Happy New Year! We are still in the holiday lull here at streets.mn with even fewer new posts than last week. Fortunately, there’s much wonderful past content to add to this week’s conversation and I’ve linked a few posts which seemed to fit.
15 things I’ve Learned in 1500 Miles of Stroller Running is a listicle divided between things Evan Roberts learned about running with a stroller (“You can fit a lot of stuff in the bottom of a stroller. Once you’re pushing 50 lbs of stroller and child, why not add 20 lbs of groceries? It’s already going to be slow going up any hills.”) and things learned about the streets (“A lot of intersections have poorly thought out curb ramps, or none at all.”). Running 1500 miles (or running at all) is not required to make use of the lessons about managing kids, strollers, and streets; walking with a stroller works, too.
Get to daycare by bike or stroller
Here’s Your New Year’s Resolution: Go Out and Walk More from Bill Lindeke to help you get walking with or without the stroller:
Who can walk more?
Old people, young people, fat people, thin people, rich people, poor people, lonely people, stressed out people, families, single people, and more kinds of people can all enjoy the benefits of walking more.
Walk slowly or walk quickly, but try it out in 2016, the New Year.
For some additional streets.mn walk-spiration, try walking in Saint Paul with Anne White, or strolling down Main Street with Audrey Kletscher Helbling looking for and at the art along the way, or exploring a London neighborhood with Sam Newberg.
Sneckdowns were in the news last winter (on streets.mn with Snow Lessons and Six Road Design Lessons from a Long Winter), Snarking Violations is Mike Sonn’s new term for another seasonal occurence: “Much like a sneckdown, a “snarking violation” is when one can clearly observe that a vehicle hasn’t been moved and has violated posted parking ordinances.” Beyond calling our attention to snarking problems generally, Mike continues his observations of Grand Avenue and its recently defeated parking meter proposal.
Snarking violations on Grand Avenue
The big post of the week in both length and comments is James Warden‘s Minnesota Needs More Ghost Towns by changing (or eliminating) Minnesota’s Local Government Aid program which “winds up going disproportionately to communities on the decline.” There are some proposals for changing the system and the comment section is particularly rich with questions about alternatives, additional information about taxes and more. The Legislature does not reconvene until March 8, 2016, so state and local elected representatives (and their staffs) should have plenty of time to read and consider the ideas to start a rational, thoughtful discussion. Plus, there’s some room for streets.mn writers to think about how LGA and transportation and land use issues fit together.
LGA in Minnesota: Click photo to view interactive map.
And that’s all for the week. We welcome new writers in the new year to extend topics already covered, add new issues, or lend more and different perspectives. Our mission is to expand the conversation on transportation and land use in Minnesota; new writers and new ideas are needed to pull that off. The board also welcomes ideas and feedback on how we’ve been carrying out that mission or how we might do so going forward; contact us with your ideas. Have a great week to start 2016!