Can you imagine being able to walk down the street without having to endure harsh weather conditions? Traveling from one end of the city to the other safe from the rain, the scorching summer heat, or the freezing winter cold? Well, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, you can. Not on every street, of course, but on the main routes that allow you to navigate the entire downtown area. This is possible thanks to a system of climate-controlled walkways known as the Minneapolis Skyway System.

The idea is not exclusively original to this American city. Connecting blocks or city blocks through passages is almost as old as urban planning itself, and doing it with a touch of refinement, via elevated walkways instead of underground passages, also has several centuries of history.

For instance, we could mention two famous cases such as the Venetian Bridge of Sighs or the Florentine Vasari Corridor, both from the 16th century. Although it is true that they were not open to the public and had specific uses (the former to connect the prison with the Doge’s Palace; the latter to do the same between the Vecchio and Pitti palaces).

Minneapolis Skyway Stores
Minneapolis Skyway Stores. Credit: Mitchell Hirsch / Flickr

There are more historical examples, some concentrated in Denmark, like the 18th-century pedestrian bridge that connects a pair of buildings in Copenhagen or the one from the same era and similar use in Faaborg.

But it is in our times that elevated walkways seem to especially attract the attention of architects and urban planners. We can find them on almost every continent, with one of the best European examples being the City of London Pedway Scheme, developed from the mid-1950s in the context of post-war reconstruction to reorganize London traffic and still expanding today.

In Asia, the Central Elevated Walkway in Hong Kong stands out, a network of air-conditioned walkways that protect pedestrians from heat and humidity. But it is in America where the idea seems to have caught on more intensely, especially in the northern part, due to the harsh climate. Calgary, for example, has an 18-kilometer system called +15 (for the average height in feet at which the walkways are located).

Minneapolis Skyways in Winter
Minneapolis Skyways in Winter. Credit: Tony Webster / Wikimedia Commons

However, all these cases—and there are many more—fall short compared to the Minneapolis Skyway System, which totals nearly 18 kilometers of elevated walkways linking 80 downtown blocks. Only three Canadian cities surpass it: Toronto, Montreal, and Edmonton, which, however, present a difference: having done the same but underground.

Thus, Toronto’s PATH has about 30 kilometers of tunnels and is expected to double that amount; Montreal’s RÉSO, popularly known as La ville souterraine, reaches 32 kilometers; and Edmonton’s Pedway stretches 13 kilometers. All of these are very welcome when the harsh winter snowfalls begin.

Minneapolis is a city in Minnesota, USA—bordering Canada—with well over 385,000 inhabitants. Its climate is continental, with warm, humid summers and very cold, dry winters, so one season sees abundant precipitation (rain, snow, storms), and the other extreme heat, not to mention tornadoes. The highest recorded temperature was 42ºC (in July 1936) and the lowest was -41ºC (in January 1888), which gives an idea of the discomfort such a range can cause for residents who have to go outside. Perhaps the worst part is that the annual average temperature does not exceed 7.4ºC.

Map of downtown Minneapolis with the Skyway System route
Map of downtown Minneapolis with the Skyway System route. Credit: Meet Minneapolis

It is, therefore, the coldest city in the country, which led to some way to combat the relentless nature in the 1960s. Thus, inspired by the historical precedents mentioned earlier and taking as a starting point the model of shopping malls, which generate their own artificial microclimate inside, the Crown Iron Works Company came up with the idea of climate-controlled walkways that would allow people to traverse the city in similar conditions, moving from building to building, from one block to another, without having to go outside. The first two were built in 1962 and 1963, connecting three buildings: the newly opened Northstar Center, the Northwestern Bank, and the Roanoke. The second one is still in use today.

A decade later, the network was expanded with seven more enclosed bridges, although they lacked a central point that would serve as the nexus of the entire system, which became a reality in 1974: the IDS Center, a skyscraper that would become the tallest in the state (currently measuring 241 meters after a later expansion) and whose name came from being the headquarters of the financial services company Investors Diversified Services, Inc. (now renamed Ameriprise Financial). Walkways extended in four directions from the tower, and it featured a central area, like a covered atrium distributor, called Crystal Court.

In 1976, the Minneapolis Skyway System had grown enough to make it necessary to signpost directions within it and create the first map, just like a subway system. The user of this unprecedented service can visit banks, restaurants, shops, hotels, offices, government offices, about twenty significant buildings, and even sports facilities (including the baseball stadium) without needing to go outside (something that, incidentally, has led street-level merchants to protest). Necessity sharpens ingenuity.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on August 22, 2019: El sistema de pasarelas climatizadas de Mineápolis que permite recorrer el centro urbano sin salir a la calle

Sources

Michael J. Corbett, Evolution of the second-story city: the Minneapolis Skyway
System | Minneapolis Skyway Guide | Wikipedia

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