A few months ago, I was privileged to be a guest lecturer for a colleague’s environmental sociology course at the UW-La Crosse. For those unfamiliar, La Crosse, Wisconsin is one of the larger small cities in the region. It’s a city with a metro area of about 130,000 people located in a magnificent spot on […]
On Jan 7, a meeting on the Minnesota Statewide Passenger Rail plan was held at the McColl Pond Environmental Learning Center in Savage, and streets.mn was invited to join other local media outlets and elected officials to hear about updates to the plan. No one else from streets.mn said they were going, so, because I […]
Last month, Alicia Valenti wrote about her tips and experiences bicycling in the winter as a Minnesota transplant. “I got into summer biking and then didn’t want to stop once it got cold,” Alicia told me recently. Like Alicia, I’m a transplant who didn’t want to stop biking once it got cold, partly because biking […]
Note the Catch-22: If Northfield could increase the number of students getting to school under their own power that would reduce rush minute congestion created by adults chauffeuring kids to school…and if it reduced demand during peak times then the over-engineered roundabout would not be needed. But how could Northfield increase walking and biking through […]
The Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota proved the authenticity of its name at the organization’s annual meeting on Saturday, June 8, with a showcase of bike- and pedestrian-friendly initiatives throughout the state that BikeMN is either leading or supporting. From honoring an African-American bicycling club that just celebrated its 20th anniversary in Minneapolis to helping tiny […]
Attending Washington High School in Brainerd, Minnesota, my hot rod friends and I used several streets that made good drag racing places. In fact, the street in front of the high school was one of them. The mandatory “Start” location was a fire hydrant near the physics classroom, where several of us hot rodders were […]
On March 27, we posted about the numbers surrounding the proposed $600 million investment to bring Amtrak rail service along a corridor between Minneapolis and Duluth. Many of you shared your stories of rail and bus travel, and many expressed a deep appreciation for the comfort and conveniences of travel by rail. In an effort […]
A recent Star Tribune post on a new bus service starting at $9 to Duluth got me thinking about all the recent talk about having a government-sponsored, commuter rail service to Duluth. Amtrak recently announced that it was interested in investing $600 million to develop a rail service from Minneapolis to Superior and Duluth, using […]
I thought I needed to have a car for my assignment. In August, I was offered a position that had me relocate to Bemidji. In Northern Minnesota. 200 miles away from the only home that I’ve known outside of San Francisco, away from the friends that I’ve made. I thought I was going away too […]
8am. I just finished walking an hour and a half from the Grand Forks Amtrak station. It’s a Saturday morning at the end of September in 2017, and the night before, I spent 6 hours on the Empire Builder traveling from the Twin Cities. After crossing the bridge to briefly visit East Grand Forks, and […]