This week, streets.mn posted three items about its events and opportunities. First, the streets.mn board has been working on the comment policy and comment moderation to help foster civil, respectful and inclusive discussion. The result of this work is Introducing the streets.mn Comment Policy and a Call for Moderators (CFM) which details the new policy and provides a “job description” for volunteer moderators. On Friday, somewhat related to work to improve our comment section, streets.mn is holding a Women/Trans/Femme Writers Gathering to encourage, support, and inspire any streets.mn WTF readers and writers (check out the post and comments for an eloquent statement of why this is important to streets.mn). Finally, more generally, Writer’s block? Check out an event! is a reminder that streets.mn has a calendar listing events related to our mission which could also be a source of inspiration for your next post (because you, too, could be one of our contributors).
Big discussions
Snelling Plan II: A Lot Of Room For Improvement continues where last week’s A Relatively Good Plan For Snelling From MnDOT & St Paul left off. Walker Angell detailed the good stuff about the proposed bikeway last week, but looks at what could be better this week (as well as highlighting some question marks about the project). Also check out the comments with some input from one of the consulting engineers on this project and additional discussion.
Tony Hunt writes On Skyways And Busways. In light of Eric Dayton’s public and vocal criticism of the skyway system, Tony notes he worries about safety downtown – but not street crime as Dayton does – but being safe on his bike saying “Minneapolis is supposed to be committed to a complete streets program prioritizing pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users but in the most central part of the city we find the infrastructure landscape in fact places cars über alles. And so I am never quite at ease in downtown, never becoming fully engrossed in my surroundings without fear for my well being. The skyways can continue to exist for all I care, their non-existence would contribute nothing to why I would or would not spend more time in downtown.” And continue to the comments for some discussion, perspectives on current projects and initiatives, and more.
Dangerous crossing on Snelling Avenue
Take a walk or ride
Eastern Central: Art, Religion, and Hippy Food is Max Hailperin’s latest walk, taken on a Sunday last November finishing off the Central neighborhood with all the elements listed in the title.
Wolfie Browender is back with another bike ride through Saint Paul with Secrets Within Saint Paul Central. “As regular readers know, I brake for peculiarity, eccentricity, quirkiness, rarity and idiosyncrasy” and this autumn ride passed some Fall gardens (the ride took place in September 2016), before going to school and showing us Saint Paul’s oldest high school, its history (both architecture and people), introduces us to some of the folks who work there, and tells us a few of its stories.
Modern Times Cafe, 3200 Chicago Ave
Quick look
One chart this week with Chart of the Day: Mode Share for Select Cold Weather Cities here and abroad, but also including the Saint Paul Ford site to highlight supposedly unrealistic expectations about that redevelopment and getting people out of their cars.
