Vulnerable Road User Protection Laws
While there are laws in many states covering “Vehicular Manslaughter,” the penalties are so high, it is very rare for anyone to be charged.
Category: Governance
Bicycling Bonanza in Berlin (Germany)
With its wide roads and low density, Berlin bucks trends for prerequisites for healthy cycling mode share.
Move MN is a Good Compromise
Last week I wrote a column about Move MN, the transportation bill at the legislature, calling it a “litmus test for pragmatism.” Here was the punchline: If I were a legislator representing Saint Paul, at this point I’d remain on the fence about the Move MN legislation. I’d work hard to get MNDOT to commit […]
Lines On Our Map
The Twin Cities: A metropolitan region that certainly values idea of transit–in the abstract. It’s full of well-intentioned people (and politicians!) who travel to Chicago ~once a year and take the Blue Line into the city from O’Hare. And college graduates who spent a semester abroad in Hamburg and fashion themselves as folks who know […]
Would the Minneapolis of Today Oppose the Construction of the IDS Center?
Can We Still Dream as We Once Did? When built, the IDS Center didn’t match any of the character of the city, any of the colors or materials of the surrounding buildings, their heights or setbacks, and it stuck out on the horizon for tens of miles. Yet it became embraced by the city and […]
SWLRT Meetings: A Waste of Everyone’s Time
Last week, the Metropolitan Council held two town hall meetings regarding the Kenilworth studies being conducted, one in Minneapolis and one in St. Louis Park. The format of the meetings were 30 minutes for an open house with staff available to answer questions followed by two hours of a facilitator led discussion. The topics that were discussed […]
Demand Better Urbanism Today! Stop the New Senate Office Building
We don’t get it. The new State of Minnesota Senate Office Building is proof: we have an incoherent approach to urban development and continually fail at creating vibrant spaces. The architecture. The urban design. The lack of planning. The parking garages. The midnight financing. The confusing lease agreement. It is hard to imagine a scenario playing out […]
Why Minnesota Might Be Planning Too Much Road Expansion
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) released a new 20-year plan in December 2013 – the Minnesota State Highway Investment Plan (MnSHIP). Spoiler alert: MnSHIP says we need more money to build more road capacity. MnSHIP says much more than that, but adding road capacity is a central theme, as has been the case for many […]
Tax-Cut Urbanism: A Thought Experiment
The holiday season is a magical time. Conspicuous consumption, massive hangovers, and repeated family dinners where people pretend they like one another. For me, it’s also one of the one or two annual moments where I get to argue with my conservative, talk radio addled cousins about politics. And this magical year, after a few […]
Whose streets? Hennepin County’s streets!
On the map above, the thick black lines with numbers in circles represent county roads in Minneapolis. These are roads that are designed and maintained by Hennepin County and can’t be changed without the OK of the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners, the majority of whom have no constituents in Minneapolis whatsoever. These urban streets […]