Every day at The Overhead Wire we sort through over 1,500 news items about cities and share the best ones with our email list. At the end of the week, we take some of the most popular stories and share them with Urban Milwaukee readers. They are national (or international) links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes […]
Road regulations and design standards often fail to take pedestrians into account. How can we change that?
Minneapolis has oft been accused of not having done enough to preserve its historic structures, particularly in reference to the loss of the Gateway District, and especially when contrasted with successful efforts to save ornamentally clad buildings in Saint Paul. The jeers have endured decades of evolution or devolution in the Twin Cities, depending upon […]
Every day at The Overhead Wire, we collect news about cities and send the links to our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the D.C. region. […]
Before the City of Minneapolis comment deadline closes today, let’s consider what Hennepin Avenue currently is. Drowning in a sea of cars. Chaotic, loud, and hard to track where the next danger will come from. All images courtesy of Derek Bauer. Derek spent a few hours documenting Hennepin Avenue at my request. A place for […]
Back in the late 1990s, MnDOT analyzed several existing freight rail corridors in the Twin Cities region for the possibility of implementing commuter rail service. Three routes were chosen for their cost effectiveness and best potential ridership: the Northstar Line to St. Cloud, the Red Rock Corridor to Hastings, and the Dan Patch Corridor to […]
In early March 2021, at the third open house, the City of Minneapolis presented two options for the future Hennepin Avenue reconstruction project between Lake Street and Douglas Avenue. Hennepin Avenue was last reconstructed in 1957, so this is a huge opportunity to weigh in on a street we’ll be living with for the next […]
It’s possible you’ve heard this joke before: A motorist, a pedestrian, and a bicyclist are sitting at a table that has a dozen cookies on it. The motorist grabs 11 of the cookies and when the other two are reaching for what they each assumed was their cookie, the motorist exclaims: “Watch out! The bicyclist […]
Like most freeways, I long took the 4th Street viaducts for granted. They just loomed there at the edge of downtown taking up space, hoisted 30’ in the air like a helium whale. A grey meaningless concrete backdrop generating constant noise and microscopic particles of plastic, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and other subtle poison. These […]
The most contentious election season in living memory has come to a close as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage across the US. Thanks to the Biden administration’s Covid Relief package and the approval of new coronavirus vaccines, an end to the pandemic is finally in sight. Biden’s administration will certainly have its hands full […]