Streets.mn collects some high-level analytics to measure page view and user visiting behavior across the website. I thought it would be interesting to share the top viewed articles of the year and highlight them again. (Thanks to managing editor Amy Gage for providing some background on each story or contributor.)
The Data
This data isn’t perfect and should be taken with a grain of salt. Some users block analytics in their web browsers, which is not counted in the numbers I’m using below. Partway through the year, the analytics platform made an upgrade, which has resulted in the data for the website being stored in multiple places for different parts of the year. I did my best to normalize between the different counts, but it’s still an estimate.
It’s difficult to track how readers come to Streets.mn, but I saw several posts shared and discussed on Reddit, Hacker News and cross-posted to many other sites this year such as Strong Towns (multiple, times!) and Southwest Voices.
Top 10 Articles
- Minnesota Is Not California by Alex Schieferdecker from April 21, 2023 with about 75,000 views. Given that he writes his own blog, Pocket Track, about cities, we are grateful that Alex Schieferdecker continues to write for Streets.mn, too, which he’s been doing since 2014.
- Minnesota Adopts the Safety Stop by Zack Mensinger from August 3, 2023 with about 50,000 views. Once Minnesota legalized the Idaho Stop, or Delaware Pause, we asked year-round cyclist and chair of the Saint Paul Bicycle Coalition Zack Mensinger to weigh in on what it means for cyclists and drivers. In a word: safety.
- Rethinking I-94 West by John Van Heel from July 10, 2023 with about 26,000 views. This article emerged from an ambitious project that Loring Park resident John Van Heel took up as a neighborhood activist — a website, Rethinking I-94 West, devoted to humanizing the freeway as it heads west, cutting through Minneapolis neighborhoods.
- Neighbors Give Thumbs Down to I-94 Expansion by Barb Thoman and Lisa Nelson from November 14, 2023 with about 18,000 views. Two longtime transportation activists in St. Paul wrote about an initiative hosted by Union Park District Council to ask neighbors of the freeway how they would like to modify I-94 as it cuts through the places where they live, work and shop.
- Two posts in Sherry Johnson‘s five-part series, Top 10 Questions for Bicyclists, Part 2: Bicyclists’ Mindsets from September 1, 2023 with about 15,000 views and Top 10 Questions for Bicyclists, Part 4: Sharing the Roadway from September 15, 2023 with about 14,000 views. Sherry Johnson crowdsourced both cyclists and drivers in St. Paul to get at their (mis)perceptions of one another and try to build bridges to understanding. Other articles in the series looked at intersections and separated bikeways.
- The Feasibility of an I-94 Boulevard Conversion by Mary Morse Marti from March 13, 2023 with about 13,000 views. The former executive director of Move Minneapolis and a founder of HOURCAR, Mary Morse Marti carries a lot of credibility in active transportation circles and often can be seen around town on her cargo e-bike.
- Ending Our Obsession With Bike Helmets by Kyle Jones from October 23, 2023 with about 12,000 views. Kyle Jones’ first post for Streets.mn this year was a YouTube video about how to use Evie Carshare. As a car-free cyclist, he wrote about bike helmets to reflect his view that bicycling should be normalized as a form of transportation — and that specialized clothing and gear can work against that.
- ADUs Are Working Great — Just Not for the Twin Cities by Zak Yudhishthu from March 29, 2023 with about 11,000 views. An economics and music major at Macalester College in St. Paul, Zak Yudhishthu has become a recognized housing expert in the Twin Cities and beyond, publishing in Southwest Voices, the Minnesota Reformer and Next City. He also edits The Mac Weekly, the student news site, this academic year.
- Rethinking I-94: The Case for a Twin Cities S-Bahn by Jesse Cook from August 9, 2023 with about 10,000 views. University of Minnesota aerospace engineering student Jesse Cook doesn’t just “reimagine” Interstate 94. He thinks big, toward repurposing the freeway as the spine for a larger regional rail system.
- If We Want a Shift to Walking, We Need to Prioritize Dignity by Sean Hayford Oleary from July 19, 2023 with about 9,000 views. With a master’s in urban planning from the Humphrey School, Sean Hayford Oleary has been writing for Streets.mn since 2013 and more recently has begun serving on the Richfield City Council. He started this post, got busy with other priorities, and we convinced him that it was too good to give up.
As a bonus, we have one older post standing out in our top 15 most viewed pages on the whole site this year, Chart of the Day: Vehicle Weight vs Road Damage Levels by Streets.mn cofounder Bill Lindeke from July 7, 2016, with about 7,000 views.
Please write for us if you want to try to make this list next year!