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October 2006
Politics and Freeways report published
Additional Information
Freeways and politics: New report examines the stories behind the Twin Cities interstate freeway system – UMNnews, Dec. 15, 2006
Politics and Freeways, a new publication that reports on a study of the changing politics and participants in Twin Cities–area interstate decision making since the 1950s, is now available.
The project was jointly sponsored by the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) and CTS, and was advised by an expert committee including former Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) commissioner and CTS director Richard Braun and former Mn/DOT officials Peter Fausch and Jim Newland.
The report was written by Patricia Cavanaugh, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science and a research assistant at CURA.
“Transportation systems cannot be planned, developed, or implemented without contending with the politics in which they are always embedded,” Cavanaugh noted during a presentation of her findings at the CTS Seventeenth Annual Transportation Research Conference, held May 24–25 in St. Paul.
Cavanaugh examined local cases representing different eras in the history of the interstate program. The era that launched the interstate in the 1950s was a period of great optimism and public support; the protest era of the 1960s and 1970s, in contrast, saw the rise of citizen opposition and environmental advocacy. The Minnesota Legislature also became more involved in major transportation project decisions during this time. The next—and current—era is known by many as the “era of falling behind.”
Cavanaugh focused on seven case studies spanning five decades, from which she identified three areas of political tension. First, major projects take decades, but citizens and elected officials operate under a shorter outlook. Second, state DOTs look at a broader geographic area than do cities and neighborhoods. And third, citizens may define a problem in terms of social or moral aspects whereas Mn/DOT defines it in terms of reducing congestion.
For more coverage of Cavanaugh’s presentation and the panel discussion that followed, see the July issue of the CTS Report at www.cts.umn.edu/Publications/CTSReport/2006/07/.
Politics and Freeways: Building the Twin Cities Interstate System was jointly published by CURA and CTS. The report is available online at www.cts.umn.edu/publications/reports. A limited number of print copies are also available from CURA.