Minnesota State Highway 100
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Minnesota State Highway 100 is a highway in Minnesota. It is 15 miles in length.
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[edit] Termini
The southern end of the highway terminates at Interstate 494 in Bloomington, Minnesota. It runs north to Interstate 694 in Brooklyn Center. The southern roadway continues as Normandale Boulevard, also known as Hennepin County Highway 34. At the north end, the main line merges with I-694.
[edit] Routing as a Beltway
Highway 100 was originally meant as a beltway around the Twin Cities (presumably the reason for the round number), and actually achieved that status for about 20 years in the mid-20th century (although it wasn't a freeway).
All of current Highway 100 was in the original route. Starting from the current southern terminus, Highway 100 multiplexed eastward with a pre-494 Highway 5 past the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport to its intersection with Highway 55. Highway 100 then continued east multiplexed with Highway 55 over the Mendota Bridge, then along current Highway 110 through Mendota Heights, then following current I-494 across the Mississippi River and turning north onto Century Avenue in Woodbury, which feeds into current Highway 120 north of Interstate 94. Old Highway 100 then turned west upon County Road F and north along White Bear Avenue to meet up with and multiplex westward with Highway 96 (the section of which is now turned over to county maintenance). Old Highway 100 then turned south briefly along U.S. Highway 8 (now a town-maintained street), then carried on westward along the current routing of I-694 to meet back at its current northern terminus.
Due to traffic pattern changes over the years, it is no longer possible to 100% directly follow the path of old 100. Small detours are necessary which involve the use of Exits 40 and 60 of the present I-494/694 beltway.
[edit] Lilac Way
The original construction of Highway 100 started in 1935, as a New Deal project. The project was a cooperative venture between the Works Progress Administration and the Minnesota Highway Department, and was the largest WPA project in the state. The demand for the highway came out of growing pains in the Twin Cities during the 1920s, when Minneapolis city streets were congested and suburban roads were poorly maintained dirt roads. The plan for a beltway around the Twin Cities incorporated existing roads, both paved and unpaved. A new section of highway, between Minnesota State Highway 5 in Edina and U.S. Route 52 in Robbinsdale was needed to complete the beltway. As such, it was planned as a state-of-the-art highway, with two lanes in each direction separated by wide medians, bridges at major intersections and railroad crossings, and the first cloverleaf interchanges in Minnesota.
Carl Graeser, the highway engineer, and Arthur Nichols, a landscaper, teamed up to design the highway. A large number of WPA workers worked on the construction of the highway. Since the WPA was designed to keep a large number of workers busy, a lot of hand digging was done as opposed to using bulldozers. Cloverleaf interchanges were built at Minnesota State Highway 7, U.S. Route 12, and Minnesota State Highway 55.
The landscaping of the highway was meant to give the highway a parkway-like experience. As such, it was built with a wider right-of-way than the typical highway. The Golden Valley Garden Club supported efforts to plant lilacs along the highway, and the Minneapolis Journal coined the name "Lilac Way". Eventually, 7000 lilacs were planted. In addition, the builders built five wayside parks along the way. These parks were intended for picnicking and featured stone picnic tables, beehive barbecues, waterfalls, and so on. These fixtures provided work for local stonemasons, as another part of the WPA project. The western leg was completed in 1940, but further construction on the beltway was halted with the United States' entry into World War II. An extension from Highway 52 in Robbinsdale to U.S. Route 10 in New Brighton was built with federal aid to provide access to industrial areas as an asset to the manufacture of "essential war materials".
Graeser Park in Robbinsdale and the St. Louis Park Roadside Park (near the southeast corner of Highway 100 and Highway 7) are the only remaining roadside parks from the 1930s that are still mostly intact after widening of Highway 100.
The beltline was not completed until 1950. At that point, demand from the baby boom led to rapid growth in the suburbs.
[edit] Recent Construction
Conversion of the remaining portion of the road into a freeway is complete. As of 2005, all construction has finished on the northern portion between Interstate 394 and I-694, making Highway 100 a freeway for its entire length, though the section between Highway 7 and I-394, the oldest part of the freeway, is on long-term plans to be widened to kill a nasty traffic bottleneck.
In 2006, a 'temporary' third lane was built in St. Louis Park, between Excelsior Boulevard and Cedar Lake Road. This section of the highway, which was two lanes, has been a bottleneck for many years. Creating the third lane involved narrowing the left and right shoulders while retaining the existing bridges of the Twin Cities and Western Railroad, Southwest Regional LRT Trail (formerly the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway), Minnesota State Highway 7, and Minnetonka Boulevard (County Road 5). The cloverleaf interchange at Highway 7 was rebuilt with signalized intersections on Highway 7 in a semi-folded diamond interchange. Unfortunately, a small bottleneck around the MN 7/CR 25 interchange remains southbound.
Permanent reconstruction was slated to begin in 2010, which would replace and widen the existing bridges, but because of cutbacks in funding, that project has been pushed back to 2014.
With the upgrade of the freeway between 36th Ave and Brooklyn Blvd, MN 100 incidentally has both the newest and oldest (the segment of freeway between Excelsior Blvd and I-394) freeway in the Twin Cities.
[edit] References
- Steve Riner (July 27, 2003). Details of Routes 75-100. Accessed September 18, 2004.
- Adam Froehlig (March 18, 2003). Minnesota Highway 100. Accessed September 18, 2004
- Adam Froehlig (January 6, 2004). Minnesota Highway 100 Construction/Photos. Accessed September 18, 2004.
- Minnesota Statutes 161.115, Subdivision 143. Minnesota Statutes. Office of Revisor of Statutes, State of Minnesota (2005). Retrieved on 2006-04-12.
- Twin Cities Public Television. (2001) Highway 100: Lilac Way [Documentary]. St. Paul, MN: Twin Cities Public Television. Retrieved from [1].
- Assessment + Analysis - Highway 100 - Lilac Way. New Deal Roadside Landscape Features. National Park Service. Retrieved on 2006-04-12.
- Highway 100 Temporary Lane in St. Louis Park. Minnesota Department of Transportation. Retrieved on 2006-05-31.
