Today, the Transportation & Public Works Committee voted unanimously to provide municipal consent for the 35W & Lake Transit/Access Project. After years of work, we are putting transit in the fast lane and serving the communities along Lake Street who were overlooked for too long.
This is a huge step forward toward completion of the Orange Line Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, which will provide high speed access from Minneapolis to Burnsville in phase one and will be extended to Lakeville in phase two. I thank the City Council for this historic vote. http://www.minneapolismn.gov/meetings/legislation/WCMSP-178919
Controversy to Consensus
For decades, this freeway was a source of controversy and division. Like I-94 in Saint Paul, it was routed through black neighborhoods that lacked the political power to resist. To add salt in the wound, the freeway was designed to partially bypass Lake Street, which would have served those neighborhoods. Like most freeways built at that time, 35W was also designed with almost no thought for transit and the people who depended on it.
Not having transit service or road access to Lake Street divided local residents from the larger community and from access to jobs. It also denied local businesses access to a larger base of potential customers. Since many of the residents and business owners were and are people of color, this exacerbated already pervasive disparities.
As the freeway filled up to capacity in the 90s, residents of Minneapolis wanted changes. They wanted to add LRT to 35W and access to Lake Street. Others outside Minneapolis rejected that in favor of a dramatically wider freeway for cars – which would again have had disproportionate impacts on communities of color. It was a stalemate where there seemed to be no room for compromise or innovation.
But not anymore. Today, we have built a bipartisan, urban/suburban consensus for a limited and smart expansion of the freeway to construct the Orange Line Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project in a tolled center lane. This required compromise and heavy lifting on all sides to overcome a.) opposition to transit, b.) opposition in Minneapolis to any kind of freeway expansion and c.) opposition to the synergy of putting transit service in a tolled lane.
Instead of being passed by, residents along Lake Street will be served by a new Lake Street BRT Station. This will be dramatically better for transit riders than the current facility which is, bleak, inaccessible, and an insult to the current ridership (within a ten minute walk of the Lake Street station, the population is 46% transit dependent and 73% minority).
Innovation Was the Solution
The I-35W Transit/Access project is the next step towards building Orange Line BRT, a $150 million project that will carry 26,400 riders in 2040, making this the best value large transit project in Minnesota. By running BRT in toll lanes extended to downtown Minneapolis, we will maximize lane capacity like nowhere else in Minnesota.
Orange Line BRT will have far more riders than any other BRT line in Minnesota, setting a new standard for what is possible when you put high quality, high frequency transit in the fast lane.
True Multi-Modal Design at Lake: Transit, Cars and Bikes
- Transit Access to Jobs. The neighborhoods served are low income households who will get transit access to jobs – both in downtown and in the suburbs. Between BRT and other buses on the freeway level and local buses on Lake Street, there will be over 100 buses an hour coming to this station.
- Roadway Access to Big Institutions and New Immigrant Businesses. The project includes two new freeway exit ramps to bring more customers to both big institutions like Wells Fargo, Abbott and Children’s Hospital as well as the new immigrant businesses that have revitalized Lake Street. This will right a historic wrong and provide direct access for several diverse Minneapolis neighborhoods that were denied freeway access when the freeway was first built.
- Busiest Bikeway in Minnesota. The new Lake Street Station will have a beautiful “green crescent” connection to the award-winning Midtown Greenway, the busiest bikeway in Minnesota. There are more bike riders on the Midtown Greenway than total users on 90% of City streets. It’s time to connect this bicycle freeway to high speed transit.
Leadership from Minneapolis
It is hard to overstate the influence that Minneapolis has had on the new 35W design. For over a decade City leaders have taken courageous votes on behalf of a new vision of the freeway.
First, the City of Minneapolis voted to deny municipal consent for the Crosstown Project and from that process secured an agreement from MnDOT to put transit in a center tolled lane with near term stations at Lake and 46th Streets and a potential future additional station at 38th. Our efforts were validated by good planning. Rep. Frank Hornstein, a Democrat from Minneapolis and Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, a Republican from Lakeville secured funds for a study of BRT on 35W which showed what could be possible for the whole corridor from Minneapolis to Lakeville.
Second, the City of Minneapolis voted in 2007 to “reboot” the design of the “Access Project” (which did not include a transit station) and start development of the “Transit/Access Project” which would include a high quality inside lane multi-modal BRT station at Lake Street, a high quality bike and pedestrian connection to the Midtown Greenway, and ultimately two new exit ramps to provide access to Lake Street. By focusing on these key priorities, we dramatically reduced the overall project cost, eliminating unnecessary components like the controversial relocation of four ramps at 35th and 36th Streets to 38th Street.
Third, after the 35W bridge collapse in 2007, the City of Minneapolis insisted that the new 35W bridge over the Mississippi River must accommodate transit in the fast lane. As Mayor Rybak said then, we must build the new bridge “for the next 50 years, not the last 50 years.” By insisting the new bridge be built right, and not just fast, we have laid the ground work for Orange Line BRT to be extended to the northern suburbs.
It is highly unlikely that what we now call Orange Line BRT could ever have happened without insistent leadership from the City of Minneapolis. By establishing the principle that the freeway should be designed from the inside out starting with transit in the fast lane we have laid out a path that can lead to success as we rebuild Interstate 94 and a future Orange Line extension on 35W north of downtown.
Too Many People to Thank
In all these efforts, we must acknowledge the leadership and hard work of many people. In addition to Rep. Hornstein, then-Rep. Holberg and then-Mayor Rybak, we must acknowledge Council Member Elizabeth Glidden, and then-Council Member Robert Lilligren for their leadership. Senator Scott Dibble has been a tireless advocate for this project and his leadership remains essential as he works to pass a comprehensive transportation bill that funds both roads and transit. Special recognition is well-deserved for Public Works Director Steve Kotke, Jeni Hager and the all the City staff who have worked on this for so many years.
This final product is the work of many agencies working to build a common vision, including Hennepin County Commissioners Peter McLaughlin, Gail Dorfman and Marion Greene, Hennepin County Engineer Jim Grube, MnDOT Commissioner Charlie Zelle and MnDOT staff, and Met Council Chair Adam Duininck and Met Council Staff.
We must also thank all the many citizen volunteers who participated in the Project Advisory Committee and in other ways contributed to the design moving forward.
Finally, thanks to all the support from the business community, and all the other cities along 35W who appreciate that a new multimodal 35W can bring all our communities close together. Our coalition of 35W cities secured $133 million from the Bush Administration through the Urban Partnership Agreement. Now, it’s time to finish what we started together. I am very proud to have been a leader in this and I am committed to seeing this completed all the way to Lakeville
The Last Hurdle
There are three inter-related projects on three segments of 35W planned to be constructed during the same four year period (2018-2021). MNDOT must begin construction on the northern segment in 2018. If the sections to the south including the 35W Transit/Access Project are delayed due to state inaction on transportation, the cost of delay is extremely high:
- Direct Financial Cost. If MNDOT has to use different contractors on the same site, economies of scale will be lost. This will be compounded by inflation.
- Additional Year of Traffic Delays Due to Construction. These projects need to overlap if we want to avoid additional years of construction beyond the planned four years. Each year funding is delayed means at least a year longer of construction. With the northern segment starting construction in 2018, we know when traffic delays will begin. We just don’t know when those delays will end.
Please join me, Governor Dayton and Senator Scott Dibble in pushing for a comprehensive long-term transportation funding bill that will build this worthwhile project, the rest of Orange Line BRT, and many more like it across the region.
Mayor Betsy Hodges 