HighLight Heading
June 2004
Twin Cities-area highways: changing politics, participants, and institutions
Policymakers, planners, citizens, and others interested in Minnesota's highways will be able to learn about the history of the politics involved in the creation of the Twin Cities' highway system in the upcoming research report, Twin Cities Area Highways: Changing Politics, Participants, and Institutions. The study is using interviews with key participants and investigation of materials in local archives to document and analyze how decisions about highways have been made since the mid-twentieth century. Particular attention will be paid to the dynamics between various goals and visions, changes in institutional and intergovernmental relationships, flow of funds, and interaction with the public.When possible, the findings will be presented as lessons with implications for present policy and planning.
This project is cosponsored by CTS and the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA), and has evolved under the guidance of a distinguished advisory committee consisting of the following: former CTS director and Mn/DOT commissioner Richard P. Braun, whose career began in 1952 as a Twin Cities-area engineer; former Mn/DOT assistant commissioner Peter A. Fausch of SRF Consulting Group, Inc.; Jim Newland, whose service to Minnesota includes 31 years at the Highway Department/Mn/DOT, followed by time at the Pollution Control Agency and the Waste Management Board; Robert Johns, director of CTS; Barbara Lukermann, CURA fellow emeritus and a CTS Faculty Scholar; and Tom Scott, director of CURA. The research is being conducted by Patricia Cavanaugh, doctoral candidate in political science, under the guidance of principal investigator Lukermann.
For more information, contact Lukermann at 612-625-4310 or lukermann@tc.umn.edu, or Cavanaugh at 612-625-0347, pglad@polisci.umn.edu.