The flaws in the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s (MnDOT) criteria for evaluating alternatives on the Rethinking I-94 project created systematic issues that prevent a meaningful evaluation of, and comparison between, fundamentally different approaches to the corridor’s future.
When we talk about highway justice, we are talking about racial justice at the intersection of economic justice and environmental justice. These struggles are inseparable. To isolate one is to weaken them all. We cannot afford to engage in purity politics that erase class struggle. Nor can we allow our language to be sanitized into abstraction. If we are serious about justice, we must speak the whole truth, especially when it makes people uncomfortable.
Many redevelopment projects face tensions between the desire for improvement and concern about the displacement that gentrification can bring. As seen throughout this policy framework, displacement does not have to be an inevitable outcome; nevertheless, avoiding displacement requires thoughtful and concerted policy, program, and organizing efforts.
Vehicle mobility is a key metric in roadway alternatives analyses. Given the relative lack of congestion in this corridor, the September 2023 Olson Memorial Highway Multimodal Study Purpose and Need Statement (“P&NS”) prepared by MnDOT lists vehicle mobility only as a secondary need. Even though vehicle mobility is given as a secondary need, it is possible that it will still have a large weight in evaluation because vehicle mobility metrics are ubiquitous in alternatives analyses and can appear to be more objective compared to some of the other metrics that are harder to quantify.
It’s understandable for local business owners to fear losing a parking space means losing revenue, but there is no data to support this fear. Many studies show unchanged or improved local economic impacts when active transportation options are included in street redesign.
NUMO and WRI have released a report outlining the findings and recommendations. They summarized the top five major issues identified during the inspection that are likely contributing to crashes and crash risk on the corridor.
As part of the safety inspection, the NUMO and WRI team walked the Olson Memorial Highway corridor with Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) staff and community members present to identify areas of concern.
Should the Rondo community desire to reconnect the neighborhood at-grade, then the boulevard could run below grade through this portion of the corridor. This strategy would solve multiple serious problems created by the highway, from neighborhood disconnection to air pollution and community health disparities.
Data has shown that expanding highways causes more people to drive, thus worsening traffic congestion. This is called induced demand, and it is why the country’s biggest highways are also the ones jammed with traffic.
Electric vehicles are not a panacea for addressing the challenges of climate change mitigation.
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