This week on streets.mn, writers look at recent events (US Bank Stadium’s opening event), upcoming discussions (downzoning in the Wedge), and community engagement by the community; these posts continue conversations on streets.mn and we welcome your posts to keep the discussion going.
Around the Twin Cities
Sam Newberg went to the Chelsea v. AC Milan football (that is, soccer) match and writes U.S. Bank Stadium – A Review which leaves the color commentary about the game to others and tackles how well the facility works. Overall, the stadium is nice, “But the question remains, is that billion dollar view really worth it? I’m not going to begin to answer that here, but no, it’s not. There is just no way to divorce the massive public subsidy and the resulting facility. Sure, the stadium is really nice. Then again, for a billion dollars, we sure as hell better have gotten something this nice.” You can also take a look and see if the review validates earlier discussion of the stadium like the criticism of the pedestrian bridge and two 2013 posts about urbanism and the stadium here and here.
The “Zygi View”
Rider Requests for Better Bus Stops goes to the Harrison neighborhood where “Metro Transit has found some community engagement funding to hire local community members to do “Better Bus Stops” outreach through federal Ladders of Opportunity grant funding.” Janne Flisrand interviews one of the Better Bus Stops team and asks what they’ve learned from the community, but also about how having local community members changes community engagement. There’s a link to a Better Bus Stops survey, too.
Tescil working on a Better Bus Stops survey with Deveon Thao
Image credit: Janne Flisrand
John Edwards’ Time to Hold the Line on Downzoning continues the discussion about density, development and gentrification in Lowry Hill East neighborhood – the Wedge – as a new Lowry Hill East downzoning plan is headed to the Minneapolis Planning Commission in the near future: “I worry about the impact downzoning has, not just on our city’s near-term ability to meet an ever-increasing demand for housing, but on the way my neighborhood looks, and who gets to live here, decades into the future.” See earlier posts including Edwards’ History of Downzoning detailing how the Wedge downzoning began back in the 1970s and Alex Cecchini’s thought experiment What if We Upzoned All of Minneapolis Tomorrow?
Minneapolis Community Planning & Economic Development plan to downzone the transit-rich north Wedge.
Quick links
Links: National Links: Bike Physics, Moving Downtown, and Universal Design is the latest installment of national links from The Direct Transfer.
Chart: Chart of the Day: US Cities by Percent of Population Biking to Work using Census Data; Minneapolis fares quite well.
That’s the week on streets.mn. Join us! streets.mn is a 100% volunteer organization and we’d welcome you as a writer, a member, forum participant or on one of our committees. Have a great week!