There has been a lot of discussion in the local bicycling scene about cycle tracks lately. “Cycle track” is a bit of a generic term. It may refer to a one-way or two-way facility. It may refer to something at street level or at curb height. It may create separation between cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians […]
A couple weeks ago, the City of Edina City Council voted to revise the striping on Wooddale Avenue. The plan will remove the experimental “advisory bike lanes” that were installed in 2012 and have proven to be a controversial issue for the City. In it’s place, the new design will feature a traditional bike lane […]
A few months ago, Andrew Owen wrote a post I really liked about sequences of street names that occur throughout the Twin Cities. It was surprising to see the extent of the repeating alphabetical sequences. As the post suggested, one of the primary benefits of street names occurring in ordered sequences is that it greatly assists […]
I’m short on time today, and writing from northeastern Nevada (where the big news today is that the entire county is having issues accessing the internet). So please forgive me if this post seems a bit hurried. I’ve uploaded a document called Best Practices for Traffic Control at Regional Trail Crossings. The document tries to establish some […]
I love Minnesota’s many beautiful state trails. According to the DNR web site, there are 24 state trails (including the developing Brown’s Creek Trail). Hundreds of miles of trails – some paved, some natural surface, some urban, most rural, some hilly, most flat. When I moved to Minnesota in 2005, I had no concept of […]
Last week, David wrote about whether we should consider making better use of the space above our many depressed freeways. Today, I want to consider the opposite scenario: are we making the best use of the space beneath our elevated freeways and roadways? When freeways are constructed, it’s always cheapest to build them at-grade whenever […]
One thing I look forward to every winter is seeing where snow builds up in the roadways, effectively making that portion of the roadway unusable for several months until the spring thaw. I love that snow teaches us where people are driving, where they aren’t driving, and leaves evidence of them driving where they shouldn’t […]
Of all the categories included in the Streets.mn “Best of” series, this category was the biggest blowout. With 92.2% of the votes, the winner of the award for the 2012 Best Current Multi-Million Dollar Public Works Project (by a landslide): Central Corridor LRT The eleven mile light rail project linking downtown Minneapolis with downtown St. […]
I’m going to split a few hairs today. I hope you’ll indulge me. Take a look at the following image of a pretty typical minor T-intersection in a 2nd ring Twin Cities suburban community. The north/south roadway is a County State-Aid Highway carrying about 10,000 vehicles per day. The east/west roadway is a small cul-de-sac […]
A recent report by researchers Greg Lindsey, Kristopher Hoff, Steve Hankey, and Xize Wang from the University of Minnesota is available for download from the Center for Transportation Studies website here. The report is titled Understanding the Use of Non-Motorized Transportation Facilities, and it is a fantastic read for anyone interested in bicycle and pedestrian counts in […]