Interstate 35W (Minnesota)

Interstate 35W (Minnesota)

Interstate 35W (I-35W), is an Interstate Highway in the U.S. state of Minnesota, passing through downtown Minneapolis. It is one of two through routes for Interstate 35 through the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the other being Interstate 35E through downtown Saint Paul. I-35 splits into two branch routes: I-35W, which serves Minneapolis, and I-35E, which serves Saint Paul.

Traveling north, I-35 splits at Burnsville, and the I-35W route runs north for 41 miles, carrying its own separate sequence of exit numbers. It runs through the city of Minneapolis before rejoining with I-35E to re-form I-35 in Columbus near Forest Lake. I-35W supplanted sections of old U.S. Highway 8 northeast of Minneapolis and old U.S. Highway 65 south of Minneapolis that have since been removed from the U.S. highway system.

During the early years of the Interstate Highway System, branching Interstates with directional suffixes such as N, S, E, and W were common nationwide. On every other interstate nationwide, these directional suffixes have been phased out by re-designating the suffixed route numbers with a loop or spur route number designation. In the case of I-35 in the Twin Cities area, since neither branch is clearly the main route and both branches return to a unified interstate beyond the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the AASHTO officials have allowed the suffixes of E and W in Minnesota to remain in the present day. A similar split on I-35 continues to exist in Texas at Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, for similar reasons as the I-35 split in the Minneapolis - Saint Paul area. The Twin Cities and Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex splits on I-35 are the only suffixed directional splits remaining in the Interstate Highway System in the present day.