Performative Piety (revised)
In response to a recent Streets.mn article, our author asks whether “virtue signaling” in liberal circles has us prioritizing feel-good solutions over truly effective ones.
Author: Michael Daigh
Kids on Bikes
We’re all doomed. As a Gen-X American, I grew up with entertainment and popular culture that reverberated with the notion that no crisis, or monster attack, or alien invasion, or government conspiracy is a match for Kids on Bikes, a belief recently reintroduced by TV shows paying homage to the stories of my youth, featuring […]
The Real Highland Bike Map
St. Paul made tremendous strides in connecting and constructing bike infrastructure this year. The Saint Paul Bicycle Coalition recently released its updated 2021 bike map, highlighting the extensive network. And it is impressive. My Strava feed, in a year that saw my highest mileage total in a single calendar year ever, has a lot of […]
Neighborhood Character and Redlining’s Legacy
“Neighborhood character,” it turns out, can be legally defined and covenanted, as I learned recently when I spent a morning conducting research at the Ramsey County records division. I found the warranty deed abstract for the multi-block plot of land that includes my lot and house, and a significant swath of Highland District Council (HDC) […]
The Planned Failure of the Ford Site
On January 25, 2019, Ryan Companies presented its plan for the Ford Site redevelopment to the St. Paul Planning Commission. One third of the way through the presentation, Ryan officials finished talking about themselves and turned to the city’s (supposed) vision for the Ford Site, That vision includes environmental sustainability, vibrant urban infill and a transit-oriented […]
St. Paul Housing: A Modern Historical Tragic Comedy
The “character” of a place means various things to different people. The Las Vegas strip clearly is of a different character than Boston’s North End. Highland, with it’s strip malls, peripheral stroads and a dendritic-street designed neighborhood by golf courses is of a different character than Mac-Grove, with its older buildings, grid structure, and more atomized zoning. […]
A New Vision Zero for St. Paul: Part 6 – Encouragement
Writing about the 5th “E” of implementing Vision Zero – Encouragement – is long overdue, perhaps a symptom of a lack of encouragement in general. The other “Es”: Evaluation, Engineering, Education, and Enforcement, have been covered previously, with suggestions, sometimes contradictory, on the multitude of ways that St. Paul could become a model Vision Zero […]
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
When a self-driving car kills a pedestrian, for the first time, we humans are left to ponder whether the machine is at fault — or our road rules.
A New Vision Zero for St. Paul: Part 5 – Enforcement
Thus far in this series of ideas concerning the path that the city of St. Paul might take towards becoming a Vision Zero city that pays more than token lip-service to the idea, the first three of the “Five E’s” – Evaluation, Engineering, and Education – have provided a framework for studying the issues, re-designing […]
The Myth of the Scofflaw Cyclist
One of the things that drew me to the Twin Cities metro, and to St. Paul, is the cycling friendly community, and while St. Paul lags Minneapolis in many respects, it is still leagues ahead of most cities in this country and all the places I have lived. That being said, there is a virulent […]