Here’s all the content from streets.mn last week carefully seasoned and stuffed into one post:

Regional differences

More on the Infrastructure Cost Discussion and Re-Framing the Regional Transportation Debate continue discussion about regional transportation (and the costs of urban and suburban development patterns) which kicked off with a recent Chart of the Day. This should be read along with A Quick Fix for Minneapolis Transit for more discussion of costs and density. MN GOP Beware: Biking and Pedestrian Improvements Have Broad Appeal is less about the GOP and more about showing interest in biking and walking is state-wide and not limited to the (presumably DFL) urban core; commenters question both the title and scare tactics as well as the numbers in the post.

Transit

Transit-Oriented Development: Quality Over Quantity considers transit oriented development policy (good), but also how to get development “good enough so that people riding the train want to get off at that station and have a look around” (better).  A Quick Fix for Minneapolis Transit follows up on last week’s Transitopolis and suggests improvements for Minneapolis’ dense urban core (with special attention to the #18 Bus).

City bikes

A Bike Matters could be called a buying guide for city bikes (where the Dutch omafiets is the ideal); commenters weigh in with more information about specific bike models and features.

Minneapolis and St. Paul

Minneapolis Is Hitting the Trifecta of affordable housing, upward mobility, and great bike infrastructure to attract millenials; comments seize on the affordable housing piece including rent control, public vs. private housing, and linking housing to transit.   Meanwhile in St. Paul Suggestions for a safer Jefferson Bicycle Boulevard is an open letter to St. Paul Public Works and Mayor Coleman critiquing the current bike boulevard and making specific suggestions (illustrated!) for improvement. Restore the Grid! A Vision for the Center of Downtown Saint Paul advocates for breaking up the SuperBlocks bounded by 6^th and 7^th Streets and Wabasha and Minnesota Streets to make downtown St. Paul (again) more beautifully walkable, bikable and livable.

Greater MN

Duluth, the Urban Time Capsule looks at Duluth’s development pattern and finds a traditionally urban small city. Bike-cation in Northfield looks at bicycling in and through Northfield (and getting tripped up by a stroad).

Audiovisual department

Video this week includes two very short videos: Metro Transit – A to B is a cute little broadcast TV ad for the Nextrip/GoTo Card ad and Holy Parking Meters, Batman defies characterization but is worth each and every one of its 17 seconds. And a longer (5 minutes) video about Oulu, Finland, The Winter Cycling Capital of the World, shows us how Oulu’s 30 year commitment to building bike infrastructure (17km of bike lanes per year) and maintaining it (bike paths plowed before streets!) make it a great place to bike (22% mode share) despite cold weather and very short days.

The audio offering Podcast #76 – Bus Stop Spacing with Alex Cecchini is the aural counterpart to this recent post on bus stop spacing.

Of course we have charts this week: Parking Subsidies, Where Should I Sit on the Bus? , Biking (Ethnicity) in Memphis and Bus Reliability during Winter Storms and Map Monday: Hamline-Midway c. 1886

I am grateful for streets.mn this Thanksgiving with its growing group of passionate people who observe their places carefully, work to improve them, and have a great deal of fun while they’re at it.  Here’s everything you need for fun winter cycling (including coffee and bagels); have a wonderful holiday week!