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Hello and welcome back to streets.m(ad)n(ess), where you, the streets.mn reader, get to vote on your favorite goings on in the world of Twin Cities urbanism. I’m Nick, and this is my co-host Jim.
Great to be here Nick.
Great to have you as always, Jim.
So we’re down to the Fabulous Four here, not to be confused with the Final Four–a registered trademark of the NCAA, a just totally all ’round standup organization.
Really impressive how they managed to trademark the abstract concept of four teams at the end of a tournament–really says a lot about where we’re going as a society.
Straight to hell, Nick.
With, I have found, a great assortment of snack foods and various wireless technologies to entertain us on the way. Let’s take a quick look at Round 4, where we picked the strongest contender from each of our four categories. A couple upsets here.
Development
- (3) Midtown Greenway Transformation (59%) over (1) U of M Density (41%)
Transportation
- (1) Green Line (87%) over (3) Hennepin/Lyndale Bottleneck Rebuild (13%)
Policy
- (2) Thrive MSP 2040 (56%) over (1) ADUs (44%)
Potpourri
- (4) Open Streets Expansion (58%) over (6) Food Trucks w/e (42%)
Looks like 3 seed Midtown Greenway Transformation picked off top-seeded U of M Density pretty easily–any thoughts on that?
Well, these things happen–seeding isn’t an exact science, or so I’ve heard from the selection committee. What I’m a little more curious about, though, is the huge late surge for Thrive MSP 2040 towards the end of the second day of Round 4.
Oh yeah?
Yeah–1 seed ADUs was leading by a considerable margin until the end of the day, and then by the time voting closed, Game 3 had about 100 more total votes than the other three games averaged, and Thrive MSP 2040 was far and away the winner.
Well, that’s a little suspicious.
Hey Jim, all I know is that the Met Council is secretly planning to take away our cars and force us into luxury apartments above coffee shops, and so I guess this could be seen as furthering that goal in a very loose sense. I want my cat to be able to be an inner party member, so I’ve got too much to lose by speaking out.
Hail, bikes!
Hail, bikes.
Development & Transportation
(3) Midtown Greenway Transformation vs. (1) Green Line
Remember all, in the original bracket for both streets.m(ad)n(ess) and the NCAA Tournament, the Green Line and Wisconsin were both 1 seeds in the bottom left. Interesting.
The Green Line, an eleven mile long light rail line connecting Downtown Minneapolis, the University of Minnesota, and Downtown St. Paul, carries a bit under 40,000 riders on a weekday, which, to make a nonsensical but neat comparison, is about the total combined population of Traverse, Lake of the Woods, Red Lake, Kittson, Cook, Big Stone, Mahnomen, and Lincoln Counties, which also cover thousands of square miles.
I’m a little bummed U of M Density didn’t make it to the semi-finals, but I guess the development along the Midtown Greenway is also pretty rad. Checking Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, it looks like the least populous county in Minnesota is Traverse County, out west in that little notch we carved into South Dakota. Traverse County had 3,558 residents as of the 2010 census. It’s probably not quite three and a half thousand, but since the beginning of 2010, this little stretch of land in the picture below has added pretty close to that many people–Flux, the three Elan buildings, Track 29, Lime, Blue, the Buzza redevelopment, etc. Right around $100,000,000 American dollars of new taxbase.
Here is a picture of the Midtown Greenway that is not extremely current but has lots of green, a color you may recall.
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Policy & Potpourri
(2) Thrive MSP 2040 vs. (4) Open Streets Expansion
Did someone at the Met Council bypass our high-level security by deleting their cookies and voting again 100 times late Friday evening? I don’t know–I’m just asking questions here. It’s a great image! All I can say for sure is that each time that person or those people voted, a chill ran up the spine of a collar county elected official–a chill that shook the very freedom of their convictions to property where they want it “fair-share” with the American way.
The whole Potpourri category ended up as kind of a mess, but Open Streets is as good a contender as any to have moved on to the Fabulous Four. There is some untapped synergy here–all streets will be open once the Met Council seizes our lifestyles and collectivizes our communities. You will have to walk (or bike!!) to your job making windmills for Solyndra while sipping a latte in your bumper sticker-covered Volvo.
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CAST YOUR VOTES.
This poll will remain open until 8 PM CST on Tuesday, April 7.
Previous rounds: