Hennepin Ave Redesign: Key Dates on the Road to Generational Change in Minneapolis Transportation Infrastructure

  • Apr 11, 2018 – First public meeting on the Hennepin Avenue reconstruction and redesign.
  • Dec 4 2020 – Minneapolis Transportation Action Plan adopted 12-1 by the City Council (Lisa Goodman is the lone vote against)
  • Mar 2, 2021 – Professional staff in the city’s Public Works Dept release two options for Hennepin Avenue: both include full-time bus lanes, relying on policy contained in the recently adopted Transportation Action Plan.
  • March 4, 2021 – Public Works traffic engineer Allan Klugman provides stats at an open house: 6,600 bus riders per day is expected to become 14,000 bus riders once E-Line bus rapid transit is added. Transit riders already account for 49% of those in vehicles on Hennepin during peak times.
  • 2021-2022 – Lisa Goodman continuously fucking around behind the scenes, threatening and blowing up at staff.
  • Early to Mid 2021 – Initial timeline for City Council approval of Hennepin layout. This was indefinitely delayed for no apparent reason.
  • August 4, 2021 – Metro Transit sends a letter to the city’s Public Works Dept giving feedback on the Hennepin layout: “all-day bus lanes are critical to the success of both the Hennepin Avenue reconstruction project and the METRO E Line.”
  • January 2022 – A final staff recommended layout for Hennepin is released, based on public input received for the initial two options. Full-time bus lanes are included. This is referred to by staff as the “inform stage” – meaning the Public Works Dept will make no further changes in response to public input. City Council is the next step in the process.
  • Feb 10, 2022 – Mayor Frey’s appointment for the position of Public Works director, Margaret Anderson Kelliher (Lisa Goodman’s actual best friend) is confirmed by the Minneapolis City Council.
  • May 12, 2022 – All 15 members of the Minneapolis legislative delegation to the MN House and Senate write a letter to the City Council strongly urging them to adopt a layout that includes full-time bus lanes on Hennepin Ave, in order to support the E Line BRT, a project for which they allocated $40 million: “Schedule interruptions and delays will suppress ridership, and is tantamount to forcing the route to fail, the effort and resource it took to create it will have been wasted.”
  • May 19, 2022 – The Minneapolis City Council’s Public Works and Infrastructure Committee holds their regular meeting and committee vote on the Hennepin layout, at which it will be officially announced for the first time that Margaret Anderson Kelliher has yanked the full-time bus lane from the plan.
  • May 26, 2022 – Expected date that the full City Council will vote to approve Hennepin layout.