When I was little, I was mildly obsessed with tiny people a la the Borrowers. Growing up, we had a bottle-shaped vase on our piano and I’d pretend my very own Jeannie lived in there. If your kiddo has a big imagination involving tiny humans, I say embrace it. And hurry up and build those little people a home before they take residence in your […]
The podcast this week is a conversation with Myron Orfield, the director of the institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota. Orfield has also written many books on public policy and regional governance, and has spent years studying how municipal fragmentation has led to persistent inequality, particularly in the Twin Cities. Orfield made […]
On February 12th of this year a woman was killed in Minneapolis while walking in a crosswalk. She had the right of way. She was hit by a truck taking a right turn on red, which trucks are generally legally allowed to do (although not while a person is in a crosswalk): “The driver of […]
Lately I’ve been thinking about historic preservation. Though it may be overblown, Saint Paul and Minneapolis seem to be full of fights between “urbanists” and “preservationists” over the future of our cities. Examples include the ongoing spats over an historic but run-down house in Uptown, old single-story buildings in Dinkytown, or the width of sidewalks in […]
Today’s Charts of the Day feature Transit Boardings in the Metro area: Source: MnDOT Annual Transportation Performance Report 2012
Today’s Charts of the Day concern trucking in Minnesota: Source: MnDOT Annual Transportation Performance Report 2012
I took my first Nice Ride last week. I had ridden a bicycle before, and I had used bike rental before (though not one of the modern automated systems), and I had used transportation vehicle “sharing” before (see e.g. ZipCar and Car2Go with mixed results), but I had not put all those things together. I finally […]
Here’s the quick guide to the past week on streets.mn on a warm, sunny Easter Sunday Big Issues: In Defense of the Dinkytown “Riots” uses first-hand reporting to suggest the spontaneous street gatherings in Dinkytown could have been mitigated if the pedestrian facilities were improved; comments debate the crowd management infrastructure as well as the riot rhetoric. […]
In this famous opening shot in Touch of Evil (1958), Orson Welles shows us that walking can be just as fast and much safer than driving in many cases. Via Critical Commons.
How can we cure congestion? by Lewis Lehe