When the Highway Comes for Your Neighborhood

Brooklyn Center already had among the state's highest childhood asthma and respiratory-hospitalization rates when MnDOT proposed converting Highway 252 — an expressway running beside the Mississippi River through a nearly all-residential corridor — into a six-lane freeway.

In January 2020, Mayor Mike Elliott established the Highway 252 Safety Task Force by mayoral proclamation, ratified unanimously by the city council — seating the concerned and impacted residents themselves at the table. The task force researched the proposal and presented findings to the city: doubled traffic and diesel freight pollution in a corridor where air pollution already kills an estimated eleven people a year, home and business takings in a city already fighting for its economic base, and impacts to the Mississippi River.

Their work — data requests, technical review, public presentations — helped force the scrutiny that led federal highway officials to declare MnDOT's environmental assessment a failure. This is a talk about what happens when a city arms its residents with standing, information, and a seat at the table.