In the U.S. state of Minnesota, a legislative route is a highway number defined by the Minnesota State Legislature. The routes from 1 to 70 are constitutional routes, defined as part of the Babcock Amendment to the Minnesota State Constitution, passed November 2, 1920. All of them were listed in the constitution until a 1974 rewrite. Though they are now listed separately in ยง161.114 of the Minnesota Statutes, the definitions are legally considered to be part of the constitution, and cannot be altered or removed without an amendment. Legislative routes with numbers greater than 70 can be added or deleted by the legislature.
Until 1933 Constitutional Routes corresponded exactly to the number marked on the highways, but this is no longer necessarily the case. In fact it's common for CR highways to be composed of several different trunk highways. When the U.S. Highway system was created in 1926, many of these roads were made up of one or more U.S. highways. Today, they now use a mix of Minnesota state highways, U.S. highways, and Interstate highways.
Constitutional Route 1 is currently one of the most complex routes, composed of:
- U.S. Highway 65 from the Iowa border to Albert Lea, Minnesota
- Interstate 35 to Faribault
- Minnesota State Highway 3 and MN-149 to Saint Paul
- U.S. Highway 61 to Wyoming
- Chisago County Road 30 to Rush City
- Minnesota State Highway 361 to Rock Creek
- Minnesota State Highway 23 through Hinckley
- the MN-73/27 loop through Moose Lake
- Carlton County Road 61 between Moose Lake and MN-210
- the MN-210/45 loop through Carlton
- Interstate 35 to Duluth
- Minnesota State Highway 61 to the Canadian border
However, the route can be considered to be superseded along almost its entire length by Interstate 35 (and I-35E) and Minnesota State Highway 61. By contrast, Constitutional Route 58 still has the same marked number and extent that it did in 1920.
There is some ambiguity in how literally the Minnesota Department of Transportation must interpret the constitutional routes. In some cases, the routes no longer directly serve communities they were once designated for, but are routed along nearby highways instead.
Famous quotes containing the words legislative and/or route:
“Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“The route through childhood is shaped by many forces, and it differs for each of us. Our biological inheritance, the temperament with which we are born, the care we receive, our family relationships, the place where we grow up, the schools we attend, the culture in which we participate, and the historical period in which we live—all these affect the paths we take through childhood and condition the remainder of our lives.”
—Robert H. Wozniak (20th century)