Lyndale Ave is up for reconstruction, and a group of activists have been working for the last few years to make sure it has the best design it can. Let’s listen in on their interview on the Wedge LIVE! podcast.
Wedge LIVE! Shownotes
After years of engagement and political wrangling, Hennepin County and the City of Minneapolis are ready to approve a new design for Lyndale Avenue South between Franklin and Lake. Because the street was last reconstructed in 1934, the road surface and infrastructure underground are long overdue for a replacement. But reconstruction also gives us an opportunity for pedestrian, bike, and transit improvements on a corridor that includes the most dangerous intersection in the state of Minnesota. Julie Johnson, a senior community organizer with Move Minnesota, and Jeremy Winter, a Wedge-based volunteer agitator for “Livable Lyndale,” join me for a conversation about what’s at stake.
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Attributions
This episode comes to us courtesy of the Wedge LIVE! podcast.
Our theme song is Tanz den Dobberstein, used by permission of its creator, Erik Brandt. Find out more about his band, The Urban Hillbilly Quartet, on their website.
This episode was transcribed by Stina Neel.
We’re always looking to feature new voices on the show, so if you have ideas for future episodes, drop us a line at [email protected].
Transcript
[00:00:29] Ian: Welcome to the Streets.mn podcast, the show where we highlight how transportation and land use can make our communities better places. Coming to you from beautiful uptown Minneapolis, Minnesota, I am your host, Ian R. Buck. Did you know that all of the members of our show’s production team have been volunteering with the Livable Lyndale campaign for the last few years?
Well, you would be excused for not knowing that because we’ve never made an episode about it, and we are not going to be rectifying that today because everybody’s second favorite podcast from The Wedge has covered it, and John was gracious enough to let us rebroadcast that episode. So if I may be so bold, “we’re rolling. We’re rolling.”
[00:01:15] Music: This is a real, real, real thing. Real, real, real, real thing. None of you, none of you, none of you have the balls to stop, stop this.
We’re in the Wedge neighborhood right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now
[00:01:50] John: We are back on the Wedge Life podcast. I’m your host, John Edwards. We’re doing a Lyndale Avenue episode. Controversy is swirling once again around a street reconstruction in Minneapolis.
And I am joined today by Julie Johnson, a senior community organizer, uh, with Move Minnesota, and, uh, Jeremy Winter, Wedge resident, interested party, uh, rabble-rouser, agitator, uh, making trouble.
[00:02:22] Jeremy: Too much credit.
[00:02:24] Julie: Not enough credit. Not enough credit.
[00:02:26] John: I, I saw you, uh, chuckling in the front row of a community meeting recently, and you got in trouble with the person running the meeting a little bit.
[00:02:35] Jeremy: Everybody has a way to cope with blatant disinformation and- … wrong facts presented into their faces. For me, it’s laughter. You know, when someone says something so absurd, I, I just can’t help it. But, um, as it turns out, that’s, uh, not a great thing to do often in public because it makes you the bad guy, so I found that out.
[00:02:56] John: Well, I was chuckling the whole time, too. I was just doing it, uh, more discreetly. Although I- WCCO caught me chuckling. They ran video. Of all the video of the meeting they could run- … focused right at me, perfectly lit- … just looking at my phone and laughing at everything I was hearing on the TV news. Okay.
Let, let us get to the topic. What– Julie, what is this debate about? ‘Cause often we’re talking about trees and bikes and parking. From what I understand, the parking is the same based on what, uh, this group of local business owners on Lyndale Avenue called, uh, Vibrant Lyndale, I think is their name. Uh, the case they’re making against this is not parking, can’t be parking-based because the option they prefer has the same amount of parking as the one the county is recommending.
It’s like, what, what are the– what are we fighting over?
[00:03:51] Julie: Yeah. Great question. Historically, over the past three years, it has been a fight over parking. And in a lot of ways, like Move Minnesota, we’ve maintained that this is not an us versus them fight. This is much more of, like, we all want a safe street, vibrant street, for lack of better, better words, um, where, like, small businesses thrive, and people wanna linger and move safely and freely.
And for us, that means we focusing on making sure that there is– we want a dedicated bus lane for the whole length of the corridor. We want a protective curb, protected curb level bike lane the whole length of the corridor. We want AD- exce- ADA accessible sidewalks. We want patio space and green space and all these things.
And the– from what I’ve understood from Vibrant Lyndale is that their biggest priority is parking to date. And in this final design, I know as a fact this, this design, this final design has more parking on it than any other design ever presented by the county. Not just the, the previous final design, any design ever presented, more.
So the, the previous final design with the shared use path, which is what Vibrant Lindale is, is pushing to go back to, um, had 75% of parking retained. This final design has 76% retained, which is one or two parking spaces, right? But still, it is more. So to be honest, we thought that Vibrant Lin- Lyndale would be excited about this design, and that it’s a fa- it’s like a…
It strikes a compromise between all of the competing interests And that just has not been the case.
[00:05:34] John: So what I got out of the meeting that both Jeremy and I were at is, uh… And it was an old-fashioned kinda public meeting where people, uh, get to hold the microphone and say their piece. It’s not one of those ones where everyone’s milling about, having one-on-one conversations with, uh, government staff.
Basically, you get to air your grievances to the whole room. And, uh, it started with a slideshow, and they didn’t mention parking, and I imagine that’s because… Uh, am I correct about that, Jeremy? Did they not mention parking? Because I didn’t-
[00:06:06] Jeremy: They didn’t mention parking until later, but-
[00:06:09] John: Right …
[00:06:09] Jeremy: I have more to say on that.
[00:06:11] John: Yeah, so it was about, uh, basically they don’t like medians. They were like, “Where will the snow go?” And like quibbling with the details of the, the arrangement of certain intersections. It felt like their slideshow highlighted how little there was to be upset about, and yet they are still upset. It feels a little bit like a culture war.
“We wanna stick it to the bike people, and we don’t quite know how to, to, to do it, but we’re just, we’re just mad that a street construction is happening.” That- Yeah … that often is the case with street reconstructions. “We don’t like that it’s happening.”
[00:06:49] Julie: Well, and Jon, I’ll say that historically Vibrant Lyndale has, um, to my understanding, has spread misinformation about whose responsibility it is that the, the street is up for design, redesign in the first place.
Yeah. Um, so we have gotten feedback from people of like, “No, the reconstruction will be really bad for businesses. We don’t want that.” And what’s wrong there is that we have no say whether or not the reconstruction is happening. That is up to the government. What we’re saying is, like “If we have to redo the street, let’s do it right so we disrupt the businesses fewer times.”
Yeah. “Let’s do this right so that it’s less of an issue.” And that misinformation piece is really, really damaging because we’ve had to fight against that because people don’t understand that that is not on us. That is, like, the road is gonna crumble away. So it’s, it’s been an interesting battle.
[00:07:44] John: Yeah. I think it was the last time I talked to you, you blew my mind by telling me that it was like a 90-year-old street.
I had no idea. And then I forgot that. I forgot that you told me, because we have been talking about this for years. I only know you through the Lyndale project. And it feels like I have known you forever because it’s going on for so long.
[00:08:03] Julie: I agree, Jon. I agree.
[00:08:05] Jeremy: 1934, that was last year it was re- it was reconstructed.
[00:08:08] John: Yep. 90-year-old street. It is crumbling. And so the idea that the evil bicycle lobby is forcing us to Dig a trench through, between Wedge and, the Wedge and Whittier just for the sake of some, like, bike and pedestrian safety features. Not true. It is just the silver lining, as long as we’re here, let’s put it back together better than we found it because we have this, like, not even j- I used to say this is a once in a generation opportunity.
W- if we’re only doing it 90 years, uh, we are building a street for the year 2100. Uh, I don’t know what my question is there, Jeremy, but does that jog anything for you? Uh
[00:08:52] Jeremy: Yeah. I think the fundamental question here is why is Vibrant Lyndale so upset, and what do they want, right? Because we were at the presentation.
Do they really have such huge gripes about snow removal? No. No, it … I got the sense, and this is speaking purely for out of my own opinion, my own intuition, um, that they don’t want the bike lane, and they are using j- things like snow removal as a justification to make their case for why the bike lane is bad.
They already don’t like the bike lane, and I think the reason why they don’t like it is because the bike lane is a very convenient culture war scapegoat to aid them in what I think is their real goal, which, to be blunt, is to stop the reconstruction entirely. Why do they wanna stop critical infrastructure improvements, things that we haven’t done in 92 years?
Because, um, and this is just, I mean, this is, I think, somewhat objectively true, it’s in their short-term financial interest. Um, th- there is no plan on the county level to give any sort of business relief, any kind of cash relief to businesses in the time of reconstruction. I think that if we had a program, like that, we would have never had this fight.
Never. Never in the … It, it would have never happened because they don’t really care about the bikes at all. You know, there’s studies that have shown that actually protected bikeways are good for business because cyclists have a easy time just randomly stopping when they see a business that’s cool. It’s very easy to do.
It’s a lot harder to do that when you’re driving a car. No, no. Andrea Corbin and the others don’t really care, I think, about the bikeway. They don’t care about the street design at all. If they did, why then did they care so much about getting people gassed up about, um, the Livable Lyndale plan to put bus lanes all the way on the corridor even though that plan isn’t being considered by the county at all?
Why … Did you notice that? They did that in the Hill and Lake Press too. I d- I, I-
[00:10:54] John: Are they, are they complaining about the bus lanes still?
[00:10:57] Jeremy: Yeah, yeah. And I don’t know. I- I couldn’t tell you that the Hill and Lake Press and Vibrant Lyndale are, you know, aligned on this, but the Hill and Lake Press ran an article, uh, about a month or so ago that s- said that Hennepin County is going to be putting full-length bus lanes on Lyndale Avenue and removing the parking, which is blatant misinformation, right?
And I, at the meeting we were at on Monday, Andrea Corbin said, “Look at this horrible plan to remove all the parking. We need to call the mayor and stop this plan.” But do you notice the sleight of hand there? She’s talking about a plan that isn’t even being considered, right? Mm-hmm. Because it’s useful. It’s useful to get people mad.
[00:11:44] John: Well, the plan they have explicitly endorsed, as we have said, has less parking than the plan that’s being recommended by the county. Right. So it can’t be about parking.
[00:11:51] Jeremy: It’s not.
[00:11:51] John: And I think they know this. Andrea Corbin knows this, but it, I mean, it doesn’t get you, it doesn’t get your juices flowing if you can’t- No
if you can’t tell a business owner that parking is at stake, then what do they, what is gonna motivate them to get involved and complain to the mayor and complain to the council members, uh, to try to- That’s right … agitate against it? Is it realistic that this could be derailed by a mayoral veto?
[00:12:18] Julie: So that’s a great question.
I have wondered the same thing, and I’ve called the mayor’s office a couple times ’cause I worry that if we get it through city council that the mayor will, will block it The short answer is that we’re not sure what he’s gonna do. Um, I’ve had two conversations with one of his aides, and his aide said that it is incredibly unlikely that he would veto this because the mayor’s office wants this to get done.
They want this to be wrapped up, and if both the county and the city council have approved of this design- Right … it’s not in his best interest to vote it down. Yeah.
[00:12:57] John: Yeah.
[00:12:57] Julie: Um, and I, I did e- everything except ex- I, no, I guess I explicitly asked the aide if, um… I said, “You know, look, I don’t want Mayor Frey to block something on this redesign like he blocked the timing of the bus lanes for Hennepin a couple years ago.
What is he thinking? How can we, like, help him understand what the best route is here? How can we, like, get in his ear about that? What’s… Is that a high risk?” And he said that that is, uh, fundamentally a different situation, um, than this one in that that was an operational discussion, which is ver- highly unusual that it went to city council.
And in this case, um, it’s a design and it’s a county road. So I have hope that he is not gonna veto it, but I am not banking on that.
[00:13:51] John: I don’t know, as you say, I don’t know what the upside is. What… I don’t even know really what the compelling argument, ’cause it would be a remarkable thing for him to go against both the county and the city council and be like the guy standing alone saying, “Let’s stop this.”
And so you would need a compelling argument, and if you can’t say, “I’m doing this over X number of parking spots,” are you gonna say, “I vetoed this because I have questions about the snow storage”? I don’t think so. That doesn’t feel like much to stand on and would make him look kinda silly.
[00:14:25] Julie: Well, especially ’cause I trust that transportation engineers know where the snow is gonna go. That is not my problem.
[00:14:32] John: Right.
[00:14:33] Julie: Like, when, when a street design is presented, I assume that all designs presented have a plan for snow storage. So I find it a very confusing argument because that, why is that- Relevant in this moment. That’s not our job. That is-
[00:14:48] John: That i- that is a very planning commission, I, I have seen my share of planning commission arguments over the year, and people will often, when it’s like, a, a housing development, they’ll go like, “I don’t like this housing development for this, that, and this other reason, and also, where is the snow gonna go?”
It’s like a kitchen sink, NIMBY thing that people do. Where’s the snow gonna d- go? This is Minnesota, and you have no plan to get rid of the snow. M- well, it turns out, y- we do have plans for how to get rid of the snow. Where is the snow? It’ll be okay.
[00:15:21] Jeremy: Do you want me to tell you my personal favorite moment from the meeting?
Um, it was when we were talking about the shared use path. We haven’t even touched on that. So last year, Hennepin County put forth a plan that would have had a shared use path, uh, on the side of, I think the east side of Lyndale Avenue, where the sidewalk currently is. Si- shared use path basically being a t- 12-foot wide sidewalk, but importantly, one where pedestrian and bicycle traffic are mixed together.
Now, I ride on shared use paths all the time because I commute to my job in Eden Prairie from the Wedge, and shared use paths make a lot of sense in suburban roads like Eden Prairie, where there just isn’t a lot of pedestrian or bicycle traffic, right? It’s fine. Gives you enough room to pass when people are there, but usually they’re not there.
But they really don’t make sense for close, dense commercial corridors like Lyndale Avenue in the Wedge, right? So luckily, the county came to their senses after a year of us badgering them, um, among many comments against the shared use path on their, uh, comment map, and they changed it to a protected bike way.
But in order to sort of launder their cause, um, Vibrant Lyndale has gone and been saying, “Actually, the shared use path was so great. You know, it was so, it was so good. It, you know, it was nice. It would’ve…” And when asked, like, “Why is the shared use path better?” They said, “Well, you know, it would, it would slow down cyclists, right?”
Um, because re- remember, it’s screwing over people on bicycles is very important for their culture war argument, right? ‘Cause-
[00:16:51] John: Screwing over pedestrians too. Right? No, no one would do well there. You don’t wanna make a bunch of pedestrian speed bumps. I mean-
[00:16:58] Jeremy: Yeah. Who, who wants to have bicycles zipping right next to you all the time?
That sounds terrible. But whe- when asked about this, the owner of World Street Kitchen said, “Sharing is caring.” That cracked me up. The, I don’t, I don’t think it works like that.
[00:17:14] John: Sharing is caring. That’s maybe why the mayor won’t be to it, because, uh, I don’t think his own pu- if Mayor Frey consults his own public works department They’re not gonna tell him, “Yeah, go back to the, the shared use path.”
I don’t think they … I think they thought that was a joke. No. I don’t know who was behind the shared use path. I don’t, I don’t understand why that was ever an idea. Uh, let’s get into some of the arguments. People have been talking about the median on Hennepin Avenue as the reason that Uptown is dead now.
It’s the, it’s the new thing that is killing Uptown, is the median. People can’t take left turns into parking lots, and a couple of businesses with giant parking lots have closed, The Lowry and Red Cow. And I am very skeptical that the median has been what le- there are some other circumstances, uh, that perhaps that have caused those businesses to close.
What is the answer to the median concerns? Because I think you can maybe just park and cross the street and go to the business, ’cause there’s plenty of street parking in the neighborhood. Maybe you can round the block. Like, what do we say to businesses who are super concerned about medians?
[00:18:26] Jeremy: I mean, yeah, all the things you said.
It’s not too hard to park and walk one or two blocks. It’s not too hard to take a left a bit early and go around a little bit. I think that the median is another convenient, um, way to s- say, “Hey, look, correlation equals causation”. They added a median and Red Cow closed down, therefore the median caused Red Cow to close down.
They added a bike lane and The Lowry closed down, therefore the bike lane caused The Lowry to clo- close down.” You know, a lot of what we heard at that meeting on Monday was people talking about how vital local businesses are in, to the vibrancy of, of Uptown. And I think that’s true, you know? The thing is that underneath a lot of this, they’re, they have a point in that y- businesses closing down isn’t good, of course.
And in my opinion, really the county or, or state or something should have a fund to help businesses survive road closures, you know, in times of struggle. I think the road closure on Hennepin certainly didn’t help The Lowry or help Red Cow, right? Um, but what the way that … Because that money is not happening, it’s not coming, I think that people need some kind of thing to blame, right?
And it’s very easy to blame medians, to blame bike lanes. Um, the owner of World Street Kitchen at that meeting went on record and said that the median, um, made the s- will make the street less safe, which is actually the comment I laughed at that got me in trouble. Oh. Um, because the inability to, uh, turn left into oncoming traffic, um, yeah, I, I guess that’s an important safety feature, being able to turn left into oncoming traffic randomly at any point on the road.
[00:20:12] John: One of the cliches of traffic in Minneapolis is people left turning into the Wedge Co-op on Lyndale Avenue, which is like several blocks from- Yeah … from, uh, World Street Kitchen. Uh, Julie, why, why is it bad that maniacs are doing, uh, left turns on Lyndale Avenue? What, why, why are medians good? Why do we need them?
[00:20:38] Julie: I think in general, safety of all modes is really critical. At intersections, left turns can cause, um A really unsafe situation for pedestrians as they cross and bicyclists as they cross because people aren’t… They’re crossing through those modes as you’re turning left. Um, mid-block it’s even more pronounced in that, just to Jeremy’s point, you’re, you’re cutting across traffic, and the real, the, the problem for me is that if it’s…
Yeah, it’s safer to have a median on the road, and the consequence of that is that you have to maybe work a little bit harder to find a place to park your car. Maybe it’ll be a quarter of a block farther away. Um, and for folks who are able-bodied, that is not a big deal. That should not be a big deal. For folks who are not able-bodied, that is what ADA parking is for.
Um, and so take this as an example. Um, when people go to the Mall of America, they drive their car to the Mall of America, they park in the lot, they walk literally a mile into the store, and they have no complaints about that. There’s no issue. And then you take them to Lyndale and you say, “Can you park on the side street or on the parking spot on Lyndale, a quarter of a block away from your destination?
Or you have to turn left a little bit early and plan slightly ahead to park on a, close to it in a different way.” How is that an issue that we’re worried about in comparison to people’s lives?
[00:22:16] John: Al- also, uh, so the whole thing that kicked off the Lyndale protest movement in, was it 2019? Yeah. Julie, do you know? 2019?
[00:22:28] Julie: I believe it was 2019.
[00:22:29] John: Was a man getting out of either a friend’s car or, like, a ride share, maybe an Uber or a Lyft. He crossed the street at, like, tw- the 20… It was near 26th and Lyndale, and he was killed. Like, he got out of a car and my point here would be, like, I don’t think most drivers who are familiar with the area even want to park on Lyndale Avenue.
I don’t think that’s an attractive place t- to park right now, and one of the things that’s gonna be fixed, like- Yeah … this is gonna… The street is gonna be safer for everyone. That’s not a, that’s not a talking point to, like, make the medicine go down better. That’s a reality. The sa- safer street is for people who become pedestrians as soon as they exit their vehicle, and maybe when they’re parking on Lyndale in the future their car will not be smashed up from some rear-end collision caused by a left-turning driver in the swirling chaos of Lyndale Avenue.
[00:23:30] Julie: I do not wanna park on Lyndale. I don’t want my rear view mirror ripped off. And I mean, I’m not a purist. I drive sometimes. I know it’s shocking. But I also bike, and bus, and walk a lot.
[00:23:40] John: Why doesn’t your shirt have driving on it? It has walking, biking, public transit. It doesn’t have driving.
[00:23:46] Julie: I mean, no, but on the off chance I’m driving by Lyndale, I, I’m not parking on Lyndale.
There’s no way. It’s terrifying. I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna get out of my car on Lyndale. I don’t wanna park on Lyndale. I don’t wanna try and figure out how to park with traffic coming in that fast behind me.
[00:24:03] John: Right.
[00:24:04] Julie: It’s not good for anyone. I don’t, I don’t understand why Why there’s pushback from a couple of the businesses
[00:24:12] John: I, I don’t know if we’re emphasizing enough for people how bad Lyndale i- I
Maybe I’m, we’re jaded. Maybe Jeremy and I as Wedge residents- Oh … are very jaded. Oh,
[00:24:20] Jeremy: no. It’s certainly not great for biking. Um, but all of the people will tell you, “Just bike on Bryant.” Can I talk about that a bit, a bit, John?
[00:24:28] John: Yes, that was gonna be my next question. I, I
have something- Why not just be happy with Bryant Avenue, Jeremy?
Why do you need bike lanes on literally all of the streets for 1 1/2% of the population? A measly little percent of the population. We’re terraforming Minneapolis to satisfy
[00:24:47] Jeremy: I don’t kn- I don’t know where they got that 3%, only 3% of people bicycle in Minneapolis stat, because in 2018 the city did a, uh, you know, survey of, of people about their transportation modes.
And I believe, if I remember correctly, I think it was about, like, 15% said that they would, you know, bike or sometimes take, like, motorcycles, things like that. They l- it was a kinda weird grouping, but that, uh, 36% wanted to bike more. So, you know, I think that 3% might have just been, like, commuting stats or something.
I think so. But- Yeah … um, but let’s talk about Bryant Avenue, okay? Why, why not just have everyone bike on Bryant? The answer is, is that there’s a few reasons. First of all, it’s very easy to conflate Bryant Avenue south of Lake Street with Bryant Avenue north of Lake Street. You hear this a lot, “There’s already a bikeway on Bryant Avenue.”
Not the same part of Bryant Avenue. Not the same part. The part north and south are very different because the part south of Lake Street used to have a streetcar on it. It’s significantly wider than the part north of Lake Street, and the city has said basically that they don’t plan on putting anything north of Lake Street, the big reason being that they don’t have room for it.
You could not fit a protected bikeway and have on-street parking on both sides of the street the way it currently is. Now, they’ll, the people will say, who don’t like the idea of a bike lane on Lyndale, will say, “But Bryant Avenue is a bike boulevard.” What does that mean? Yeah. What is a bike boulevard?
Paint. It means paint. In the case of … It means paint. In the case of Bryant Avenue, it means a couple of speed bumps. It doesn’t even mean stop signs at 26th and 28th. I think they used to have the stop sign on 26th Street, but I don’t think that’s currently there. Is it, John?
[00:26:25] John: 26th Street? No.
[00:26:27] Jeremy: No, it’s not. It was there last year, and they got rid of it.
Right. So I guess it’s a great, great street to bike on because it has speed bumps. If that was all it took to have a street that was good for biking, I, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be here right now. Mm-hmm. But that’s not good enough, okay? Yeah. Having a actual protected bikeway where you’re not biking in car traffic Is huge.
Not only does it mean at intersections like 26th and 28th there would be stoplights to make sure that’s very clear who gets to go when and where, but also you wouldn’t have to worry about cars pulling out from parking into you. You wouldn’t have to, um, y- you would be able to bike immediately to your businesses that you want to go to.
There’s this idea that cyclists are these, you know, very poor people. They only are biking because they can’t afford a car, and therefore they don’t have the money to afford to shop at local businesses on Lyndale. Only people driving in from Edina do that. Clearly, no one in Minneapolis has any money. And yet in the same breath, you hear people, like for instance, the owner of the CC Club, talking at that meeting about how gentrified Uptown is.
People in their big five over ones. These really bougie people, you know, so fancy that they’re not ri- you know, um, th- w- it’s, it’s very contradictory, right? And-
[00:27:43] John: Uh, I’m gonna read the quote from the CC Club owner. Uh, here it is, uh, word for word. “The problem is all the kids on the bikes are gone. They can’t afford the area anymore, and the people that still ride bikes, the crime’s so bad the bikes are all stolen.
This bike thing is an absolute joke, and I’m a bike rider, a stationary bike rider.” It’s great So, so he starts with the, uh, gentrification has gotten so bad all the bike people left, and then he moves on to the crime is so bad all the bikes got stolen. It’s, it’s kinda contradictory. But it- Which is it? … it was hilarious.
That, that guy is so, uh, funny. We should treasure him.
[00:28:23] Jeremy: It’s crazy. It, it, it just shows a disrespect for the residents of Uptown. I live here in the Wedge, and do I not matter? Do I … Is it implied that only people from Edina drive in here to, to go to businesses? I think that is a self own on the part of Andrea Corbin.
If your business only has people coming from Edina, maybe you should be in Edina, okay? Because there’s a lot of businesses on Lyndale Avenue that get people who live on Lyndale Avenue to go to them. Maybe yours isn’t one of them.
[00:28:54] John: You, you’re gonna get us in trouble. We’re gonna have a rivalry with the Hill and Lake Press podcast.
I assume they have a podcast because you told people, you told businesses to leave the city. That’s not a … We shouldn’t be saying that, Jeremy. Uh, Julie- Again, just, just
[00:29:06] Jeremy: my opinion.
[00:29:08] John: Can you address, there was somebody who brought up a point about bikers in Whittier. Like, Bryant Avenue, which we have established is not infrastructure at all.
It’s like a cultural construct. Yes. It is a bike route in that people bike it, and because there are a lot of people biking, it creates safety. But there is no infrastructure to speak of in a significant degree on Bryant Avenue north of Lake. For people in Whittier, Bryant Avenue is not really a solution for them, right?
[00:29:38] Jeremy: Yes. I, I, I wanna mention that and talk about the Whittier Safe Routes to School project. So first of all, as you said, why does Bryant Avenue currently have the most bike traffic? The answer is because it’s where you get funneled into. If you’re getting off the Greenway, if you’re getting off Bryant Avenue south of Lake Street, or if you’re getting off of the Wave Bridge, you just happen to end up at Bryant Avenue.
That’s the only reason people bike on it. It’s not because it’s super special and safe. It’s just ’cause it’s where you’re at. And what happens if you’re not there? There was one comment at the meeting about, “Oh, th- they’re doing this two-way bike lane on 28th Street. How horrible when people can just bike on 29th Street,” the, the commenter said.
W- I assume that she meant the Midtown Greenway, because 29th Street doesn’t have a, a bike lane at all and also is privately owned in some sections. Um, and so yeah, what are people east of- of Lyndale Avenue supposed to do? Uh, well, the answer is bike on, you know, Garfield or Harriet, which are, again, even less safe than Bryant Avenue is.
Um, but also the idea that people in Whittier, oh, should just be taking the Midtown Greenway. You know, well, tell me, tell me, if you, if you can’t bike on 28th Street East West and you want to get to school because you go to the Whittier School, how are you supposed to get there? Um, the, there’s no exit on Lyndale Avenue.
You can’t just exit onto Lyndale Avenue. You have to exit onto Bryant Avenue, and then you’d have to cross Lyndale in order to get to your school, right? Um, so people in Whittier, if they don’t have s- a 28th Street East West bikeway, they just won’t have an option at all to get to anywhere within the neighborhood that they want to go.
And clearly the people who expect people to cross Lyndale, go to Bryant, bike up Bryant, and then cross Lyndale back again to go to their destination are extremely out of touch with the realities of getting around by bike.
[00:31:31] John: Right. That’s my favorite, uh, complaint about bike lanes is people thinking the Midtown Greenway will take you anywhere.
Like it’s a magic portal to anywhere in the city. You’re going to Northeast? Why don’t you take the Midtown Greenway? Uh. Oh my God. Like why do you need so many bike lanes? We already have the Greenway and it goes literally everywhere.
[00:31:52] Julie: I think the, the argument that Jeremy made is the same one that I find when talking with the county design team and talking to people who are, you know, against bike lanes.
Those are two separate groups obviously. The county has put a bike lane on some of the corridor, but we’ve pushed back on even this final design that the bike lane ends at 28th Street so it’s just Franklin to 28th instead of Franklin to 31st And my argument there is similar where it’s like, okay, imagine I’m on my bike and I’m heading towards Lake Street on Lyndale, and I hit 28th Street, the bike lane stops.
I can physically see my destination, and you don’t think I’m just gonna gun it?
[00:32:42] Jeremy: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:42] Julie: Who, who is gonna go up to Bryant and all the way around, adding 15 minutes to their commute when you can see your destination?
[00:32:50] Jeremy: Mm.
[00:32:50] Julie: And not to mention, that’s the most dangerous intersection for pedestrians in the entire city, so you’re setting people up for a disaster situation.
Um-
[00:33:00] Jeremy: Mm-hmm …
[00:33:01] Julie: so that’s a reason to extend it even more, but it’s a simul- similar argument of like- Are- … it’s just not realistic.
[00:33:08] John: Uh, Julie, are there other ways in which the bicycle lobby is not getting everything on their wish list? Uh,
[00:33:15] Julie: I don’t know about the bicycle lobby, but I do know about the, the Lyndale group.
Okay. Um, we are… Yeah, that is one of the things we’re, that we, the final design does not represent. Another thing is that we have been pushing for a dedicated bus lane for the entire stretch of the corridor. Right now, um, this final design only has, uh, the first two blocks after Franklin, the mo- the northernmost two blocks on the corridor are, have a dedicated bus lane, which is awesome because that will help with the, like that highway transition and getting people off of that…
It’s like a funnel of congestion. So that’s great, but we needed way more bus lanes. Um, the only other bus lane-related infrastructure that this design shows is the future transit-ready lane from 28th to 31st Street, which I didn’t know what that meant. Would, like, ’cause that could mean so many different things, but I now know what that means is that it is a 12-foot wide parking lane.
So for those, for folks who don’t know widths of lanes, a parking lane is typically like seven or eight feet, and a bus lane is 12 feet. So if you’re, if there’s a parking lane that’s 12 feet wide, imagine like an extra half of a vehicle being able to fit in your parking space. It’s very odd. Um, however, there’s talk of maybe like preparing for that to be a dedicated bus lane when, um, Lyndale is slated for BRT in the mid 2030s.
We want it to be a bus lane on day one. So if you, if you can’t get a bus lane on the entire stretch of the corridor, which I still think is the way to go, um, then why isn’t this a bus lane on day one? You’ve already recognized that it would be a good place for a bus lane. Like, why aren’t you putting your money where your mouth is?
Why isn’t it a bus lane now? Um, and then a third big critique that we have is, um, just around pedestrian safety at the Lyn Lake intersection. Um- And just like, because again, that is the most dangerous intersection for pedestrians in the entire state. Um, so we would love to see things like a pedestrian scramble or, um, Jeremy, what are some, some of the other ideas that our team has come up with?
[00:35:38] Jeremy: Um, yeah, pedestrian scrambles, you know, bump-outs at intersections, things like that.
[00:35:43] Julie: Yeah.
[00:35:44] John: Hmm. So how do we measure that is the most dangerous intersection in the state of Minnesota? I will believe it because I live here and frequently walk it, and, like, the, the times when I have most feared for my life has been crossing that.
Like, people are coming out, at you from unexpected directions, doing the dreaded left turn- Mm … who apparently just cannot see you, even if you’re a six-and-a-half-foot tall, uh, uh, human being. Like, it feels like it’s the most dangerous in Minnesota, but how do we measure that?
[00:36:19] Julie: I believe it has the most pedestrian fatalities.
[00:36:22] John: Okay. That’s a good way to measure how dangerous an intersection is. So Julie, what are we asking people to do to make sure this happens? Is it defending against the mayoral veto, emailing their city council member- Yeah … contacting the mayor? We should be clear, this is a county project, and so they, their Public Works Department has recommended something.
And, uh, Marion Greene expressed skepticism about whether city approval is strictly necessary. That’s how I interpreted her comments at this meeting that Jeremy and I were at. Uh, but I, I don’t know. It still would be good to get the, the city’s approval. What are we asking people to do?
[00:37:06] Julie: So that is kind of evolving actively right now.
We’re trying to get to the bottom of how much weight the city council vote will hold, um, the political will of any possible edits of the design, um, the likelihood that the mayor may or may not veto. Um, I think the most important things that people can do to support Livable Indal is to contact their city council member and the mayor and express your support of this design, and express that you think that bike infrastructure and bus infrastructure should be centered in street design, because that is the future of street design.
That is, you know, centering the, the needs of people who are walking, rolling, biking, taking transit is critical, and pushing your elected officials to, like, back that up. Um, another helpful k- piece will be to, um, pay attention to Move Minnesota action alerts. We’re gonna try and, there might be some opportunities to pack the room.
Um, we might have some o- some opportunities of specific letters or petitions to sign as we come in the next coming weeks. It’ll be pretty rapid fire. If you don’t know how to get on that list, you can email me. Just [email protected], um, and I will make sure that we get you plugged in. But, um- communicating with the mayor and communicating with your city council member.
And, um, I also think it’s important to note that Marion Greene stood up for the design-
[00:38:46] John: Mm …
[00:38:47] Julie: and, um, has put a lot of work into this, and takes, um, community feedback really seriously. So, you know, it’s always nice for, it’s good for her to hear from you as well
[00:38:58] John: Yeah, don’t, don’t leave Marion Greene hanging. Uh, she is the one going to public meetings and, uh, receiving, uh, southos from- Yeah
the opposition. She should hear- Very different. Yeah … uh, you tell her, “Good, good job. We like that you are supporting this.”
[00:39:16] Julie: Exactly.
[00:39:16] Jeremy: She came to the meeting, uh, to Andrea Corbin’s meeting, and was the only person who corrected various pieces of misinformation said about the plan. And when she was pressed and said, “Do you support the plan?”
She stood her ground and said, “Yes. Yes, I do.” And I think she deserves a lot of credit for that. Andrea made a comment, uh, to the tune of, “The people who want this bike lane are door-knocking for you.” Um, and my interpretation, again, my, my interpretation of that comment was, again, to basically rally Andrea Corbin’s base against Marion Greene.
[00:39:47] John: Yes.
[00:39:48] Jeremy: Um-
[00:39:48] John: It was a political event. Uh-
[00:39:50] Jeremy: It was a political event, yeah, yeah.
[00:39:52] John: Uh, because, uh, uh, one of Marion Greene’s opponents, who I believe Andrea Corbin is probably supporting, was sitting right in the front row right in front of Marion the whole time. Uh, I often- We should talk about
[00:40:04] Jeremy: the politic- yeah …
[00:40:05] John: I often think back to the fight over the 4-to-3 conversion.
I was one of the skeptics in that I was like, “They’re never going to give us this.” I always thought the 4-to-3 conversion was correct. But I can remember the politics going back that far and thinking, “I really admire the very idealistic people who are demanding this, but they’re never gonna give this to us.”
And everyone was saying, “It’s not gonna work. You people are crazy. The traffic volumes on this street won’t h- won’t be able to handle a 4-to-3 conversion.” And I live, uh, close to one of these new median crossings, and now I can cross the street multiple times a day sometimes on 25th and 27th Street, uh, because…
And people make fun of the, the flasher buttons, but they’re totally necessary because drivers will, will absolutely not stop. And it’s creating a culture of being able to cross Lyndale at 25th and 27th that did not exist before. People can cross- Mm … the street. And the more people you have crossing the street, the more people see it and they’re like, “Oh, hey, I should cross the street there sometime.”
I, I used to cross at 26, I used to go out of my way multiple blocks just to get to a street with a light. Now I can cross at every intersection on Lyndale Avenue. What a wonderful change. And I’m thinking to people who are maybe a little bit skeptical of this reconstruction, uh, let’s build something for the future.
Let’s, uh- Mm … let’s believe that, that we can, uh, give ourselves a better street. Totally. Because it, it will work.
[00:41:43] Julie: Something I think about often is that with the 4-to-3 conversion, the business community on Lyndale was very against it, and now they are all huge fans Once they saw what it did, huge fans.
[00:41:58] Jeremy: Mm-hmm.
[00:41:59] Julie: Um, and I think that’s gonna happen again
[00:42:03] Jeremy: I think so. I think so. I wanna make another appeal to your listeners, to your viewers, John, uh, and this is about the argument of why do you even need a bikeway? I heard multiple people at that meeting say, “I can bike on any street in, in the Wedge.” Yes. You know? “I’m, I’m a talented– I’m an avid, even, cyclist.
Why should I need a bikeway?” ‘Cause I know, I
[00:42:24] John: know what I’m doing. I know what I’m doing, Jeremy. I’m like, yeah. If you knew what you were doing, you could bike in the street.
[00:42:29] Jeremy: Right, right, and I think that argument is incredibly selfish. What about the children who live in Uptown? You know? There are families here.
There are young kids. Do you want them biking in the street with car traffic? That is how children get run over. I think that if we care about people who maybe are a little less, you know, skilled at cycling than us, I, we, we would be a more empathetic world, and maybe we could have nice things, you know? I, I’m not the most avid cyclist.
I don’t, I don’t feel comfortable a lot of the times biking in the street, you know? Is, is that a skill issue? Maybe, but I think people like me who, who maybe aren’t, you know, s- super comfortable always navigating busy streets on bicycles should have options. I, you know?
[00:43:14] John: It makes me wonder, has this … It w- you’re, we’re speaking of the owner of the Leaning Tower.
That’s the person who said, uh, like, “I know what I’m doing.” Like- Mm-hmm … “We don’t need bike lanes on every street. I know what I’m doing. I can bike in the street.” I guess he never biked in a group. Like- Yeah … one of the great things about group rides in Minneapolis is that you will see lots of different kinds of people- Hmm
who like to bike. Uh, people bring their families and their children, and some people are new to biking, and they feel safer because it’s a big old group. But a lot of people in those rides, like, are not used to, uh, being in the street, and they’re able to do it because of the group. But sometimes they’re biking alone, and they won’t, they won’t have friends with them.
I’m thinking, like, do you not have friends or family who you would like to see be able to bike too, who maybe are not as confident, uh, in traffic?
[00:44:06] Jeremy: It’s not the way they see it. They see cyclists as this horrible, you know, group that deserves to be punished. Oh, those cyclists, they don’t deserve nice things.
They’re degenerates. And also, there’s none of them because it’s so terrible to bicycle in Minneapolis, no one would ever do it. But there’s this, there’s a circular logic there of Minneapolis sucks to cycle, so no one will cy- so nobody cycles. Um, but, but we can’t make it any better because why would we even try to make it better because nobody bicycles, so there’s no point trying to make it better.
[00:44:33] John: It’s very defeating. Yeah, there was a similar line of argument about transit.
[00:44:38] Jeremy: Hmm.
[00:44:38] John: Like, we can’t build better transit infrastructure on Lyndale because our transit just isn’t in a place where people want to ride it ’cause it’s not good enough. It’s like, like, transit isn’t good enough, therefore don’t do this project that will make it better.
That doesn’t make- Hmm … any sense when you think about it.
[00:44:55] Jeremy: I think the comment was, “Get the buses full and then think about improving transit.” Right. That’s how you get the buses full.
[00:45:01] John: Yes. Yeah.
[00:45:02] Julie: I think about… Well, I’m kinda switching gears a little bit, but the city and the county both have policies in place that they are supposed to be prioritizing bus, bike, and walking and, and rolling infrastructure over cars, and they’re actively going ag- It, it shouldn’t have been this difficult to get this far in this design.
Advocates have been pushing for this for years. We have gotten thousands of petitions. We’ve sent thousands of postcards. We have, we’ve done four rallies combining 350 attendees. We have hundreds and hundreds of pictures. We’ve had dozens of meetings with elected officials, all to get a compromise. That is, that is not the future of street design.
Like, this design was not taken far enough, and it does not represent what the community had been pushing for for the past three years. There’s a ton about this design that’s awesome, and there’s a lot that needs work. But at the end of the day, what’s frustrating to me is that it goes against explicit policies that both the county and the city have laid out, and that’s perplexing.
[00:46:10] John: I was so heavily involved in the Hennepin Avenue thing, which, uh, is like- Pre-twen– it, like, spanned the pre-COVID era and then a couple years after, and it felt endless. And Lyndale has turned into another endless battle. One of the things I th- the reason I thought Hennepin was so important is because it was, like, a precedent.
Like, we, it’s the first, like, post, uh, transportation action plan street that the city was reconstructing. So, like, we have to get it right, ’cause if we set a precedent of, like, ignoring the transportation action plan, then it’s just gonna become routine. Like, these are just recommendations, nice things to have, but you don’t really need to follow the policy.
How long has this Lyndale thing been going on for now? There was a point where I thought, “Well, the county seems to be moving through this pretty quick. I’m impressed.” And it has turned into another long slog.
[00:47:07] Julie: Started pub- we’ve started working on it in January of 2023. Publicly, the process started that spring, so spring of 2023, and at that point they thought that, or they had, they had said that the construction, the, like, the shovels will happen in 2026, which is now.
And then a, about a year and a half ago, I wanna say, they pushed it back to 2027, which was a complication for us. Jeremy, I don’t know if you remember that, but it was like, “Oh, wow, we’re signing up for another year of advocating for this.” And we won’t stop. This, this group of people, it has been, like, a highlight of my career to work with this Livable Lyndale team.
They are the most passionate and, like, driven, hardcore activists. It’s awesome. So if anyone can handle it, it’s this group. But then again in March, they pushed back the design to 2028 construction. The, the benefit of that though in this, this time when we got that news, is that the 30% design mark will be hopefully, like, cooked fully by this summer if everything goes well.
And then our job is, for the most part, complete. Because once the 30% design has been locked in, that is where, like, the curbs are and the designation of different modes, and so after that it’s a lot more engineering stuff. But from, for the whole project in total, from when it launched to when the construction’s happening, is, like, five years now or more.
[00:48:44] John: Uh, and I believe the first business to blame their closure on the Lyndale Avenue reconstruction was, like, 2023. Fire and Nice, when they closed, they’re like, “Got this reconstruction coming up. Uh, we’re gonna call it quits.” And I feel like dragging it out just creates a sense of dread in the business community, which I think is maybe a drag on, uh, new businesses opening.
If they think in 2023 that it’s coming up in a couple of years, maybe businesses don’t open, and then it ends up being delayed until 2028.
[00:49:20] Julie: Completely. And, like, we wanna protect our small businesses. We l- that’s why we are pushing for a, a design that we are, is ’cause we love the small businesses. We wanna patronize them more.
We wanna spend more time on Lyndale safely, and it’s, it’s a challenge when, like, inherently reconstruction is hard for businesses. So that’s where That misinformation tactic is really damaging because we are, we could not be more pro-small business. We love small businesses. However, we’re being pinned as the reason this reconstruction is happening.
That couldn’t be farther from the truth, so.
[00:49:58] Jeremy: Hmm.
[00:49:59] John: Yeah.
[00:49:59] Jeremy: Yeah. I wanna reiterate that I think in the long run, having a separated bikeway on Lyndale Avenue will be good for businesses. Cyclists aren’t all broke. Many of them have money and buy things. People in Minneapolis have money and buy things. When you said earlier that you were going to cross Lyndale Avenue, I was like, “To do what?
G- go to Bob’s Java Hut? No, you don’t do that. Only people from Edina go to Bob’s Java Hut, John.”
[00:50:25] John: I could only-
[00:50:25] Jeremy: Yeah,
[00:50:25] John: right … listen, uh, I am not one of these, uh, mega millionaire, uh, uh, pedestrians like Jeremy Winter. I basically- Oh … crossed Lyndale to go to Aldi, the, the discount grocer. That’s, that is what I’m buying.
I’m shopping in the middle aisle. Uh- Aldi aisle … that’s what I’m doing. Yeah.
[00:50:45] Jeremy: Th- that’s still a business. Only people from Edina go to Aldi, John. I will die on this hill. But no, no, no, I, I, it’s, it’s, I think the, the problem here, again, is the short term, right? In the short term, local businesses are going to suffer from a street reconstruction.
That’s just kind of universal of any street reconstruction. This one isn’t super unique in that regard. I really think in the long term, we’ve, at the state level or something, we need some kind of funding program for street reconstruction for small businesses, ’cause I don’t wanna see this happen again. I don’t wanna see small businesses go out of business, and I don’t want to see small businesses scapegoat a bike lane when the real problem is a much bigger issue of funding.
We should address the problem at its source.
[00:51:30] John: Yeah, I, there’s a whole, I don’t know if we’ve said this explicitly, there’s a whole lot of infrastructure under the street. There is the street surface itself that is crumbling. When a street is 90 years old, all of these things need to be replaced. That is the truth.
And let’s, uh, say Livable Lyndale is the group if people wanna get involved. It is a s- uh, volunteer group, uh, under the auspices of Move Minnesota. Uh, and it is a wonderful group of people in the Wedge- Whittier neighborhood who are just fighting to, uh, make Lyndale Avenue a better place to, uh, get around.
[00:52:09] Jeremy: Totally. I’ve been going to those volunteer meetings, and despite all the crazy accusations, I don’t work for Move Minnesota. I just show up as a volunteer as a guy who lives here and likes to bicycle. And almost all the, the volunteers are, you know, young people who just c- live in the neighborhood and wanna make it better.
I d- Julie’s really the only paid staff person who does any work with, with the group. The ratio of volunteers to Julie is usually, like, at least 15 people. You know? It’s, it’s a- Yeah … big grassroots movement.
[00:52:38] John: You heard it from Jeremy. The ratio of lobbyists to actual grassroots volunteers- … is, like, 1 to 15.
[00:52:46] Julie: I, I am a registered lobbyist.
I- That helps. However, yeah, I mean, Move Minnesota, there are other people on staff who help with Move Minnesota a lot, mainly our communications team and, uh, our executive director and whatnot. However, even including those This is largely a grassroots push. Uh, it was voted on by the volunteers, not me. I don’t get a vote.
The volunteers vote on what we do, how we do it, and I… It’s consensus-based decision making as often as, as, as possible. And so this is, I, I just get to provide organizing expertise and the structure of a nonprofit that can, that can help facilitate, um, and provide the structure on someone who, who works in this field and has done this before, but it’s…
And it’s, these are the best people. These Livable Lyndale volunteers, they’re donating their time and their expertise and their passion. Couldn’t be, couldn’t be a happier group to be a part of, so.
[00:53:53] John: Has Move Minnesota undertaken other efforts like this with individual projects?
[00:54:00] Julie: Yeah. Yes, absolutely.
We, this is the first project of the Move Minnesota Minneapolis volunteer team, um, only because we launched this volunteer team in the fall of 2022. We voted to start working on this project, and it has not ended. It’s still… So it’s now just the Livable Lyndale. No, it will. We’re actually in conversation about what project we’re gonna take on after this.
Same group. Um, keep the momentum up. And then there’s also the Saint Paul volunteer team, and we’ve been working on improving the speed and reliability of the buses with a campaign called Boost the Bus. We’ve done advocacy work for the Purple Line. That’s now the Bronze Line. Uh, we did a little bit of assistance with the Summit Avenue bike lane situation a couple years ago.
Those, just to name a few. But, um, the volunteer teams are, are active in a lot of ways. It’s just that the Liv- Lyndale campaign has been, uh, a beast for this group for the last couple years, so when this campaign ends, it’s not, you won’t- Hmm … you won’t stop hearing about our work.
[00:55:07] John: Uh, I feel like you’re a special forces soldier, and they’re about to, you’ve just come back from a difficult time in Iraq, and now they’re sending you to Summit Avenue.
Probably. That’s where they’re sending you next, right?
You never know.
[00:55:22] Jeremy: You never know. All the potholes. I, I’d like to say that if we don’t, if the Vibrant Lyndale group succeeds and we get this reconstruction project canceled completely, not only will we miss out on critical infrastructure upgrades, you know, uh, we’re gonna be missing out on a lot of federal money that is expiring in 2028.
And if we delay this any further- Oh, really? … it’s currently slated for this project to happen in 2028. If it goes past that, we lose all the federal money. How many millions of do- Isn’t it, like, s- around several hundred million dollars in federal funding, I believe, right, Julie? I forget the exact number. Um-
[00:55:56] Julie: I don’t know the exact number, but we are at risk of losing federal funding if we do not get this passed soon
[00:56:02] Jeremy: Huh. Right.
[00:56:03] John: There’s a benefit. I haven’t heard a lot of people talking about the federal money part. That was a big talking point during the Hennepin Avenue fight, but I have not heard that discussed.
[00:56:12] Jeremy: I think more people should talk about it, and talk about the fact that if we don’t get this street reconstruction done, we’re gonna be left with potholes and potentially sinkholes.
I mean, this would be very bad. N- the bike lane is a distraction from the fact that critical infrastructure needs to be replaced, or else this street will cease to function.
[00:56:29] John: If I’m being cynical, like, the real point of derailing this step wouldn’t be going back to that old recommended version, it would be delaying it to the point where, like, money dries up and the streets begin to crumble.
Like, like a very misguided attempt to just delay it until it doesn’t happen. The old-style NIMBY tactic.
[00:56:52] Jeremy: Yep.
Uh- ‘Cause this,
[00:56:53] Julie: yeah, this cannot be ignored. The, the street-
Yeah … is gonna disintegrate.
[00:56:58] Jeremy: 1934!
[00:56:59] Julie: Hopefully we can get it right this time.
[00:57:02] John: Julie Johnson, uh, from Move Minnesota, and, uh, Jeremy Winter, uh, agitator and Wedge resident, thank you for joining me.
Uh, get involved with the Livable Lyndale crew from Move Minnesota. It’s coming to the end, so you would basically, it would basically be a case of stolen valor getting involved now, right at the end, right when victory is imminent. Uh-
[00:57:23] Julie: You can help us launch our next thing and help take us, take this thing over the finish line, though, so.
[00:57:28] John: Yeah. I’m sure there’s a project happening in your part of the Twin Cities with Move Minnesota. Uh, this has been the Wedge Life podcast. I’m your host, John Edwards. Thank you for listening.
[00:57:38] Ian: And thank you for joining us for this episode of the Streets.MN podcast. The music you’re hearing right now is by Eric Brandt and the Urban Hillbilly Quartet.
This episode comes to us courtesy of Wedge Live, all rights reserved. It was transcribed by Stina Neel. We’re always looking to feature new voices on the Streets.MN podcast, so if you have ideas for future episodes, drop us a line at [email protected]. Streets.MN is a community publication, and relies on contributions from audience members like you.
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