I organized a visit to the latent Cycling Museum of Minnesota this weekend, and was delighted to see all the cool old bikes in the basement of St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral by Loring Park. They also had these cool maps, which I will share with you now. [Apologies for the crap photos, but you get […]
I know I can’t be the only one who has wondered, while waiting through a full light cycle for a walk signal only to see that my button pressing was in vain, what it would be like to have the power of Tsar Peter the Great to create through imperial decree a city tailored to […]
The Riverview Corridor Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) recently dismissed the only transit options that were even slightly logical, and opted to continue forward with studying ways to construct the crowning achievement on a transit system that is backwards and self-defeating. Bill Lindeke recently opined on this site that the proposal is the “best…project in the […]
I have to be honest: I have always struggled with the Tour de France. I’ve always hated how during the tour it seems every wannabe racer with a carbon road bike gets out on the bike paths and treats all the other people like they are guests in their own homes. But in spite of […]
I am finally putting up my “review” of The Highwaymen, a play produced by the History Theater that centered on the construction of I-94 through Saint Paul’s African-American Rondo neighborhood. Thanks to the generosity of a friend, I got to attend the play during its closing week. I liked it but, since I’m so interested […]
Via Nick Magrino’s Twitter feed, here’s a map of Minneapolis with some indigenous place names. Dakota and Ojibwe languages are different. Minnesota and Minneapolis both feature the same root, the word “mni”, which means “water.” (E.g. the Lakota phrase mni wiconi, or “water is life” one of the slogans from the Standing Rock movement.) Here […]
September 18, 2015 9.8 Miles Macalester-Groveland, Merriam Park, Lex-Ham From out of the patchy grey sky came intermittent sprinkles and the threat of heavier precipitation, but none of that was enough to keep me from my 2 p.m. appointment. Working in my favor was the ride wasn’t long, so I’d make it, even in a […]
Via erstwhile gadfly David Brauer, here’s an interesting chart. The 2016 census population estimates came out last week and sparked an interesting conversation on Twitter this week. Here’s the original population chart, via former streets.mn board member / forum founder Nick Magrino: (He got the chart from a recently released Met Council report…) Following the chart […]
Via Perfect Duluth Day, this is a funny map from a civic booster-era advertisement touting the centrality of Duluth in 1888. The cartographer drew a line separating the country into two geographic catchments, the Chicago half and the Duluth half of the USA. Sort of a fun line to draw, in a way. I guess… […]
The vigorous and spirited debate about the future of the Ford Plant site in Highland Park got me thinking about another large, polluted, previously industrial site in Saint Paul. The history of development of Victoria Park, which is bounded by West 7th Street, Otto Avenue, and Shepard Road, offers a lesson in plans changing over […]