Every day at The Overhead Wire we collect news about cities and send the links to our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the DC region. […]
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Municipal Sidewalk Clearing in Richfield: An Interview
Having clear sidewalks in the winter is an important issue for a lot of people. ...
How a Hub-and-Spoke Model Could Improve Metro Rail Transit
Airlines utilize hub-and-spoke models of route mapping. For Delta, the Twin Cities’ local dominant airline, Atlanta (ATL) is a major hub of that map, along with Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP), Salt Lake City (STL) and other airports. Remember the refrain that the path to hell passes through Atlanta? Whatever your destination in the Southeast, chances are […]
Lessons from a Cyclist’s First Bus Commute
My workplace is on an outer edge of the Twin Cities, and since it is not readily accessible via transit I had never tried to take the bus there. It would be easy to drive (and parking is plentiful), but I decided a couple of years ago that I could no longer maintain a lifestyle […]
Sunday Summary – February 17, 2019
Getting around A Car-Free, Car-Less, and Car-Lite Guide To Surviving Bemidji from Henry Pan describes how he gets around Bemidji without driving (or driving much). “As difficult as it is living in Bemidji without a car in the winter, it is indeed possible to live without one. But it would even better if there were more […]
Walking All the Streets of Central King Field
The day after my walk through the northern part of the King Field neighborhood, I was back for more. As on the first day, the route map’s main loop is shown in a mixture of blue and teal due to mapping issues. The A and B at the intersection of 38th and Grand are the start […]
A Car-Free, Car-Less, and Car-Lite Guide To Surviving Bemidji
I thought I needed to have a car for my assignment. In August, I was offered a position that had me relocate to Bemidji. In Northern Minnesota. 200 miles away from the only home that I’ve known outside of San Francisco, away from the friends that I’ve made. I thought I was going away too […]
A Charming Third, or Tilting At Windmills
Welcome to Winter! In addition to the cold and snow, we are in the early parts of the the 2019-2020 Minnesota Legislative Session. Among the many hundreds of bills that have been introduced so far, bicycle-related legislation has been introduced in the House (HF 462) and the Senate (SF 1014). This proposed legislation, which seems […]
The Park Board’s Vision for Gateway Park
Recently, I met with Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board District 4 Commissioner Jono Cowgill across the street from Gateway Park to chat about the current state and future of the park. Welcome to Gateway Park 🦖 Gateway Park is a plaza located at the intersection of Hennepin Ave and S 1st St and is bordered […]
Riding the Bus to the Fed Costs Less Than Half as Driving. So Why is the Fed Building Parking?
Recently, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis proposed the building of an 800-stall parking ramp on land that it bought in April of 2018. The land is currently a 300-stall parking lot that is adjacent to the Fed campus. As my colleague Alex Schieferdecker discussed in his article on Tuesday, the proposed “Heritage Landing Parking Ramp” would […]
What Happened To My Bus?
Metro Transit seems to have quietly cut service on the express service route I have used to get to work for years. I say “quietly” because it hasn’t been announced anywhere I’ve seen. There is no service announcement. But last week my bus just stopped coming. Did I miss an announcement? Is my bus service […]
Why The Fed’s Proposed Parking Garage Is Terrible For The Climate
As you might have heard, the Minneapolis branch of the Federal Reserve has proposed a new 800 space parking ramp in the North Loop. The ramp would replace an existing 300 space surface lot. Plans for the ramp, which you can view here, call for a structure of five stories on the northwestern side of the site, abutting […]
National Links: Putin’s Cities and the Topography of Wealth
Every day at The Overhead Wire we collect news about cities and send the links to our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the DC region. […]
Learning From My Winter Cycling Failures
I really love biking in winter, as I recently wrote, but I have experienced a definite learning curve. Here, I have compiled some of the lessons I’ve learned over many years of winter cycling. I would love to hear your mistakes (or “learning opportunities”) too! Optimal winter routes are not the same as summer routes. […]
Map Monday: Fantasy Eastern US Rail Network
Here’s a map from erstwhile rail and transit blogger, Alon Levy, with a proposed “high-speed” / low-speed rail network that would connect to Minnesota. First, the map itself: For Levy’s proposal, the Chicago-to-Minneapolis travel time would be 2 hours and 30 minutes. There would also be connection north to Duluth. Here’s what Levy writes about […]
Critiquing the Transportation-as-a-Service Model
There’s been a lot of talk about the potential upcoming disruption of self-driving-cars, including their effect on private vehicle ownership and travel. One of the most optimistic is the 2017 article “Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030.” Authors James Arbib and Tony Seba make some bodacious claims regarding Transportation as a Service (TaaS) — the idea that soon we’ll all […]
Sunday Summary – February 10, 2019
Winter haters in Minnesota have had much to complain about in the last week with lots of snow, cold temperatures, and lots of events and activities cancelled. Perhaps our writers are hunkered down awaiting warmer weather (or failed to read Amy Gage’s post or still enjoying a post-City of Lakes Loppet high), but it was a […]
Brit Builds an ADU: Infill and Transportation
So, as I mentioned in the first installment I sometimes take the bus for errands and to get to meetings. As part of the city’s desire to reduce congestion by encouraging public transit Accessory Dwelling Units are not required to have additional parking space of their own. We are likely to either replace our current two […]
National Links: The Curb of the Future is in Cincinnati
Every day at The Overhead Wire we collect news about cities and send the links to our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the DC region. […]
Google Maps in the Minneapolis Bottineau Neighborhood
Note: Original post is from the LocalMN Stories blog in July, 2017. It’s edited just a bit regarding any recent changes to my knowledge. Definitely comment away if there are more! Plus, it’s chilly outside. Thinking happy summer thoughts. The Bottineau neighborhood is at the very north end of the 3rd ward. Google Maps does make it a bit […]
Baby Biking Book Bleg
Our two year old, known on the internet as Tiny Baby (she’s no longer either of those things, but she was), loves big trucks. She loves the dress she got for Christmas that features big trucks and has pockets. She loves buses and construction equipment. We’ve got books about all of those things. The other day […]