A quiet week on streets.mn compared to the last few, but some technical challenges on the streets.mn site (plus the latest snowstorm or two) may be to blame. Here’s the summary of the week’s transportation and land use posts:
Regular features:
The Sketch, a new feature, presents urban sketches from Ken Avidor and (soon) other Twin Cities sketchers along with some thoughts about sketching in the city (including indoors when the weather is not conducive to sitting outside with pencil and pen). Friday Photo shows, no surprise, snow…and winter parking. Podcast #59 has Bill Lindeke talking to Matt Decuir designer of the OMG Transit App (in beta) for “Getting you from A to B, without your car” via public transit of all kinds. In the Voter Guide, Ann Mavity, candidate for Hennepin County’s 3rd District seat (the special election is May 13, 2014) responds to streets.mn questions.
Bigger stories: MN Daily op-ed by Chris Iverson Could Interstate Lids Unify University Neighborhoods? is linked (and Chris Iverson also discussed his piece on MPR) proposing building not just bridges for transportation over the highways which divide the university area, but “lids” which contain the roadway plus additional area for green space and commercial areas; commenters approve heartily of the idea. Tied for the comment winner for the week is Scott Shaffer’s post about another sports subsidy in our midst with Minneapolis Should Get Out of the Golf Game. The comments push some of the issues about government spending, the value of green space and access to public open spaces. Picked up on MinnPost’s Blog Cabin Roundup: (Very) small scale community building is captured in All About Emmaville (population 2).
Stories with multiple parts: Can’t See the Forest for the Trees? Accounting for the Urban Forest is the introduction to a series on urban forestry by Samuel Geer, a landscape designer who blogs about urbanism, ecology, and technology. Most of us think street trees and the urban forest are good things, but this series promises to educate us about the benefits and challenges of urban forestry.
Where to Paint Your Street is the 3rd post in a series on paint. The first post highlighted some of the problems using colored paint; the second why paint can great for experimentation and this post starts to develop guidelines for what to paint, what color, where and why.
Campus Connector BRT Ratings and Critiques rates the Campus Connector (the free U of MN bus rapid transit service connecting the three main campuses) in Minneapolis and Saint Paul using the Institute for Transportation and Development BRT Standard. The Campus Connector gets a Bronze rating, but some suggestions for improvement are also identified. The Red Line was rated back in January.
And, last Monday was Presidents Day and here’s the streets.mn local celebration of both presidents and streets: The President Streets in Northeast Minneapolis.