A project that traces back to a city memo written 36 years ago has finally wrapped up in Plymouth. The $35 million Station 73 project raised Highway 55 to build a tunnel so pedestrians and bicyclists can safely cross underneath, added two roundabouts, and reworked County Road 73, all finished after two years of construction.
The city celebrated the completed work with a gathering in Plymouth, according to CCX Media. City Manager Dave Callister told the outlet that the earliest written record his team could track down was a memo dated June 15, 1990, sent to the Plymouth City Council by then-City Manager Jim Willis proposing a realignment of County Road 73, though planning on the broader concept may stretch back even further.
Highway 55 links the western suburbs to Minneapolis and now carries about 30,000 vehicles a day, the station's report notes. That volume has grown alongside Plymouth itself, which had roughly 20,000 residents back in the 1970s and is now home to about 80,000 people.
A Senator's Personal Tie to the Highway
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who grew up three blocks from Highway 55 and rode her bicycle along its shoulder as a teenager in the 1970s, joined the celebration by phone on November 10. She said the highway used to be dangerous to cross and no longer is, per the same account from CCX Media. Klobuchar also helped secure a $15 million federal RAISE grant for the project, a turning point Plymouth Mayor Jeff Wosje credited with finally getting the long-stalled plan moving.
Wosje said the project began gaining real traction after he was first elected mayor in 2018, and that without the federal grant, the project would still be unfinished. He also described how the work unfolded: Highway 55 reconstruction and repaving happened in the project's first year, while funding issues pushed the timeline back by another year before it crossed the finish line.
Beyond the federal grant, the project drew funding from the city of Plymouth, MnDOT, the Metropolitan Council, Hennepin County and the Three Rivers Park District, the report states. The work also included realigning County Road 73 to improve driver safety for traffic heading northbound from Interstate 394 toward Highway 55.
Two Roundabouts, One Shaped Like a Peanut
Two roundabouts were added as part of the overhaul, one north of Highway 55 and another to the south that's been nicknamed the “peanut roundabout” for its shape, according to the outlet's reporting. Together with the raised highway and new tunnel, the changes are meant to improve pedestrian access, bicycling access and bus service along the corridor.
Marge Beard, who represents Plymouth on the Three Rivers Park District Board of Commissioners, said the new pedestrian tunnel underneath Highway 55 will help provide a north-south connection from Eagle Lake Regional Park at the Maple Grove-Plymouth border down to Bryant Lake Regional Park in Eden Prairie. She added that the broader effort will continue with a focus on building out that north-south trail.
That trail work ties into a separate, long-range plan: Three Rivers Park District approved a 17-mile trail corridor plan back in December 2021 covering Maple Grove, Plymouth, Minnetonka and Eden Prairie, split into the Eagle Lake and Bryant Lake regional trails. Construction on both trails is scheduled for 2026-2027, according to the park district.
Buses Still Catching Up to the Roadwork
Transit upgrades remain a step behind the highway and tunnel work. Station 73 currently offers peak-hour bus service every half hour on Highway 55 into downtown Minneapolis, but CCX Media reports that by the end of 2027 that's expected to shift to all-day service on a proposed Route 757. Metro Transit describes Route 757 as a proposed new route that would provide all-day service between Plymouth, Golden Valley and downtown Minneapolis, with most changes from its 2026 network update slated for rollout by the end of 2027.
Looking further ahead, the eventual goal is for Route 757 to grow into a bus rapid transit line with buses arriving every 15 minutes, per CCX Media's reporting. For now, though, the finished tunnel and roundabouts stand as the most visible proof that a project first sketched out in a 1990 memo has actually crossed the finish line.
