2026 Legislative Priorities
At Our Streets, we work directly with communities most impacted by highway construction and in communities across Minnesota to envision how our transportation system can connect, not divide us, building vibrant, safe, healthy, and economically prosperous communities throughout the state.
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The policies we advocate for in 2026 will improve the lives of all Minnesotans.
A safe, affordable, and accessible multi-modal transportation system built with transparency and accountability would give all Minnesotans reliable, affordable options to reach jobs, schools, and healthcare without the high cost of car ownership. Frontline communities living, learning, and playing along highways would enjoy cleaner air and safer streets rather than bear the burdens of highways. Vibrant main streets and local businesses would thrive as transportation investments strengthen community tax bases and create union jobs, while cities benefit from restored developable land and households spend less on transportation—finally making transportation a tool to build vibrant communities in cities, suburbs, and small towns across Minnesota.
Clarify Highway Purpose to Include All Modes of Transportation
Minnesota’s constitution dedicates highway funding to support all modes of transportation along state highways—a broad interpretation that the state supreme court upheld in the 1950s. It’s time for Minnesota to spend transportation dollars most effectively and build transit, active transportation, and safe streets in all of these diverse contexts.
Evaluate Cumulative Impacts of Major Highway Projects
MnDOT’s statutory goals require providing a multimodal transportation system while “[ensuring] economic well-being and quality of life without undue burden placed on any community.” For decades, MnDOT has built highways forcing low-income, immigrant, and communities of color to bear disproportionate health and environmental burdens—a practice that a robust Cumulative Impacts review would finally address and prevent.
Fix-it-First, Fix-it-Right: Maintaining Minnesota’s Transportation System
MnDOT continues to prioritize expanding highways before maintaining our existing roads, which we can’t afford to maintain. MnDOT must fix existing roads first, and when they do so, fix them right by studying efficient options that reduce household costs, connect people by all modes of transportation, return land to local tax bases, and build safe streets for all.
Build Local Partnerships and Study Community Preferred Alternatives
Many community members, local governments, and elected officials are put in the back seat in shaping highway projects that define and divide their communities. Our Streets is advocating for a highway development process that puts people, forward-thinking decision-makers, and community members in the driver’s seat to advise, not just be symbolically consulted, on major highway projects.
Expand Transparency and Democratic Accountability at MnDOT
State DOTs like MnDOT notoriously operate in a “black-box” without accountability and transparency to the public and elected officials. To ensure MnDOT is accountable to the public and making progress towards our state goals, we need transparency and democratic accountability measures.
DIVE DEEPER
Strengthening Protections in Environmental Justice Communities
Cumulative impacts are the combined effects of current and past pollution and other stressors and how they impact the health, well-being, and quality of life of residents in those communities. While the 2023 law was a major step, it left out one of the largest sources of pollution Minnesota communities face: highways.
MNDOT MYTHBUSTING
MnDOT Accountability: What’s actually true?
As an homage to the well-known Discovery Channel series Mythbusters, where the hosts test whether commonly believed tropes are actually true, we’re testing state DOT’s most commonly held beliefs and messaging to tell you what’s true, what’s misleading, and what is false and misrepresents transportation to the public and to elected officials.
FIX-IT-FIRST, FIX-IT RIGHT
First, Let’s Maintain Existing Infrastructure
Minnesota faces an unsustainable maintenance crisis. Our state has an over $1 billion maintenance gap on the state highway system, meaning potholes aren’t getting filled, roads and transit infrastructure aren’t getting maintained, and the transit and active transportation investments that Minnesotans want aren’t getting built.
