There’s quite a bit of chitter-chatter about lidding the I35W interstate through Cedar-Riverside, coming out of downtown. First, the Star-Tribune wrote about it. Then Charlie Zelle mentioned it at Policy & A Pint on January 16: Charlie Zelle’s mention of putting a lid on 35W between downtown & U of M solicits cheers from the […]
This chart, from the Federal Highway Administration’s 2011 Highway Statistic series (most recent year available) shows the changes in both rural Interstate highway traffic volume and loading since 1970. Loading here refers to the weight of vehicles. The 2002 peak in volume is noted on the chart (Urban Interstates peaked in 2007 per FHWA figures), […]
As 2014 closes, I thought I would compile a list of some notable highway projects of the year. These are simply ones that caught my fancy, and since most of us know about the local projects, are mainly outstate or nationwide. 1) The Saint Croix Crossing ($582-$646 Million, MN share $306-$362 Million) Not really outstate, but […]
It’s easy to laugh at the Elk Run “Interchange to Nowhere” with it’s roundabouts to cornfields, traffic signals with no traffic, and pedestrian push-buttons that don’t work. While acknowledging we’ve wasted some money on the extent that we’ve built it to accommodate vaporware, I prefer to look at the big picture and think of it […]
Streaking in a silver bullet, cutting stacks of water walls, moping the exterior torrent. It’s a perfect Japanese comfort pod though my muscles tense in spite of it – anticipating an unrequited role in the heroic effort at hand. Then I enter my first rainbow. Yes, I drive inside a rainbow. My vision is hopeless, […]
I gave this presentation to the Lowry Hill Neighborhood Association (LHNA) Annual Meeting in May 2014. Several people requested that it be made available to the general public, so I have created this brief overview for Streets.MN in anticipation of a Hennepin-Lyndale Reconstruction Project Open House Monday August 4th, 2014 at 6:30 PM at the Walker Art Center. Special […]
Was it worth it to run interstates right through built-up areas of Minneapolis and St Paul? That’s a tough question to answer, and maybe an impossible one given the complexities of the discussion. And yet we constantly hear public officials tout the benefits of our freeway capacities, and the economic value they bring, not only […]
We need roads. We need good roads that are built with a purpose and have a high return on investment. Roads that have purpose and efficiently connect productive places. The road I’m talking about though, doesn’t really fit the above criteria.
I grew up in Northfield, and Cedar Avenue was a common route from Northfield into the Twin Cities. The name isn’t signed between the Northfield border and Eureka Township, but I knew it by no other name. In fact, I remember my parents having to explain to me, when I was first learning to drive: […]
I’m not an unquestioning LRT lackey. Some questions about LRT strike me as very fair. For instance, could we have a better overall transit system if we invested the same amount of public money – billions of dollars — in buses, vans, taxis and bus rapid transit instead of trains? Given how sprawled our metro […]