Twin Cities consultant solves the "mystery" behind a 494 pedestrian bridge
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The Bloomfield Bridge. Photo: Tyler Vigen
The Bloomfield Bridge, a pedestrian bridge over Highway 494 just west of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, seemingly had no purpose to Tyler Vigen, other than connecting a Taco Bell to a Grainger Industrial Supply.
- But when a little digging online yielded no answers as to why it was built, Vigen, a Bloomington resident and partner at a local management consulting firm, set out on a mission to learn the story behind the project.
- "Up until this point, it was curiosity. From here on out though, it is stubbornness," he wrote in his investigation.
What he did: After many fruitless interviews with city and state officials, Vigen dug through seemingly every tangentially related historical document in the state, including federal archives, city minutes, and a "surprisingly useful" history report written by a 9th grader in 1951.
- He manually scanned 300 miles of highways to look for pedestrian bridges built during the same time and tracked down people who lived near the bridge during its construction.
- He also had to obtain permission from the FAA to fly a drone over the bridge for photos, he told Axios in an email.
Yes, and: When the journey led out of state, Vigen flew to Kansas City and became certified to handle federal documents in order to dig through public records originally housed in a bunker under a field in western Missouri — only to find the project file was missing.
- Vigen told Axios he estimated that he spent 90-100 hours on the project over the course of eight weeks and around $600, not including travel.
Spoiler alert: After digging through public records for weeks and crossing state lines, Vigen found the answer — it was built to connect a school and church — in a Minneapolis Star article available online.
- You'll have to read his thoroughly researched report for the full story.