The politics of driving 55

As I’ve come to understand the history of Highway 55, I find it runs a long and tangled road. The road reflects America’s expansion, industrial development (to the 1930s), and, most recently and most disturbingly, a period of infrastructure development insistent upon service to the automobile while denying any overture to sustainability. As the Star Tribune recently reported (7/11/03, B3), the speed limit has been raised on Highway 55. While watchers of 55 agree that this act was as inevitable as the road and a reflection of its design—a straightaway, compelling one to speed, which made adherence to the 35-mph speed limit an act of ideologically inspired will based on memory—it nevertheless betrays the 50-year negotiation between the people, the road builders and the motorists.

In October 1975, the 35-mph element was carved in stone without dissent when the Hiawatha Advisory Design Committee (HADC) submitted its recommendations—the 14 members were unable to reach an 8-vote agreement on the precise design. The HADC report included 13 decisions agreed to by the majority of members. “Our majority report,” wrote HADC member James V. Tennessen soon after, “recommended a four-lane boulevard with a median strip, on grade from Lake St. to Minnehaha Park, a 35 mph speed limit...transit space throughout...and recreational bike paths and landscaping...” (Minneapolis Star 2/24/1976). Within the HADC’s 13 decisions, Number 8 never met with dissent once stated: “Vehicle speed should be at a maximum of 35 mph” (HADC 1975).

Every single element of the Highway 55 design process was endlessly wrangled over but the 35 mph limit remained undisturbed. Whatever the exact look of the road and its alignment, the 35 mph boulevard principle was honored. The reasoning was simple. As a multi-use boulevard, 35 mph for traffic was a safe speed for the operation of vehicles in the vicinity of pedestrians using transit stops, people on bikes, or people out walking. Faster speeds for traffic, studies at the time (and since) showed, disable the multi-functionality appeal. Walkers, bikers, and joggers do not like being alongside traffic whizzing by at speeds greater than 35 mph. Thus, if the funding and design of Highway 55 was to create a multi-use transit boulevard, the speed limit for traffic would be 35 mph.

Roads are not neutral - they reflect changing construction practices and political reality. Highway 55 reflects such history dating back to the Fort Snelling map of 1823. Its arrow straight axis led to a modern road without curves, a fast road. However, the consistency with which the design negotiation harped on the 35 mph speed limit, to my mind, makes it a particularly important aspect for the use of the road (regardless of alignment), the community’s view of itself and its representatives, and the development of the area. Raising the speed limit declares Highway 55 to be a disappointment, not the innovative and exciting history of negotiation and compromise—a rare instance of democratic involvement with infrastructure and technology development. The Highway 55 saga may now be recited as a long war between “The People” ultimately betrayed, and “The State,” whose institutional nature enabled it to post higher speed limits as a victory sign—a surrender of local use to a driver’s experience.

Since the beginning, completion of Highway 55 has been seen as intrinsic to the city’s health. Here, then, are some indicators: Highway 55 has changed otherwise civic-minded individuals into apathetic taxpayers resentful of government; resentment over Highway 55 has tarnished the reception of LRT; many who were supportive of LRT are now ambivalent or worse; disgust over road projects and LRT make tackling automobile usage and deteriorating air quality more difficult; Minnehaha Falls, jewel of the city, has been obfuscated amidst the destruction of a rare urban forest. On that last item, there was a time when no contest for a state quarter would have been required—Minnehaha Falls was the icon of Minnesota. With the increase in speed limits, the people of Minnesota leave their past further behind them and leave the idea of democratic civic involvement further behind them too. They’ll get to their future a few minutes faster but have no idea what they left behind.

Jeremy Hubbell, a PhD candidate in Urban History at SUNY Stony Brook (New York) whose works in progress include a history of Highway 55, welcomes anyone involved in the road’s long history to contact him at Jeremy.Hubbell@sunysb.edu.