Weblog written by Joe Harrington, initially posted right here by Streets.mn and reposted right here with permission.
In April 2025, America Walks hosted the second annual Communities Over Highways summit in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The convening introduced collectively advocates working to uplift and reconnect communities, not construct extra highways. Forward of our upcoming report, we’re sharing a novel perspective from Joe Harrington, editor-in-chief and board member of Streets.mn and coverage supervisor at Our Streets, who attended the Communities Over Highways summit.
In late April, the Twin Cities hosted the second Communities Over Highways Nationwide Summit, an area for advocates resisting freeways throughout the nation to collect, share concepts and study from each other in pursuit of a extra equitable and sustainable transportation system.
Our Streets — the place I work — and America Walks, a nationwide transportation advocacy nonprofit, co-hosted the occasion that convened grassroots freeway fighters and different advocates. The Conflict on Vehicles podcast’s dwell present on the Cedar Cultural Middle on the finish of the primary day actually tied the occasion collectively and introduced in lots of people within the Twin Cities ecosystem.
Most Streets.mn readers doubtless are conversant in the fights round Rethinking I-94, the Convey Again sixth marketing campaign for Olson Memorial Freeway and the proposed growth of Freeway 252 within the Twin Cities, the place a broad coalition of residents, nonprofits and neighborhood teams together with forward-thinking elected officers are combating to reimagine freeways in our communities.
For these much less conversant in the motion as an entire: Many grassroots efforts throughout the nation are aiming to problem the freeway established order by combating to reconnect communities, restore neighborhoods divided by highways, cease freeway expansions and advance different comparable efforts. These efforts happen in quite a lot of contexts, from rural Indiana, Maine and New York to main cities in blue and crimson states like Houston and Austin, Texas, and Portland, Oregon.
Within the weeks after the convening, I’ve been reflecting on the freeway combating motion and the convention itself. Listed below are just a few of my takeaways:
Grassroots Organizing: The Bedrock of Success
Many organizations within the advocacy and coverage areas don’t truly have interaction in grassroots organizing work, however constructing a broad, people-powered motion is important to creating sturdy change. I’ve shared this anecdote earlier than, however the creation of the present freeway established order by way of constitutional amendments in Minnesota began with a broad marketing campaign that made transportation a key concern of voters, working on the slogan “Get Minnesota out of the mud.”
Efforts to alter course in transportation may even require partaking with individuals by way of grassroots organizing. I used to be amazed by the variety of convention contributors who not solely heart this precept of their work however constructed these native grassroots actions with minimal assets.
For freeway removing to be extra profitable as a motion, and to achieve different actions in transportation and housing, we’ve got to construct extra on grassroots efforts, which finally will make decision-makers really feel extra accountable to create a transportation system that works for everybody. Networks and broad coalitions matter on this work, a shortcoming being felt now in efforts to defend Minnesota’s 2023 VMT regulation, which have did not construct sturdy change by way of organizing and public buy-in.
Constructive Visioning Is Important
Maybe essentially the most vital takeaway from the summit was the ability of constructive visioning. Whereas a lot of freeway-fighting essentially entails opposing dangerous initiatives, essentially the most profitable campaigns pair this opposition with compelling visions of what might be as a substitute. That is particularly essential to develop neighborhood creativeness for what’s doable with city freeways, the place many merely take these roadways as set in stone.
Visualizations, neighborhood design charrettes and momentary demonstrations have been highly effective instruments for serving to residents think about alternate options to freeways. Tales of profitable freeway removals from different cities — just like the Internal Loop in Rochester, New York — present concrete examples of how reclaimed city house can rework communities.
This constructive visioning should heart the wants and aspirations of communities traditionally harmed by highways, a core a part of our work at Our Streets. With out significant engagement with these communities, freeway removing dangers turning into one other device of displacement slightly than restore. Profitable campaigns have included neighborhood advantages agreements, anti-displacement protections and native hiring provisions to make sure that freeway transformation really serves those that have borne the brunt of transportation injustice.
Partaking Different Actions
Some of the attention-grabbing discussions on the summit explored the intersections amongst varied different advocacy actions and the freeway fighters motion. Particularly, the YIMBY (“sure in my yard”) advocates — a broad group pushing towards zoning, housing, and land use reforms — transit advocates, labor advocates, and local weather advocates all have a job to play within the freeway fighters motion.
In fact, this isn’t an exhaustive record of complementary actions, however these different efforts have various levels of engagement with the freeway fighters motion right this moment:
YIMBY efforts to construct housing and enhance zoning will solely go to date if transportation doesn’t develop into an even bigger a part of the dialog. Highways drive — pun supposed — a lot of our present sprawl and land use points, and eradicating highways within the city core offers enormous infill alternatives, resembling restoring housing misplaced to freeway development. It’s additionally not possible to have really inexpensive housing with out entry to a variety of inexpensive, secure, and accessible transportation choices.
Prioritizing countless freeway investments undercuts the pro-transit motion’s efforts to fund and construct high-quality, quick, frequent, inexpensive, and dependable transit. Cities with out highways bisecting their core can catalyze extra dense, linked road grids and growth conducive to the success of transit usually. These grids additionally help higher connectivity for individuals who bike, stroll, and roll, as anybody who makes use of transit is a pedestrian — or an on-the-street wheelchair consumer — sooner or later throughout their journey.
Eradicating highways means we’ll spend money on a transportation system of the long run, creating a various vary of fine, union-paying jobs. The extra housing and transit investments in reclaimed freeway land creates alternatives for the constructing trades in addition to pipefitters, carpenters, and extra.
Lastly, local weather activists absolutely acknowledge the connection between our carbon-intensive transportation system and ever extra highways. To truly handle local weather air pollution, tamping down on highways needs to be part of the dialog.
Let’s break down silos and have interaction the place these actions overlap.
Coverage Referencing in Observe
I take into account myself a coverage and analysis wonk past my present position at Our Streets, and summits like these present how insurance policies, practices, and concepts journey from one place to a different. This course of, referred to as coverage referencing or coverage circulation, happens when practitioners, coverage makers, elected officers, planners or consultants share concepts throughout geographies and affect insurance policies elsewhere.
Summits like these permit for grassroots advocates to instantly share concepts, creating new channels for approaches, insurance policies, and greatest practices to journey from metropolis to metropolis, state to state and past. Whereas it might appear apparent, this sort of studying and sharing is essential to figuring out greatest practices and a typical playbook.
Some DOT Issues Stay the Identical
All through the summit, the constant thread in advocates’ tales was the battle with Departments of Transportation (DOTs) at varied ranges. Whereas every DOT has its distinctive tradition and challenges, we noticed putting similarities in how these establishments resist change. The technical language and engineering requirements used typically function boundaries to significant neighborhood engagement, and site visitors move is persistently prioritized over human-centered outcomes.
Place-based variations did emerge based mostly on political alignment inside varied states. DOTs, like several massive authorities company, are usually resistant to alter. Nonetheless, many blue state DOTs didn’t function with as a lot hostility as crimson state DOTs, notably these in Texas, Indiana, and Louisiana.
The Rural Perspective
Some of the thrilling takeaways from the summit was listening to from advocates in smaller cities and rural areas. The narrative that freeway removing and sustainable transportation are completely city considerations was completely debunked. Some advocates framed freeway removing and different secure and sustainable transportation alternate options as instruments to revitalize Fundamental Streets, reconnect divided communities, and create extra vibrant native economies.
Rural transportation justice clearly facilities on completely different points than in city areas, typically specializing in making state highways that double as Fundamental Streets safer for pedestrians, or combating for intercity transit connections. However the basic rules stay the identical: prioritizing individuals over car throughput and recognizing that transportation infrastructure shapes neighborhood well-being.
When rural advocates have targeted on neighborhood character, native financial growth, and self-determination in dialog with environmental considerations, they’ve discovered success, even in smaller communities. This technique has been gaining velocity in Maine (the place I’m initially from), the place advocates used different messaging to cease the Gorham Connector, a proposed freeway within the better Portland space.
There’s a lengthy solution to go for particular person freeway fights and for the motion as an entire, however these classes, amongst others, start to disclose a shared playbook starting to take form. Extra to return on the motion quickly!
“Road Views” seems in Streets.mn twice month-to-month. Reply to columnist and board member Joe Harrington instantly at joe.harrington@streets.mn. You might also add feedback at our Streets.mn pages on Bluesky and Fb.
