Monte Castleman • November 29, 2021 E-ZPass Electronic Toll Interoperability is Now Here As I’ve written about several times before, there was a 2012 federal mandate to have electronic toll collection be interoperable nationwide by 2016. In practical terms this would mean you’d be able to use your same toll transponder to pay tolls nationwide. That deadline came and went without […]
Monte Castleman • June 18, 2021 As the 2021 construction season moves into high gear, I thought I’d try something different and write about a few things that have gone on around the state the past year, interesting enough to present here but probably not deserving of their own full article. The St. Francis Highway 47 Safety Project by St. Francis […]
Monte Castleman • January 11, 2021 Many people want to live in a new-construction, detached home, but the traditional way to achieve that – owning your own house and lot – may not be achievable or desirable for all. Part one of this series covered two options: owning the interior only of a detached structure, either a traditional detached townhome, or […]
Monte Castleman • November 25, 2020 There’s many advantages to living in a detached house – they generally offer more space, more separation and privacy from neighbors, and a discrete place to drive up to, look at, and call your own. But there’s definitely drawbacks to the primary ways of acquiring a detached home (owning a house and land or renting […]
Monte Castleman • September 14, 2020 Nationwide Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) Interoperability has been an elusive goal for some time. In practical terms that would mean you’d be able to use your MnPASS transponder to pay tolls on a road trip to Chicago or in your rental car in Florida, and in turn, residents of those states would be able to […]
Monte Castleman • August 13, 2020 This is Part Four in a loosely-related series of the evolution of retail and parking issues. Part One covered the alleged dislike of people for parking ramps and why it’s causing problems for the Shops of West End. Part Two covered the evolution of regional retail from downtown to lifestyle centers. Part Three compared several […]
This is the third article in a series on the evolution of retail and parking issues. Part One looked at issues with West End’s parking ramp as described in a Twin Cities Business magazine article. Then Part Two followed the evolution of regional retail from urban downtowns to suburban malls to suburban lifestyle centers. Now […]
On why structured parking is allegedly problematic for regional retail in general, which is causing problems at West End. This installment will look at the overall evolution of regional retail – from downtown, to the regional malls, to lifestyle centers like West End. Downtown 2.0: The Mall With the massive movement of people to the […]
A Parking Problem St. Louis Park’s lifestyle center, The Shops of West End, has problems. Its vacancies are more than double the metro average and a 20,000 square foot block has never been filled. In March, 2019 the Twin Cities Business Magazine did an article on why. The article is well worth a read; it […]
On Jan 7, a meeting on the Minnesota Statewide Passenger Rail plan was held at the McColl Pond Environmental Learning Center in Savage, and streets.mn was invited to join other local media outlets and elected officials to hear about updates to the plan. No one else from streets.mn said they were going, so, because I […]