There was a time when buses and trains connected the Twin Cities with every corner of Greater Minnesota. The trains are gone except for Amtrak’s Empire Builder, which has become quite unreliable and inconveniently runs west of Minneapolis in the wee hours. Except for its express link to Chicago via Eau Claire and Madison, Greyhound […]
In my family’s quest to visit the county seats of Minnesota, on a Sunday morning in early November we went on a trip to Glencoe, Gaylord, Le Sueur (not a county seat), and Saint Peter. We had never been to Glencoe before, and in all honesty, would find it unlikely to be there again, as […]
Although freight trains move through Northfield daily, it’s been about 45 years since the last passenger trains stopped at the Northfield Depot. Now grassroots efforts to restore passenger rail from the Twin Cities to Northfield and points south are gathering steam. Even talking about taking the train to Northfield has been difficult. From 1910 until […]
A Public Conversation is taking place about whether our metro area and greater minnesota are part of The Midwest, or if MSP is in fact the seat of a conceptual Northern region unto itself, i.e. the “North.” Mark Dayton’s son has gone as far as selling hats to spur debate on this issue. It’s hypothesized that […]
A two-college town 40 miles south of the Twin Cities, Northfield is a charming, sophisticated, outdoorsy town well suited to biking.
In what I assume is an attempt to blow as much money as possible, Blue Earth County has decided that they are going to extend tiny Highway 12 an additional two miles in preparation for “growth” and a new school. There’s nothing new about a new road being built. But there’s this one pesky problem: they […]
Morning all and happy voting, I’m working on a project that shows Mankato throughout the years. In this project I thought that I would try and show a more interactive version of what Urban Renewal did to Mankato. A little backstory. During Urban Renewal Mankato ripped out five city blocks of historical commercial development in their […]
A few months ago, I plotted surface parking in Rochester, MN. Granted, the concept of mapping surface parking lots is outdated now that Andrew Price pioneered maps that show places versus non-places. Yet a map of surface parking looks to give the first layer of non-places in Downtown Rochester. These parcels are also the most […]
On October 7, 2014, the Northfield City Council voted to reject all bids received for the construction for what’s been called the TIGER Trail, killing the project. It’s been almost 3 years since Northfield received word it had been awarded a $1.1 million TIGER grant and almost 3 years of decisions and discussion to reach […]
Northfield’s City Council is getting ready to discuss Woodley Street’s sidewalks on October 28. If this work session conversation follows the well-worn path of earlier sidewalk and street improvement projects, it will go something like this: progressive Council members who consider projects in the context of Northfield’s adopted policy (Comprehensive Plan, Safe Routes to School, […]