MNDoT Where ART Thou?

Mathew Thibert,MNDoT, Christina Perfetti, MNDoT, State Senator Doron Clark, Representative Sydney Jordan, Jacob Frey Mayor of Minneapolis

Art Walk
Drawing by Seth Stattmiller
We have worked for two years to engage MNDoT in our effort to create a Central Ave Art Walk, something the Arts District has been talking about for 20 years. Over 1,000 emails were sent. City Council amended Municipal Consent to include the Art Walk. The neighborhoods drafted letters of support. The Hennepin County Active Transportation wrote a resolution in favor of the Art Walk. The Arts District spent a year walking Central Ave with hundreds of community members to discuss the plan.

After two years MNDoT will not sit down at the table with us and talk about possibilities. Instead, they have suggested that one or two pieces of art on the mile-long stretch should satisfy the city’s need for an Art Walk.

We need your voice. MNDoT must be forced to deal with Northeast Minneapolis.

Petition by
Josh Blanc
Josh Blanc
Minneapolis, Minnesota

To: Mathew Thibert,MNDoT, Christina Perfetti, MNDoT, State Senator Doron Clark, Representative Sydney Jordan, Jacob Frey Mayor of Minneapolis
From: [Your Name]

We want MNDoT to move toward a more community-focused, flexible, and open approach. We need MNDoT officials to acknowledge that while Central Avenue is considered a highway, it is also a dense urban arts district full of businesses, cultural events, and people. We are not a pass-through community. The NE Minneapolis community has been discussing the Art Walk since 2008. The impending reconstruction of Central Ave is our only chance to make this transformation a reality.

MNDoT’s “engagement” process needs an overhaul. Two years of MNDoT’s community sessions, meetings, correspondences, and committees have not moved a single line on the MNDoT plan.

Their Visual Quality Advisory Committee is a sham. Select community members have been asked to comment narrow choices that already fit into MNDoT’s inflexible plan rather than the hopes and dreams of the people who actually live here and who will have to live with these decisions for the rest of their lives.

MNDOT must be forced to deal with the wants and needs of the people most impacted by the Central Ave plan. You can only call it “Engagement” if it’s a two way street. It’s not listening if there is no expectation of action. The voice of the people should have an impact.

Without a change, tens of millions of dollars of infrastructure will be imposed on Minneapolis with only trivial input from the city. For the Arts District this is an opportunity to transform our community, to tell every visitor what we’re about, and to put this city on the map in a way that expresses the true potential of our people.

Also, Art Walks are economic engines. Minnesota should be THRILLED to work with a group that is excited to create an asset like this for our city and our state. We have a world-class Arts District. The Central Ave Art Walk would be a showcase that could draw hundreds of thousands of people. People that would buy art, eat at restaurants, and shop at our businesses.

We want MNDoT to work with the Arts District because we want Central Ave to work for our people.