In late April, the Twin Cities hosted the second Communities Over Highways National Summit, a space for advocates resisting freeways across the country to gather, share ideas and learn from one another in pursuit of a more equitable and sustainable transportation system.
Our Streets — where I work — and America Walks, a national transportation advocacy nonprofit, co-hosted the event that convened grassroots freeway fighters and other advocates. The War on Cars podcast’s live show at the Cedar Cultural Center at the end of the first day really tied the event together and brought in many other folks in the Twin Cities ecosystem.
Most Streets.mn readers likely are familiar with the fights around Rethinking I-94, the Bring Back 6th campaign for Olson Memorial Highway and the proposed expansion of Highway 252 in the Twin Cities, where a broad coalition of residents, nonprofits and community groups along with forward-thinking elected officials are fighting to reimagine freeways in our communities.
For those less familiar with the movement as a whole: Many grassroots efforts across the country are aiming to challenge the highway status quo by fighting to reconnect communities, restore neighborhoods divided by highways, stop highway expansions and advance other similar efforts. These efforts take place in a variety of contexts, from rural Indiana, Maine and New York to major cities in blue and red states like Houston and Austin, Texas and Portland, Oregon.
In the weeks after the convening, I’ve been reflecting on the freeway fighting movement and the conference itself. Here are a few of my takeaways:
Grassroots Organizing: the Bedrock of Success
Many organizations in the advocacy and policy spaces don’t actually engage in grassroots organizing work, but building a broad, people-powered movement is critical to creating durable change. I’ve shared this anecdote before, but the creation of the current highway status quo through constitutional amendments in Minnesota started with a broad campaign that made transportation a key concern of voters, running on the slogan “Get Minnesota out of the mud.”
Efforts to change course in transportation will also require engaging with people through grassroots organizing. I was amazed by the number of conference participants who not only center this principle in their work but built these local grassroots movements with minimal resources.
For highway removal to be more successful as a movement, and to succeed in other movements in transportation and housing, we have to build more on grassroots efforts, which ultimately will make decision-makers feel more accountable to create a transportation system that works for everyone. Networks and broad coalitions matter in this work, a shortcoming being felt now in efforts to defend Minnesota’s 2023 VMT law, which have failed to build durable change through organizing and public buy-in.
Positive Visioning Is Critical
Perhaps the most significant takeaway from the summit was the power of positive visioning. While much of freeway-fighting necessarily involves opposing harmful projects, the most successful campaigns pair this opposition with compelling visions of what could be instead. This is especially important to grow community imagination for what’s possible with urban freeways, where many simply take these roadways as set in stone.
Visualizations, community design charrettes and temporary demonstrations have been powerful tools for helping residents imagine alternatives to freeways. Stories of successful highway removals from other cities — like the Inner Loop in Rochester, New York — provide concrete examples of how reclaimed urban space can transform communities.
This positive visioning must center the needs and aspirations of communities historically harmed by highways, a core part of our work at Our Streets. Without meaningful engagement with these communities, highway removal risks becoming another tool of displacement rather than repair. Successful campaigns have incorporated community benefits agreements, anti-displacement protections and local hiring provisions to ensure that highway transformation truly serves those who have borne the brunt of transportation injustice.
Engaging Other Movements
One of the most interesting discussions at the summit explored the intersections among various other advocacy movements and the freeway fighters movement. In particular, the YIMBY (“yes in my backyard”) advocates — a broad group pushing toward zoning, housing and land use reforms — transit advocates, labor advocates and climate advocates all have a role to play in the freeway fighters movement.
Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of complementary movements, but these other efforts have varying degrees of engagement with the freeway fighters movement today:
- YIMBY efforts to build housing and improve zoning will only go so far if transportation does not become a bigger part of the conversation. Highways drive — pun intended — many of our current sprawl and land use issues, and removing highways in the urban core provides huge infill opportunities, such as restoring housing lost to highway construction. It’s also impossible to have truly affordable housing without access to a range of affordable, safe and accessible transportation options.
- Prioritizing endless highway investments undercuts the pro-transit movement’s efforts to fund and build high-quality, fast, frequent, affordable and reliable transit. Cities without highways bisecting their core can catalyze more dense, connected street grids and development conducive to the success of transit generally. Those grids also support better connectivity for those who bike, walk and roll, as anyone who uses transit is a pedestrian — or an on-the-street wheelchair user — at some point during their trip.
- Removing highways means we’ll invest in a transportation system of the future, creating a diverse range of good, union-paying jobs. The additional housing and transit investments in reclaimed highway land creates opportunities for the building trades as well as pipefitters, carpenters and more.
- Finally, climate activists surely recognize the connection between our carbon-intensive transportation system and ever more highways. To actually address climate pollution, tamping down on highways has to be a part of the conversation.
Let’s break down silos and engage where these movements overlap.
Policy Referencing in Practice
I consider myself a policy and research wonk beyond my current role at Our Streets, and summits like these show how policies, practices and ideas travel from one place to another. This process, called policy referencing or policy circulation, occurs when practitioners, policy makers, elected officials, planners or consultants share ideas across geographies and influence policies elsewhere.
Summits like these allow for grassroots advocates to directly share ideas, creating new channels for approaches, policies and best practices to travel from city to city, state to state and beyond. While it may seem obvious, this kind of learning and sharing is key to identifying best practices and a common playbook.
Some DOT Problems Remain the Same
Throughout the summit, the consistent thread in advocates’ stories was the struggle with Departments of Transportation (DOTs) at various levels. While each DOT has its unique culture and challenges, we saw striking similarities in how these institutions resist change. The technical language and engineering standards used often serve as barriers to meaningful community engagement, and traffic flow is consistently prioritized over human-centered outcomes.
Place-based differences did emerge based on political alignment within various states. DOTs, like any large government agency, tend to be resistant to change. However, many blue state DOTs did not operate with as much hostility as red state DOTs, notably those in Texas, Indiana, and Louisiana.
The Rural Perspective
One of the most exciting takeaways from the summit was hearing from advocates in smaller cities and rural areas. The narrative that highway removal and sustainable transportation are exclusively urban concerns was thoroughly debunked. Some advocates framed freeway removal and other safe and sustainable transportation alternatives as tools to revitalize Main Streets, reconnect divided communities and create more vibrant local economies.
Rural transportation justice obviously centers on different issues than in urban areas, often focusing on making state highways that double as Main Streets safer for pedestrians, or fighting for intercity transit connections. But the fundamental principles remain the same: prioritizing people over vehicle throughput and recognizing that transportation infrastructure shapes community well-being.
When rural advocates have focused on community character, local economic development, and self-determination in conversation with environmental concerns, they’ve found success, even in smaller communities. This strategy has been gaining speed in Maine (where I’m originally from), where advocates used varied messaging to stop the Gorham Connector, a proposed highway in the greater Portland area.
There is a long way to go for individual freeway fights and for the movement as a whole, but these lessons, among others, begin to reveal a shared playbook beginning to take shape. More to come on the movement soon!
Editor’s note: “Street Views” appears in Streets.mn twice monthly. Respond to columnist and board member Joe Harrington directly at [email protected]. You may also add comments at our Streets.mn pages on Bluesky and Facebook.