The “D word.” It makes for a great pickup line, but that’s (sadly) not how most people use it. There are likely many blogs and articles written on population density and its complex relationship with transportation energy use, economic growth, how smart you are, etc. I’m not here to discuss those; I’m aware that many readers […]
I came across this Family Friendly Cities blog post a while back, and of course I’m inclined to agree with the general conclusion. You hear a variety of reasons people want to move outward to the suburbs, and while there’s a nuance in the millions of decisions made across the metro (and country), my anecdotal understanding […]
Downtown Minneapolis is exciting! Development and stadia and the potential for morgue-gating are bringing millennials by the dozens so it’s easy to miss the small stuff sometimes. Little things like how to handle the various bus routes that run east-west through the central business district of our city. The City of Minneapolis currently has a bid out to make changes […]
You’re probably reading the various news stories out there regarding the Metro Transit study finding between 4.6 and 9 percent of Green Line Riders evade their fares in some way. Blue Line evasion rates are lower, between 2.6 and 3.6 percent. Go ahead and read the click-bait articles for a bit more information, and as […]
It was a sunny, if a bit windy, Saturday afternoon. My wife, mother in-law, and Ergo’d baby were finishing up a relaxing walk along Humboldt Avenue and I noticed a house had been recently renovated. It struck me because my wife and I had toured this exact house about a year ago. 3330 Humboldt Ave. […]
In the span of just a few months, the Mall of America (MOA) became the center of two debates regarding peoples’ rights in quasi-public spaces. On December 20th, 2014 the Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization staged a protest in the MOA rotunda: If you’re unaware of the whole issue, bone up here. Specious allegations that […]
This post is months too late. The Metropolitan Council’s 2040 Transportation Policy Plan went through extensive design, writing, public comment period, and ultimately final adoption. Nevertheless, we can still hopefully improve upon corridors already decided on, help change priorities, et cetera. So, I present for your consideration a corridor that needs some major lovin’: Downtown Minneapolis-Uptown-Southdale. Streets.mn has […]
I’ve been re-reading the book Zoned Out on the bus ride to and from work lately, and it got me thinking about Minneapolis and our zoning history. While our whole city follows a rigid grid built largely along streetcar lines, some neighborhoods are clearly more dense than others. Minneapolis implemented its first zoning code in 1924, two years […]
Portland, right? Is there a better city to compare ourselves to than Portland? I haven’t been there, but they seem good at things like biking, streetcars (maybe not?), putting birds on other things, and the like. So when a 2 year old story about how Portland re-upped their parking requirements started getting re-circulated, I figured someone should dig […]
I’m going to describe a government agency and let you, brilliant reader, guess who it is. This government agency is an un-elected bureaucracy with its top-ranking official appointed by the governor, who is then confirmed by the Minnesota Senate. This agency gets involved with planning activities and expenditures at both the regional and local level. […]