Hello everyone, and hope your Labor Day weekend is going well! If you’re looking for some streets.mn articles over the weekend, take a peek at what’s been published this week:
A commentary on the increased frequency on route 2 was published on Monday. This included a discussion on how despite its jagged route, the route catches a lot of transit markets and has consistently high ridership. There’s also a few suggestions on how to make the route better, and the comments continue that with other thoughts on how to improve transit service in the area.
Posts on diversity also came out on Monday: a map of the Twin Cities Region by racial community type along with a post on how the skyway system links institutions that do not reflect the diversity of our state both published on Monday. The latter post included a strong discussion on the skyway system and further discussion on diversity.
On Tuesday, a travelogue of a bike ride through some St. Paul neighborhoods came through, featuring many interesting sites, street layouts (including some roads that are now private) and other idiosyncrasies of the St. Paul landscape. We were also alerted to opportunities for comment on MnDOT plans currently under review, including the multimodal transportation plan and the greater Minnesota transit investment plan. On Wednesday we also welcomed three new board members to the streets.mn board.
On Thursday, we were met with an interesting new way to help solve the homeless population: rent bonds. The idea is essentially insuring homeless renters as they enter the renter’s market so that even if a renter has a past eviction or some other small offenses they are still able to be taken by renters. A comment mentioned there may be a pilot starting in Minnesota for this type of plan as well. We were also graced with two new charts at the end of the week: one on daily insolation (energy from the sun) that Minnesota gets and one on gentrification vs. business turnover and whether there’s a correlation or not (spoiler alert: it appears the connection is relatively weak.)
Finally, on Friday we were also introduced with a video called “Better Bridges for Stronger Communities.” It discusses the options and potential to improve the I-94 crossings in St. Paul to be friendly to all users, not just cars.
All of these posts are worth a read, but if nothing else take a peek at a few that interest you! Enjoy your Labor Day!