The world faces rapid man-made climate change that some scientists are saying is now beyond our ability to control. Yet we have a con-man president who believes, despite overwhelming evidence, that Climate change is a hoax. This is hardly surprising given that he’s been getting his information about climate change and many other issues from […]
(With major input from Andy Singer, Bill Lindeke, and Tom Basgen,but especially Andy. Last week, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter announced that St. Paul’s annual July 4 fireworks are a no-go this year. Naturally, the comments – both on Facebook and on the local news sites – are displeased. Accusations are being flung that […]
The recent death of Alan Grahn on Summit Avenue at Snelling has provoked widespread calls for improvements to the Summit Avenue Bikeway. His is not the first death, the first crash or even the first crash of that type at that intersection. A gentleman named David Wuest was similarly hit by a motorist turning northbound […]
Road salt eats away at concrete in multi-story parking garages in a process known as “Spalling”. Salt accelerates the rate at which water gets into cracks, causing the concrete to pull away from its Rebar reinforcement. This is what happened to the River Center parking garage in downtown Saint Paul. A section of the garage […]
Urban planners and some bicycle and pedestrian advocates tell me that “roundabouts are safer than traditional signalized intersections.” It comes up in the context of conversations about pedestrian-friendly urban street design. I hear this line a lot and see it on websites and in social media posts. In most cases, folks are parroting various viral […]
Technology is a mixed bag. Nowhere is this more evident than in transportation. Hyper-mobility, the ability to quickly travel across long distances gives the illusion of bringing us all closer together. Yet the ability to quickly traverse space causes us to live farther apart (because we can) and it has the unintended negative impact of […]
I recently watched an amazing 29-minute, on-line documentary film about the last day of lead type at the New York Times. It’s called “Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu” and I recommend everyone watch it. The date is July 2, 1978 and, for around a hundred years prior to that date, this was how newspapers were put together– […]
On April 15, the group “Citizens for Roads Asphalt and Parking” (C.R.A.P.) is participating in a “National Park-in” to protest the lack of free parking in American Cities. Protest participants will drive to downtowns across the country and park their cars in metered spaces or parking lots without paying. Some may even park in the […]
Janette Sadik-Khan served as transportation commissioner for the city of New York during Michael Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor. She was in charge of most of the streets, roads, bridges, tunnels, and ferries responsible for moving a population of over eight million people. As such, she was responsible for the maintenance and programming of more infrastructure […]
The Minnesota Department of Transportation is currently finishing the planning process for re-decking the Smith Avenue Bridge over the Mississippi River in Saint Paul. As part of this 2018 project, they are also repaving Smith Avenue, from Grand Avenue all the way south to Interstate 494. The Smith Avenue Bridge, also known as “The High […]