School

Hennepin Avenue project area map. Simplified map with lines, graphic representation. Yellow thick route line along project area from Lake Street to Douglas Avenue. Project area streets are marked. Lake of the Isles included on map.

In 2024, the City of Minneapolis will reconstruct Hennepin Avenue between Lake Street and Douglas Avenue. Hennepin Avenue was last reconstructed in 1957, so let’s make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We’re a group of neighbors and community members coming together to support a pleasant, safe, and vibrant street for our community. We welcome you to join us in supporting dedicated transit lanes and a safe, separated bike path. These improvements will make Hennepin Avenue easier to access, safer, more enjoyable, and more attractive as both a route and a destination.

Dedicated space for buses and bikes could look like this.

Students, parents, and teachers deserve safe routes to bike and walk to school. With the anticipated changes coming to the school district and Ella Baker Global Studies and Humanities Magnet School (formerly Jefferson), even more kids will be crossing from the west and north and moving along Hennepin. A raised bike path and pedestrian improvements would mean a safer, more pleasant, less chaotic trip to and from school. We have an opportunity to support safe routes to school. Studies show that walking or biking to school improves academic performance, increases health and happiness, makes for more independent kids, helps the environment, and improves safety conditions around schools.

Families with kids biking in an urban environment. Cargo bikes, kids in bike seats, and little kid biking on own with parents in bike path or cycletrack. Dedicated space for biking community members.
Young teenager biking on sidewalk northbound. Two women are walking southbound on sidewalk.

We know that all of us—especially children and the elderly—do best when we move more—like walking and biking to school and work and for errands. We know we’re healthier when we’re protected from air and noise pollution. Scientists and moral leaders are urging an immediate and deep reduction in emissions at every level of decision-making, from international treaties to the Minneapolis Transportation Action Plan—roughly 24% of Minneapolis’ CO2 emissions come from road-transportation. After this past year, we know how deeply we need community places, public spaces to come together, friends and strangers alike, to heal and to support one another. 

Update (12/10/2021): The city’s Public Works department has recommended an enhanced Option 1. Now we need the City Council and Mayor to support this decision.

A few ways to help our efforts:

  • Supporter testimonials: send us a pic, name, ward, neighborhood, your preferred pronouns, and a brief statement why you support the Hennepin redesign (about 3 sentences). Email to [email protected]
Graphic of people and different mobility uses. Image starts with a Black dad with a child in stroller, an old man with a walker, a brown woman with teal glasses walking, a visually impaired person with a cane, a lady in a wheelchair, a girl in a hijab skateboarding, a blonde girl with a scooter, two black kids biking, a bus, bus driver and riders, route says yellow heart Hennepin, a man in a car, black kids on bike, blonde girl on scooter, girl in hijab skateboarding, lady in wheelchair, visually impaired person with cane, brown lady walking, older man with walker, and black dad with kid in stroller.