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The One Answer to Every Dangerous Street Concern

By on July 15, 2019 in Cars, Safety, Streets

Every motorist has concerns when driving: This road is too curvy, that bicyclist came out of nowhere, that pedestrian shouldn’t cross the street there. Luckily, there’s a quick & easy solution to most of these concerns: Drive more slowly. Sure, we feel pressure to get places faster, pressure from the annoying driver behind us, social […]

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Hennepin County to Restripe Park and Portland to Restore Bike Lanes

By on June 24, 2019 in Bicycling, Bike lanes, Buses, Carfree, Cars, commute, Infrastructure, News, Streets, Transportation

In an email sent Friday morning, June 21, Hennepin County announced it would be restriping lanes of Park Avenue South (County Road 33) and Portland Avenue South (County Road 35) to restore the buffered bike lanes present before the 35@94 freeway project began. Nicole Salica reported in streets.mn last year on restriping Park and Portland […]

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Review: 2019 Tesla Model 3

By on June 20, 2019 in Cars, Transportation, Trends

Recently, I wrote about the future of mobility and my belief that the future is electric. Last week, I took a test drive of that future, making the pilgrimage to Eden Prairie to try out the latest version of the Tesla Model 3. Before we begin, I was not compensated by Tesla, Toyota, or anybody, […]

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Roundabout Wsp

Meet a Roundabout: Wentworth Ave

By on June 11, 2019 in Cars, Infrastructure, Roads, Safety, Signals, Suburbia, Traffic, Transportation

This is “Meet a Roundabout,” a new series of posts about roundabouts in the Twin Cities area that are improving traffic efficiency and safety. Posts include pictures and video of the roundabout and a history of how they came to be. This is the first post in the series. On a recent beautiful Wednesday night, […]

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Map Monday: Twin Cities Metro by Cars Per Person

By on June 3, 2019 in Cars, Maps

Via Slate, here’s an interesting map that shows automobile ownership per capita across the Twin Cities’ metro. It’s from a recent Trulia dataset that does this for the whole country, and lets you easily glimpse the car ownership rates across the country. Here’s the TC: Two basic patterns emerge: the low-car areas correspond with both […]

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Drive-Through Ban Gets Positive Reception at Minneapolis Planning Commission

By on May 17, 2019 in 2040 Minneapolis Comprehensive Plan, Cars, Pedestrians, Planning

On Thursday, the Minneapolis Planning Commission was supportive of a proposed ordinance from Council President Lisa Bender that would prohibit new drive-throughs for banks, drugstores, and fast food restaurants (or any other “facility which accommodates automobiles and from which the occupants of the automobiles may make purchases or transact business”). It’s important to emphasize: if […]

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Predictions on the Future of Mobility

By on May 16, 2019 in Carfree, Cars, commute, Economics, Transportation, Trends

I was reflecting on the May 8 Chart of the Day post on micro-mobility that mapped the middle 68 percentile of trips for 18 modes of transportation, and I collected a few thoughts on the future of mobility. I have written several posts recently on bike share, ride share, and electric scooters, the rented side […]

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A Roster of Potential TaaS Vehicles

By on May 15, 2019 in Cars, Transportation

Previously I’ve written about how I don’ t think Transportation as a Service (TaaS), the rideshare model of electric self-driving cars will become as universal as soon as some optimists have predicted. Loss of the pride of ownership, privacy, and the “yuck” factor of shared vehicles are some factors working against it. Yet the economics […]

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Chart of the Day: Fuel Economy, Weight, and Horsepower, 1975 – 2018

By on May 9, 2019 in Cars, Chart

Here’s a chart about cars, showing the changes since 1975 in some key dynamics about how cars use energy and how big they are. It’s from the EPA’s latest report on automotive trends, and it pegs these three variables at 1975 levels, charting the changes. Check it out: As you can see, there were big […]

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What if Hennepin Ave Had a Roundabout?

By on April 25, 2019 in Cars, Downtown, Infrastructure, Pedestrians, Pedestrians, Roads, Safety, Sidewalks, Signals, Streets, Traffic, Transit, Walking

I was waiting for the number 6 bus at Hennepin Ave and S 1st St, near where I live, and I was watching the vehicle traffic. I noticed that the semaphore intersection was not very efficient at handling left turn vehicles. There was a part of the cycle when left turns in both directions on […]

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