Here’s the week on streets.mn. It feels like it’s been a pretty light week for new posts – but the usual mix of current issues, ongoing analysis and some fun – and discussion has been continuing in the comments sections on last week’s post Why Aren’t We Building Affordable Housing Anymore? You can also get geekier and discuss many/most of the ideas on streets.mn in greater detail over on our Forum.
Nice Ride
Streets.mn and Nice Ride Minnesota are collaborating to crowdsource “ideas, advice and recommendations for station locations, system operations and overall system development from the mobility-savvy readers and writers of streets.mn.” You missed the kick-off Happy Hour, but you haven’t yet missed the boat. Seven Things You Need to Know About Nice Ride recaps the presentation at the Happy Hour and provides a good overview of Nice Ride and how it works. In addition to the seven things you need to know, however, there are also seven questions you might be able to help answer by commenting or by writing your own post. Two visual aids for thinking about Nice Rice: Chart of the Day: Nice Ride MN Total Trips by Year and Map Monday: Real Time Nice Ride MN Station Usage.
What do you think?
For fun, What Would a streets.mn Bumper Sticker Say? Add your suggestions in the comments and we’ll see if this moves from thought exercise to any actual bumpers (or bike tubes or transit-users’ backpacks). To spur some real world policy direction, What Do You Want BikeMN’s Priorities To Be For 2016 ? calls for a bolder legislative agenda for Minnesota’s most prominent bike advocacy group to realize a vision where “everyone in Minnesota, regardless of age, gender, or ability, be able to safely, comfortably, and without fear ride bicycles, handcycles, or mobility scooters for all trips of up to 3 miles each way; to school, grocery, pharmacy, brunch, work, dinner, or wherever they would like to go.”
Other interesting ideas
Blue Line vs. Green Line – Ratings and Critiques uses a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) scorecard to rate the Twin Cities’ LRT. Both LRT lines beat out the Red Line which is billed as BRT, but fails to make the grade. Plus, there’s some detail about the LRT’s features like station spacing, bike connections and frequency to learn what raters are looking for.
Getting Rolling on Rail to Eau Claire is from our resident passenger rail geek Mike Hicks. Mike uses last week’s public meetings hosted by the St. Croix Valley Rail Group to consider in detail the plans for a passenger rail link from the Twin Cities to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The corridor was identified in MnDOT’s 2010 State Rail Plan as a link to be built before 2030 as well as in the Wisconsin DOT’s pre-Scott Walker plan.
Metro Green Line
Parking
Parking Meters Will Work for Grand Avenue gets its own heading because parking is such a persistent problem and an issue which can trump bike lanes and other improvements. Mike Sonn writes a sort of love note to Grand Avenue (where a pilot parking meter project has just been approved) and its surrounding neighborhood which strongly supports parking meters as an improvement which won’t drive away business and will also help the congestion problem caused by people circling the area for an elusive parking spot (Mike also wrote about parking on Cleveland Avenue). Comments are supportive and extend the conversation with some good information about the broader parking context, as well as bike and pedestrian improvements which are also needed.
ACE Hardware on Grand Avenue.
Audiovisual department
Video: Midway Murals is a short video produced by the City of Saint Paul Communications Services about the recently finished Midway Murals project.
Highly visual: Form & Function: Four Corners shows us the four corners of Selby Avenue and Dale Street in Saint Paul and the redevelopment which has been taking place there.
Chart and Map: Nice Ride MN Total Trips by Year and Map Monday: Real Time Nice Ride MN Station Usage to help inform about the streets.mn/Nice Ride MN collaboration.
Comic: Roadkill Bill – How Cars Kill the Planet (Science) continues the story.
September will be finished before the next Summary, but the Fall color should be in its full glory. Get out on your particular street and have a great week!