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Driving the I-35W Access Project
published 01.07.03
online at http://www.swjournal.com/archives/index.inn?loc=detail&doc=/2003/January/13-2931-news01.txt
by Scott Russell
Southwest Journal
The $152 million freeway overhaul is moving toward final approvals,
and Tom Johnson has shepherded it start to finish
The $152 million I-35W Access Project all started five years ago
with an effort to get new ramps at 26th and 28th streets, making
easier freeway connections for Abbott Northwestern Hospital, 800
E. 28th St.
"That is all I had in mind back then," said Tom Johnson,
who, in 1997, was a consultant with Abbott Northwestern Hospital
and Allina Hospitals and Clinics. "That is all we wanted to
do. That was our project."
Those freeway plans grew and now could significantly affect traffic
near I-35W. The project would relocate the 35th/36th Street ramps
to 38th Street, add new ramps at Lake Street and add a northbound
exit to 28th Street and change freeway access ramps from 5th Avenue.
The project has had its share of controversy. Critics say the new
ramps would bring more traffic to some areas, widen Lake Street
and, potentially, expand I-35W (the Minnesota Department of Transportation
has required that the new design accommodate future High Occupancy
Vehicle lanes). They say Johnson was the wrong choice to guide the
process because of his ties to large corporate and nonprofit institutions
that had a stake in the outcome.
Proponents say the project corrects errors of the past design and
has enjoyed unprecedented public involvement and support.
Johnson has been at the hub throughout, first with Abbott Northwestern,
then later as the project manager for the I-35W Project Advisory
Committee (PAC), a group of neighborhood, institutional and business
leaders that met for more than three years to shape the project.
The plan has a lot of momentum. The federal government already
has approved $10.7 million for the project's design and right-of-way
acquisition, according to Hennepin County staff overseeing funding.
Congress is discussing an added $9 million appropriation this year.
The project has already cost $3.1 million in design and consulting
fees, 80 percent paid for by federal money, the other 20 percent
from city, county and state money.
The City Council and Hennepin County Board are expected to vote
on the plan in April or May. How did we get from the 26th and 28th
Street ramps to a major $152 million freeway makeover?
The Phillips Partnership: a driving force
Johnson has a background in public affairs, marketing and legislative
relations in both road and transit projects. His jobs have included
Director of Marketing and Public Affairs for the Office of Minnesota
Road Research for the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT).
He served as the Assistant Chief Administrator for the Metropolitan
Transportation Commission. He also worked as director of national
relations for MnDOT.
In 1997, he left MnDOT and went out on his own, getting the consulting
job with Abbott Northwestern in part from a recommendation from
Allina Foundation's Executive Director, Mike Christiansen, he said.
Johnson had worked for Christiansen in the early 1990s when Christiansen
was chief administrator for what is now Metro Transit.
Johnson finished the Abbott Northwestern study and in January 1998
presented his recommendations -- transit changes, new signage and
new freeway ramps 26th and 28th streets, he said.
He presented his findings to various groups, including the Phillips
Partnership.
"I had never heard of the Phillips Partnership," Johnson
said.
But the project soon bore the Partnership's imprimatur.
The Phillips Partnership is a group of political and corporate
leaders working to improve Phillips, an economically troubled neighborhood
bounded by I-35W and Hiawatha Avenue and by Lake Street and Franklin
Avenue.
The Partnership formed in 1997 to lower crime in the neighborhood
and improve housing, job opportunities and infrastructure, its leaders
say.
Its eight-member board now includes executives from Wells Fargo,
Abbott Northwestern Hospital and Children's Hospitals and Clinics,
the Minneapolis Foundation and government representatives.
In early 1998, the Partnership adopted the freeway ramps at 26th
and 28th streets as its infrastructure program to improve the neighborhood,
Johnson said. (At that point, Honeywell, not Wells Fargo, was on
the board. The 26th Street southbound freeway exit would eventually
get dropped as not technically feasible.)
In approximately March 1998, Johnson and technical consultant Scott
McBride moved into offices at law firm Smith Parker to work on the
freeway ramp feasibility study, the next step in the process. Smith
Parker is legal counsel to the Phillips Partnership, "One month,
Abbott Hospital would pay. The next month it would be Honeywell.
Next month it would be Children's Hospital," Johnson said.
"Every month, somebody would pay me. I wasn't under any contract.
I wasn't an employee. It was a loose deal."
Shaking the money tree
In March 1998, Johnson began informal talks with a group of neighborhood
and business leaders to keep them abreast of his work on the 26th
and 28th street freeway ramps -- and they started giving him advice,
he said.
The group of roughly a dozen people attended the informal meetings,
including Craig Anderson from Central neighborhood (east of I-35W
between Lake and 38th streets, and Chicago Avenue), Johnson said.
It included representatives of the Lake Street Council, a business
group, and Lake Street Partners, a community development group.
The 26th/28th Street ramp project "started to grow with that
group coming up with alternatives," Johnson said. "Lake
Street Council and Lake Street Partners, they were talking -- we
need ramps at Lake Street. We never got them. We should have."
The Phillips Partnership did not propose the Lake Street ramps,
Johnson said -- but it did not oppose the project's growth if the
community wanted it. He attributed the Lake Street ramp proposal
to "an informal mushroom" of support from neighborhood
people and businesses.
That idea quickly gained significant city, county and federal support.
Roughly two months after the talks with neighborhood leaders started,
Johnson said he and Louis Smith, legal counsel for the Phillips
Partnership, went to Washington D.C. to talk with the city's congressional
delegation about funding the Lake Street ramps.
Johnson knew the government ropes; he had previously worked as
MnDOT's federal lobbyist, he said. Congress would act on the federal
highway bill in May, so they did not have much time if they wanted
to secure money that year.
The Partnership needed to show Congress it had local government
support. On May 12, 1998, the Hennepin County Board unanimously
passed a resolution asking Congress to fund the project. The City
Council passed a similar resolution on May 22, 1998, 11-0.
The city resolution said in part it supported "efforts to
provide greater accessibility to and from Lake Street and the adjoining
neighborhoods." The county resolution said it supported "the
work of the Phillips Partnership and other organizations striving
to revitalize the Lake Street area."
The resolutions said the Met Council and Metro Transit supported
the project since they wanted a new transit station at I-35W and
Lake Street.
On June 8, 1998, President Bill Clinton signed the transportation
reauthorization bill designating the Lake Street project as a national
"high priority" and approved $2 million, said staff at
Rep. Martin Sabo's (D-Minn.) office.
The project has since received supplemental appropriations of $4.7
million and $4 million.
Adding the 38th Street ramp
Some government agency had to administer the federal money.
Jim Grube, Hennepin County's transportation director, said the
city of Minneapolis did not have the experience in highway design
and MnDOT was skeptical about a project, so the county agreed to
take the lead.
The county made sole-source contracts with Smith Parker to manage
the project and OSM engineering for technical work, Grube said.
At that point, around January 1999, Johnson said he became an employee
of Smith Parker to spearhead the project.
(Grube said the sole-source contracts made sense because Johnson
and staff at OSM already had experience on the project. OSM eventually
disbanded, and SEH Engineering now has the engineering contract.)
As project manager, Johnson helped create the neighborhood and
business committee known as the I-35W Project Advisory Committee,
which had its first meeting March 30, 1999, Johnson said. The membership
was fluid, changing over time.
"There was no formula set," he said. "We started
to contact who we knew. We spread the word we were looking for organizations
and people. We ended up with a starting group who were appointed
by their neighborhood organizations or by their business associations
or their company."
"We didn't say, 'we want this person, this person and this
person.'"
The group's voting membership eventually included half neighborhood
representatives and half from businesses and nonprofits.
At the fourth meeting, June 29, 1999, the PAC voted to move the
35th and 36th Street ramps to 38th Street, a proposal from a Central
neighborhood representative, Johnson said. That triggered Kingfield
and Bryant neighborhood PAC involvement. (Bryant is bordered by
I-35W, 38th and 42nd streets and Chicago Avenue.)
Changes to the 5th Avenue ramp brought Ventura Village representatives
to the table, he said. (Ventura Village is in the north end of the
Phillips neighborhood, bounded by I-94W and East 24th Street and
I-35W and the Soo Line Railroad.)
By the time the PAC voted to support the project last November,
it had reviewed dozens of proposals and met or held open houses
62 times -- not counting separate meetings by the mitigation subcommittee
to find ways to soften the traffic impact on neighborhoods.
The value of partnerships
To some, the PAC represents unprecedented civic involvement in a
public works project. It has recommended $29 million in improvements
to mitigate increased traffic through surrounding neighborhoods.
Others view the PAC process as something set up to deliver what
business leaders wanted in the first place. Jeanne Massey, a Kingfield
resident who served on the PAC and who voted against the project,
said the government erred in hiring Smith Parker, "contracted
to advance the Phillips Partnership's agenda and preexisting solutions."
"No-build was never a serious option," said Dave Harstad,
a Whittier resident who served on the PAC for a year and resigned.
"The members of the PAC seemed to be there more to deal with
all the details of the project rather than the larger policy implications
of whether or not the project was a good idea in the first place."
(The Whittier neighborhood representative on the PAC voted against
the project.)
PAC Chair Craig Anderson and others who support the project note
the PAC had a majority of people who lived or worked in the surrounding
neighborhood and the 17-3 vote was overwhelmingly positive.
"I believe we were more rigorous, balanced, responsive, open
to and respectful of differing and uncomfortable viewpoints than
most neighborhood and grassroots organizations," he said.
Some people may have thought different neighborhoods in south Minneapolis
-- let alone neighborhoods and businesses -- would not be able to
work together and agree on anything, he said.
"The fact that we created and sustained a viable process with
as much consensus as we achieved is quite an unusual accomplishment
for this territory," Anderson said. "In that case, maybe
we are being criticized for our success."
Harstad said the larger issue to him is whether this sort of public-private
partnership is a good tool for channeling public sentiment.
"I would argue that we live in a representative democracy
and our elected officials are paid to make these tough decisions."
Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin is a member of the
Phillips Partnership, supports the I-35W Access Project and supports
the process.
"In no case -- in no case -- was control over any public policy
matter or public appropriation of money EVER handed over to the
public-private partnership," he said. "The public-private
partnership was a way of organizing discussion."
Said Johnson: "These Phillips Partnership members -- whether
it was Children's or Abbott or Wells Fargo or, back then, Honeywell
-- everyone said to me and to themselves in these meetings, we will
not force this on the communities. If the community doesn't want
the project, we won't build it."
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