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N0KFQ > TODAY 28.10.12 18:10l 57 Lines 2653 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Oct 28
Path: IZ3LSV<IW0QNL<IK6ZDE<VE2PKT<N4JOA<N4ZKF<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 121028/1655Z 30410@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.53
...
Oct 28, 1992:
Leif Erickson Tunnel completes 1,593-mile I-35
On this day, Duluth, Minnesota mayor Gary Doty cuts the ribbon at
the mouth of the brand-new, 1,480-foot-long Leif Erickson Tunnel
on Interstate 35. With the opening of the tunnel, that
highway_which stretches 1,593 miles, from Mexico all the way to
Canada_was finished at last. As a result, the federal government
announced, the Interstate Highway System itself was 99.7 percent
complete.
In 1958, the Minnesota Highway Department proposed a highway, to
be paid for with federal interstate highway funds, right through
the middle of downtown Duluth. It would be elevated and run right
along the Lake Superior shoreline; to build it, many downtown
buildings, not to mention pedestrian access to the waterfront,
would be eliminated. It would, the mayor said, be "a face-lifter
and a solution to Duluth's downtown traffic problems."
But by the 1960s, freeways in cities across the country were
growing less popular every year. Opponents argued that they
destroyed homes and businesses, eviscerated poor neighborhoods
and made traffic congestion worse, not better. In Duluth,
anti-road activists geared up for a fight. In 1970, a group
called Citizens for Integrating Highways and the Environment
began to argue that the waterfront was the city's biggest asset
and that putting a huge expressway between it and downtown was a
terrible idea. Meanwhile, a group called Stop the Freeway
mobilized to do just that.
Highway officials came up with a compromise: They would keep the
road, but they would put it underground instead of on stilts and
they would build a lakefront park on its lid. This
"cut-and-cover" plan turned out to be a smashing success. The
$220 million tunnel kept the disruption of the road to a minimum
and provided city residents and tourists with an extremely
pleasant place to go and relax. The month it opened, the tunnel
won an Excellence in Highway Design Award from the Federal
Highway Administration. "People who once adamantly opposed the
downtown freeway," Lake Superior Magazine explained, "are now
some of the same people who are responsible for its aesthetic
appeal. Likewise, those who insisted that the freeway could be
built in no other place in Duluth admit that citizen concern
forced an admiral design that might not otherwise have been
considered." A spokesman for the Minnesota Department of
Transportation summed it up: "The great thing is that this_ was
Duluthians deciding what was best for Duluth and then all working
together to make it happen."
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
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