The image above is a rendering of an asphalt art crosswalk, designed by Summit Academy Teen Tech Center student Jerianna Camp-Huff. From our partnership with the Best Buy Teen Tech Center in 2023.
In 2023, we asked the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) to apply for a Bloomberg Philanthropies asphalt art grant for the Olson Memorial Highway & Van White Boulevard intersection. Although the City of Minneapolis expressed support for asphalt art on the highway, MnDOT needed to approve the project as owners of the right-of-way. They failed to apply in time.
In November of 2024, along with community partners, we asked the agency to again consider applying for the grant—this time with even more ample time for consideration, as the deadline was January 31, 2025.
Now, after three years, your advocacy and support for Near North Minneapolis worked.
For the very first time, MnDOT will begin a pilot project to incorporate Aesthetic Surface Treatments (ASTs) into the public right of way on Olson Memorial Highway. MnDOT defines Aesthetic Surface Treatments as non-retroreflective decorative pavement surface treatments used purely for aesthetic purposes and do not convey traffic control information.
With assistance from SEH Consultants and Juxtaposition Arts, MnDOT will team up with Minneapolis Public School (looking at North High School and Bethune Arts Elementary) students to brainstorm ideas, create concepts, and install colorful, geometric ASTs within the existing medians, refuge islands, and/or curb extensions. The location for the pilot demonstration project is at the intersection of MN Highway 55/Olson Memorial Drive and Van White Memorial Boulevard and installation is planned for spring 2027.
MnDOT’s upcoming Aesthetic Surface Treatment Technical Memorandum will demonstrate how to implement safely and successfully on a real roadway — not just on paper. The purpose of this Technical Memorandum is to establish a consistent, statewide approach for the use of aesthetic surface treatments on trunk highway right-of-way. ASTs are meant to be semi-permanent and will use simple shapes and approved colors. Students will help guide the look and feel, making this a community-powered design process. And equally important, ASTs will provide a much needed, community requested option.
Learn more about the campaign to Bring Back 6th.
Once called the “Beale Street of Minneapolis,” the old Near-Northside was an integrated Black and Jewish community that was destroyed in 1939 for the construction of Olson Memorial Highway, a low-trafficked highway “to nowhere” that has been polluting the neighborhood ever since.