The mission of Streets.mn is to expand and enhance the conversation about transportation and land use planning through research and informed commentary. The comments section is an important part of that conversation. It is a place to add knowledge and experience, discuss issues more deeply, and learn from each other. We encourage civil, engaged conversation. Our moderators have broad discretion to remove comments that violate our comments policy.

When commenting, please remember that everyone has knowledge and experience and it may be different than your own. We would like everyone to feel comfortable and think of Streets.mn as a safe place to learn and participate in these important discussions. Think before you type, keeping in mind that tone can be difficult to understand in this format.

Comment guidelines

1. Be who you are in real life, and comment from your own perspective (rather than playing devil’s advocate or trolling). You do not have to use your real name, but you do have to provide us with a valid email. Disposable or one-time-use emails are not sufficient.
2. Be responsible, be respectful, and be aware of your privilege. Avoid sarcasm – it doesn’t translate well to this medium. If you disagree with someone, do so directly. Rather than, “Mark seems to think everything would be perfect if we did it his way,” try, “Mark, I disagree with you because….”
3. Come with an attitude of learning. You may be the expert and we want to learn from your experience, but avoid talking down or dismissing other commenter’s experience. Rather than, “I have worked in this field for 100 years and read all these studies and I know you are wrong,” try, “I’m interested in hearing more about your experience. I work in the field and the research says something different.”

Comments that may be removed or flagged by moderators:

1. contain vulgar or abusive language; personal attacks of any kind; microaggressions or offensive terms that target a specific ethnic or racial group, socioeconomic class, familial status, LGBTQIA+ people, gender, religion, or age.

Comments will be immediately removed that are:

1. spam
2. contain an invalid email address
3. political campaigning
4. promoting services or products (non-commercial links that are not relevant to the blog post or comment are acceptable)
5. attempting to circumvent Streets.mn editorial policy or comment policy

If a moderator deletes a comment, they will post a public comment of explanation. This is not meant to embarrass people, but it is a way to visitors to learn what is acceptable and what is not and, if we do not say anything publicly, everyone will wonder what happened.

The bottom line: do not be a jerk. We want everyone to feel welcome and you can help make that happen.

If you notice a comment that you’d like to flag for the moderators, please report the comment here. Comment sections on posts are automatically turned off after 14 days.