MN legislators must act to require that MnDOT listen to communities impacted by highway projects.

Major transportation projects, both in the past and in the present, have displaced and segregated minority and low-income communities, contributing to economic, racial, and environmental inequality. Highway planners ignored the objections of impacted communities and bulldozed their neighborhoods.

Today, MnDOT is required to collect community input and develop design “alternatives” for major, federally-funded highway projects to fulfill requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Minnesota Environmental Protection Act (MEPA). However, impacted communities have little control over the final outcome. For most major highway projects, MnDOT creates a "policy advisory committee" or PAC. The PAC consists of elected and appointed officials from impacted communities who provide decision direction. However the PAC does not currently have formal decision making authority for the project, and MnDOT can ignore their concerns or preferred option.

A current example of this is the I-94/252 project, where MnDOT has continued to advance highway expansion options despite abundant and long-standing opposition from community members and local elected leaders.

To ensure that the voices of impacted communities are heard and that all options for the projects are fairly studied, we are advocating for the "Community Preferred Alternative Act."

The Community Preferred Alternative Act would require that MnDOT obtain a favorable vote from a project’s PAC before moving forward with selecting a preferred alternative and beginning construction. This would ensure that impacted communities have a meaningful say over projects that have divided, demolished and polluted neighborhoods for decades.

Momentum is building.

In 2024, the Community Preferred Alternative Act was officially introduced in the House (HF 4646) and Senate (SF 4677)! We are grateful to Representative Samantha Sencer-Mura and Senator Foung Hawj for leading on this important legislation. We are organizing impacted communities to pass this important legislation in 2025.

Take action today to ask your legislator to sign-on! Your email will be sent to your state senator, state representative, and Governor Walz.