Recently I went to Winnipeg for a weekend to visit a relative. I’m a dual citizen of Canada and the USA and it was fun to go up north and hang out. For the record, Winnipeg is a the capital of the province of Manitoba, and the metro area has a population of around 740K […]
Philip Schwartz recently shared this letter with me and gave me permission to share it here. A vote is happening on is Tuesday, November 28th. Agree or disagree with him, instructions for how to weigh in are below. As a daily user of 4th Street through Downtown Minneapolis, I have been excited and involved since planning […]
As of right now, Thrivent Financial owns a collection of surface parking lots and one uniquely shaped 18-story tower in Downtown Minneapolis. For what seems like ages, their tower loomed over a vacant corridor of the city where even surface parking was off limits, contracted only to the employees of Thrivent Financial. But following the […]
When controversy happens….when tempers flare….we read the comments, so you don’t have to. On Sunday, as teased on Twitter by our own @streetsmn account, the Star Tribune posted an article It’s not your imagination — parking is disappearing in Minneapolis. The subhead and picture on the article gave a taste of what was to come, with a […]
For a thorough description of the trail, please see Ken Avidor’s great article here. I was visiting just for a few hours on my drive home from Washington D.C. My brief ride around, however, left a very strong impression. The first thing I noticed was that Indianapolis has a lot of wide one-way streets. This […]
My wife, Roberta, and I have been reading about the Indianapolis Cultural Trail since it was completed in 2013. Last week, we rode Amtrak down to the capital of The Hoosier State to see for ourselves what all the excitement was about. After two days riding and walking the trail, we are happy to report […]
The Dayton family has had an outsized impact on downtown Minneapolis. So when the next generation speaks out about skyways and safety, people pay attention.
The podcast this week is a conversation with Eric Dayton, the founder and chief booster of the Minneapolis Skyway Avoidance Society. Eric Dayton is the owner of two downtown Minneapolis businesses – the Bachelor Farmer restaurant and Askov-Finlayson, a clothing retailer – and, of course, son of Minnesota governor Marc Dayton. We sat down a […]
Everyone needs to pee. This is an observation so obvious that it shouldn’t need to be stated. Yet it seems it’s not an observation that has made its way into our urban planning. It’s really a simple equation. People need to pee – no public bathrooms = peeing in public (or worse). Much of the […]
I took my mother to the Oak Grill in January. We needed to see the place one last time. Share one last popover. And a manhattan. I’m embarrassed to say I’d never been. So for me eating at the Oak Grill was a new experience in downtown Minneapolis. Looking around the dining room that day […]