Early plans for the
Interstate Highway System include a route along roughly the same alignment as the present I-35 through the Twin Cities area but are not detailed enough to show exactly how the cities would be served. When preliminary urban routes were laid out in 1955, a split alignment was chosen to serve both cities equally. South of the Twin Cities, I-35 followed the corridor of old
US 65, which had followed Lyndale Avenue between Burnsville and Downtown Minneapolis. I-35E was located parallel to
MN 13, which cut northeast to Saint Paul from old US 65 south of the
Minnesota River. North of the metropolitan area, I-35 closely paralleled
US 61, which passed through Saint Paul; I-35W paralleled old
US 8 from Minneapolis northeast through New Brighton and then to the present day I-35E/I-35W split at
Columbus near
Forest Lake, near where old US 8 had joined US 61. The
Minnesota Legislature defined I-35E as part of unmarked
Legislative Route 390, which stretched south to the
Iowa state line and north to the city of
Duluth along I-35. I-35E was completed north of downtown Saint Paul in 1970. The first section to open ran north from Maryland Avenue in Saint Paul to
I-694 in Little Canada; this was completed in the early 1960s, concurrently with I-694 west to old
MN 49 (Rice Street). Later that decade, I-35E was extended south to Downtown Saint Paul, opening first to Pennsylvania Avenue and then to
I-94, including the I-35E/I-94
concurrency (and I-94 in both directions). In 1970, The southern half of I-35E in the metro area took a lot longer to build. Its first section—a short stretch from
MN 110 north to
MN 5, including the
Lexington Bridge over the
Mississippi River—opened in the mid-1960s. Even though the connecting piece of I-35W and I-35 at the southern terminus of I-35E in
Burnsville opened in the mid-1960s, it was not until the mid-1980s that I-35E was completed south of MN 110 at
Mendota Heights and southbound through
Eagan and
Apple Valley, where there had been a missing link of I-35E for 20 years.
Controversy through the West Seventh neighborhood of Saint Paul The missing piece through the
West Seventh neighborhood of Saint Paul, from MN 5 (7th Street West) northeast to I-94 in Downtown Saint Paul, was held up by controversy. Construction began in 1964 and was planned for completion in the 1970s as a typical six-lane freeway, but, in late 1969, a group of neighbors in the area had formed "Residents in Protest 35E" (R.I.P. 35E) to oppose the completion of I-35E. The group convinced the city to drop its support, and, in August, it filed a joint
lawsuit against the
Minnesota Highway Department (MHD) and the
US Department of Transportation along with four neighborhood associations and eight citizens. The parties quickly reached an agreement, favorable to the plaintiffs, to halt construction pending an
environmental impact statement (EIS). The Saint Paul City Council decided in late 1974 to support I-35E, possibly due to the influence of proponents. R.I.P. 35E proposed an alternative to the original plan and convinced the city council to go along with it. The plan included a four-lane
boulevard expansion of Pleasant Avenue (the street chosen for the I-35E alignment), with another route, such as
Shepard Road or the nearby Lafayette Freeway, forming part of I-35E. The group opposed any direct connection of this parkway to I-94 near the
State Capitol, where I-35E and I-94 were to merge. The EIS was completed in early 1975, identifying
noise pollution,
air pollution,
vibrations, and
slope stability as the main concerns. In addition to the nearby location of historic districts, hospitals were worried about the effects of vibrations on sensitive operations; MHD solved this problem while the report was being developed. The EIS identified the primary benefit of completing I-35E as connecting Downtown Saint Paul to the Interstate Highway System and determined that the original Pleasant Avenue corridor was the best choice but with minor changes, such as lowering the freeway below Grand Avenue and Ramsey Street. It also allowed a connection from the parkway to I-94, but this link could not be
controlled access. The
Metropolitan Council was to complete a draft EIS for the parkway and I-35E by September 1, 1979, with the cooperation of the
Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and Saint Paul. There was widespread support for a parkway, with landscaping and a truck restriction, but the nonconnection to I-94 jeopardized federal Interstate funding since it could no longer be part of the continuous I-35E. Two notable alternatives came out of the draft EIS—a parkway with or without an I-94 connection. The parkway with a connection would provide the same
level of service as a typical freeway. and to I-94 on October 15, 1990, 26 years after construction began. The 1990 opening ceremony of I-35E in downtown Saint Paul was attended by a group of highway experts from the
Soviet Union, and both the
US and
Soviet national anthems were played.
Later changes The original plans for the I-94 overlap in Downtown Saint Paul did not include the right-side ramps that eliminate weaving. The ramp from I-35E northbound to I-94 eastbound was added when I-35E was finally completed in 1990, and a five-year construction project that was completed in 1992 added the ramp from I-35E southbound to I-94 westbound, as well as a direct ramp from I-35E southbound to the Lafayette Freeway (US 52) to avoid weaving across I-94 east. This project was done because the old Spaghetti Junction at the east split of I-35E and I-94 would not be able to handle the extra load from the completed I-35E parkway. When the first piece of the parkway opened in 1984, unused provisions, pending more study, were added for a direct link to
Ayd Mill Road, a sunken four-lane road with minimal intersections that leads northwest from I-35E. The ramps were built and temporarily opened in 1992 for
high-occupancy vehicles, due to the closure of the nearby
Lafayette Bridge (US 52) for reconstruction. The ramps were reopened on June 12, 2002, as a test, and remain open . A controversial extension of Ayd Mill Road to I-94 remains on the table. The 1964
Lexington Bridge across the
Mississippi River was replaced by a new bridge, built from 2001 to 2004, due to deterioration of the old structure including cracks in steel beams. Unweave the Weave, a project to eliminate weaving at the I-694 overlap in Little Canada and Vadnais Heights, was started in 2004 and completed in 2008. The project was designed around several factors, a few of which included increasing freeway traffic capacity, increasing driver safety, and eliminating weaving and lane changes (eliminating "geometric deficiencies"), hence the name of the project, "Unweave the Weave". This weaving was the case for most drivers prior to 2005, before most of the road reconstruction work on the interchanges was done. As a result of lane changing and constant congestion, many accidents occurred on the interchange after its completion in the early 1970s. The current layout of the two Interstates now provides for safer exits and entrances, minimal congestion, and better road surface durability. The project also realigned the two Interstates to improve the infrastructure of the highway from an asphalt surface to a complete concrete surface. Numerous bridges were rebuilt, including the residential streets of Edgerton Street and Labore Road in
Vadnais Heights. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) updated the overlapped section between I-694 and I-35E to increase the number of lanes from six (three in each direction) to 12 (six in each direction) and eliminated the requirement to change lanes through the area. The section was rebuilt in concrete instead of asphalt and noise walls were added. The 1965 bridge just north of Downtown Saint Paul carrying a daily traffic volume of 148,000 vehicles over Cayuga Street and the
BNSF Railway line was rated by MnDOT as meeting minimum tolerable limits in 2006. Its superstructure and substructure were described as poor with advanced section loss, deterioration, spalling, or scour. As the fourth busiest bridge in the state, it was scrutinized following the collapse of the
I-35W Mississippi River Bridge in nearby Minneapolis on August 1, 2007. The bridge was replaced in a construction project that finished in late 2016. ==Transit==