After a decade of studying how to fix one of the Twin Cities’ most crash-prone corridors, the Minnesota Department of Transportation has landed on a preferred design for Hwy. 252 — and residents now have only weeks left to tell the agency what they think before the public comment period closes Dec. 22. Three hearings are set for this month in Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center and Minneapolis, giving opponents and supporters alike a final formal chance to speak before MnDOT moves toward a final design.
MnDOT will host public meetings on its plans to convert Hwy. 252 into a freeway, according to a report by the Minnesota Star Tribune. The highway runs through Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center, and the agency has spent roughly ten years studying how to remake the corridor, eventually discarding its original 2010 design layouts and developing ten new design concepts in their place. MnDOT has now identified Alternative 5A as its Preferred Alternative, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation, which describes the option as a four-lane freeway with two lanes and a bus-usable shoulder in each direction between Hwy. 610 and I-694.
The leading design would replace existing stoplights with full interchanges at 66th Avenue, 85th Avenue and Brookdale Drive, add a multimodal crossing at 73rd Avenue without direct highway access, and build pedestrian and bicycle bridges at Humboldt Avenue/81st Avenue and at 70th Avenue. Amber Blanchard, the Hwy. 252 project manager, said the upcoming hearings represent a critical moment for the public. “This is really the opportunity for people to express their opinions,” Blanchard said, per the Star Tribune’s report.
Safety Gains Weighed Against Property Losses
MnDOT says Hwy. 252 averages one death per year, and the agency projects its preferred design would cut crashes resulting in serious injury or death by 25% and reduce crashes overall by 41%, according to figures reported by the Sun Post. The agency also projects the design would shave 3.5 minutes off trip times along the five-mile corridor. Among the ten options studied, the preferred alternative is expected to displace the fewest homes and businesses — six homes and two businesses, by the Star Tribune’s account — though MnDOT’s own property analysis shows a wider range, estimating that potential relocations across all access combinations could run from nine to 39 depending on which combination moves forward.
That property question has shaped years of back-and-forth between the agency and the cities it would cut through. Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park sent formal requests in 2023 asking MnDOT to study more alternatives, the Sun Post’s report notes, and the no-build option remains the only alternative that would avoid converting the highway into a freeway altogether. MnDOT gathered additional feedback from 2024 through 2025 on intersection access, walking and biking improvements, and the road’s visual character, according to the agency’s own project materials.
Residents Say They Only Wanted Safety Fixes
Residents and property owners have said a rebuild would increase traffic, noise and pollution, and cause health and economic harm, and they oppose converting Hwy. 252 into a freeway, according to the Star Tribune’s reporting. Nahid Kahn, a member of the Hwy. 252 task force who has opposed the plan for a decade and was elected to the Brooklyn Center City Council this year, plans to attend and speak at the hearings alongside other task force members. “All we ever asked was for safety improvements. We never asked for a freeway,” Kahn said, per the Star Tribune. Kahn said she hopes the community can still convince MnDOT to scrap the project.
Opponents have pointed to the scuttled I-335 freeway project in northeast Minneapolis, which was stopped in the 1970s after community backlash, as a precedent they hope to repeat. Fifteen state senators signed a letter in June asking MnDOT to pause the Hwy. 252 project, the Star Tribune reported. MnDOT has not yet chosen a final design and, per Blanchard, plans to do so by summer 2027 — a timeline that lines up with the agency’s stated goal of publishing a Final Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision that year, according to MnDOT’s meeting schedule page.
Three Hearings, One Deadline
The Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which lays out all ten studied alternatives along with the no-build option and the preferred design, is open for public review and comment through Dec. 22. Hearings run from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Brooklyn Park Community Activity Center, 5600 85th Ave. N.; Thursday at the Brookdale Library, 6125 Shingle Creek Pkwy. in Brooklyn Center; and Nov. 19 at the Farview Recreation Center, 621 29th Ave. N. in Minneapolis. Each hearing includes a presentation and a question-and-answer session, and attendees can speak directly with project staff and submit formal comments, per MnDOT.
Comments can also be submitted outside the hearings, by voicemail, email, postal mail or through an online portal, the agency says. Blanchard said all comments received will be read and reviewed, and that “there is always chance” the process could shift course. Construction on the preferred alternative is expected to begin in 2029, according to the Sun Post’s report, though MnDOT still needs at least $400 million to fund the project, per Blanchard — funding that has not yet been secured.
Minnesota law allows MnDOT to acquire property for the project through direct purchase or eminent domain, with just compensation based on fair market value determined by an independent appraisal, according to the agency’s published project materials. For residents like Kahn and others who have fought the freeway concept for years, the Dec. 22 deadline marks what may be their last structured opportunity to make that case before MnDOT narrows its options further.
