project was nixed and the 1,300 homes saved.

This decade, MnDOT is pursuing a different tack. The agency is taking 
essentially the same defeated project and breaking it into two: the 
35W-Highway 62 Crosstown Commons Reconstruction Project, and the 35W Access 
Project. The 35W-Crosstown project is estimated to cost $202 million and the 
35W Access Project $260 million. They are not distinct projects. Rather, 
they comprise one continuous, interconnected project running from Penn 
Avenue in Richfield north to 28th Street in Minneapolis.

By breaking apart the project, MnDOT has diverted neighbors' attention and 
lowered their collective voice. Residents north of 38th Street are consumed 
with the Access Project, which would build several freeway ramps and widen 
the highway between 38th Street and Lake Street to five lanes. Likewise, 
residents south of 38th Street are engrossed with the 35W-Crosstown project, 
which would widen the current interchange from six lanes to as many as 13 
lanes in some places. Divide the project, divide the attention and conquer 
the neighborhoods.

People are burned out and becoming despondent about a process that demands 
their involvement but leaves them feeling confused and cynical. Each 
construction project has had its own set of public meetings, its own 
environmental assessment, and its own required approval by the Minneapolis 
City Council and Hennepin County Board. The redundant process is frustrating 
to neighbors who can only commit so much time to attend public meetings and 
follow the overlapping details of each project.

In return, South Minneapolis is about to get socked with a project of almost 
similar dimensions and headaches as the one proposed 13 years ago. Traffic 
on I-35W will be disrupted for up to five years during construction, 32 
homes and businesses will be destroyed to make way for the additional lanes, 
smothering concrete and towering sound barriers will encroach closer to 
homes and businesses lining the freeway, and traffic will immediately flood 
the newly built lanes in a losing attempt to accommodate the swell of cars 
from the southwest suburbs.

Most glaring is that the state's mega-project being proposed in 2004 has no 
plans for light-rail transit (unlike the 1991 plan), and makes no ironclad 
commitment to a bus-only lane. The state has publicly said that tollways are 
possible for the new lanes.

Is this what South Minneapolis residents want -- just 13 years after 
stopping a similarly monstrous project? MnDOT officials may have diverted 
our attention by splitting nearly the same project, but they have not 
squelched our voice. We stopped this project in the 1990s, and we must speak 
up to prevent a similar, shortsighted project from conquering us now.

Sean Wherley lives in Kingfield and is the neighborhood representative to 
the 35W Access Project's Advisory Committee.

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