Navigation

Author Archive | Monte Castleman

The LED Streetlights Are Here

By on July 12, 2017 in Street Furniture, Streets, Trends

The Dawn of Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) Previously I covered the cobrahead streetlights of the Twin Cities. Well, they’re almost gone. The thousands of high pressure sodium MnDOT lights on the freeways have been converted to LED (light emitting diodes) and the 90,000 Xcel energy lights are in the process of being converted. So it’s […]

Streets.mn is a non-profit and is volunteer run. We rely on your support to keep the servers running. If you value what you read, please consider becoming a member.

Continue Reading 9
The Richfield South Minneapolis Home Depot

The Suburb to City Retail Subsidy

By on June 21, 2017 in Land use, Shopping

The Urban Planning “S” Words It seems in urban planning there’s no shortage of locker room talk to describe development and infrastructure you personally don’t like. For example, the epithet “sprawl.”  Some may say “I know it when I see it,” but too often it’s just an insult with no objective definition; perhaps just a […]

Streets.mn is a non-profit and is volunteer run. We rely on your support to keep the servers running. If you value what you read, please consider becoming a member.

Continue Reading

The Overhead Streetlights of the Local Streets Part 2: Clamshells and Cobraheads

By on August 31, 2016 in History, Streets

This is Part 2 in an overview of overhead street lighting. Earlier we talked about NEMA lights, which are still commonly used in St. Paul. Today we cover some of the newer form factors.  “Clamshell” Street Lights Because of their large circular filaments, incandescent street light bulbs needed to be mounted vertically. But no such […]

Streets.mn is a non-profit and is volunteer run. We rely on your support to keep the servers running. If you value what you read, please consider becoming a member.

Continue Reading

Dakota County Leaves the CTIB: the Orange Line is in Jeopardy

By on August 3, 2016 in Transit

The Orange Line in Jeopardy Dakota County has decided to leave the CTIB (County Transit Improvement Board). The CTIB allegedly retaliated by refusing to fill a $12 million gap from the failed bonding bill with CTIB funds; this puts the Orange Line in jeopardy as the bulk of the funding ($120 out of $150 million) is expected […]

Streets.mn is a non-profit and is volunteer run. We rely on your support to keep the servers running. If you value what you read, please consider becoming a member.

Continue Reading

Tesla’s Electric Self-Driving Car Euphoria Gets Jolted

By on July 18, 2016 in Cars, Safety

An event predicted by many finally occurred: the first fatal crash in an electric self-driving car, on May 7 in Florida. That crash was followed soon by two more non-fatal crashes, one in Pennsylvania on July 1 and another in Montana early Sunday morning. Tesla’s stock fell and the media is having a field day predicting the death of […]

Streets.mn is a non-profit and is volunteer run. We rely on your support to keep the servers running. If you value what you read, please consider becoming a member.

Continue Reading

The Overhead Streetlights of Local Streets, Part 1

By on July 15, 2016 in Streets

Previously I wrote about streetlights, with a special emphasis on the freeways since these were about to be converted to LED. Now Xcel Energy has announced 100,000 local streetlights in its service area will be converted, so it is time to look at some of these. The NEMA Lights In the early days, every manufacturer […]

Streets.mn is a non-profit and is volunteer run. We rely on your support to keep the servers running. If you value what you read, please consider becoming a member.

Continue Reading

Warrants and Justifications for Traffic Signs

By on July 1, 2016 in Roads, Signals

The first two parts of this series dealt with warrants and justifications for traffic signals. Here the series concludes with a discussion of warrants and justifications for signs and other traffic control devices.  Justification for Stop Signs   Let’s go to the Minnesota MUTCD; section 2B.4: .03 YIELD or STOP signs should be used at an […]

Streets.mn is a non-profit and is volunteer run. We rely on your support to keep the servers running. If you value what you read, please consider becoming a member.

Continue Reading

Warrants for Traffic Signals, Part 2: The Lyndale Avenue Example

By on June 24, 2016 in Roads, Signals, Traffic

Analyzing a Corridor Previously we went into what the warrants for signals were and went through some examples. So now let’s look at all the signals on a corridor. I picked South Lyndale Ave (with the exception of the signal at the ramp to MN 62, which is Mn/DOT operated. I’m going to cheat and just […]

Streets.mn is a non-profit and is volunteer run. We rely on your support to keep the servers running. If you value what you read, please consider becoming a member.

Continue Reading
photo of traffic signal lights

Warrants for Traffic Signals, Part 1

By on June 13, 2016 in Roads, Signals

Previous articles of mine have covered just about every facet of traffic signals, including how they work, how timing and phasing are set, and even how to identify who made a particular signal. But what about how it’s decided whether to add or remove a signal in the first place? That is done through “warrants” […]

Streets.mn is a non-profit and is volunteer run. We rely on your support to keep the servers running. If you value what you read, please consider becoming a member.

Continue Reading

A New Life for the Old Cedar Bridge: Restoration Begins

By on May 18, 2016 in Bicycling, Bridges

Today reconstruction of the Old Cedar Bridge is well underway. Previously we looked at the history of the bridge and how we got to the final decision that the bridge will be restored. This article continues with the actual restoration and construction process. The Nuts and Bolts of Restoration When restoring an old structure. There’s […]

Streets.mn is a non-profit and is volunteer run. We rely on your support to keep the servers running. If you value what you read, please consider becoming a member.

Continue Reading