Category: Justice

Hennepin Avenue: A Parable of Road Design in America

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 […]

Barbed Wire and Barricades

We saw the streets of Minneapolis, and the whole country, become militarized last summer as peaceful protests were met with weapons of war by police. Now militarization is occurring again, this time through fences, concrete barriers, and barbed wire that seek to cut residents off from street spaces. For the community to heal and stay […]

Climate Emergency 500x295

Celebrating the 1-year Anniversary of the streets.mn Climate Committee

On December 29, 2019, seven people met at Dual Citizen Brewery in St. Paul, and there we created the streets.mn Climate Emergency Committee. We had a few in-person writing meet-ups before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, and even though none of us could anticipate the events that followed throughout the year of 2020, we maintained […]

A white car that crashed into a traffic lightpost. It has a coating of snow on it.

What is the End Game? An Airing of Grievances

It’s that time of year again, and what a year it’s been! I usually like writing posts that have some aspect of positivity or future collective goal, but this post is not like that. This is my 2020 airing of grievances. As COVID-19 continued to spread through our community and we neared the peak of […]

Reconnection, Revitalization, and Restitution for I-94 Communities

Saint Paul’s historic Rondo neighborhood is a thriving, diverse community and home to many immigrant families and Black-owned businesses. It’s situated between University Avenue and the METRO Green Line to the north and Selby Avenue to the south. Black churches, businesses, and schools set down roots in the area in the late nineteenth and early […]

Street view of the ramp down to the greenway from 13th ave. Signs posted say No motor vehicles.

Abolish the Police Car

Until we can change the city charter, we must pay the salaries of about 730 police officers. However, nowhere in there does it specify what is necessary equipment for the officers to have. I will argue here that police cars are not only unnecessary but also actively harmful, and should no longer be funded by […]

Bike

Prose Poem: Biking Under Helicopters

This morning biking under helicopters to get to work I practiced the meditation technique I made up where I pretend by pedaling I am the single source generating the happiness all living things feel, the way a bike would light a lightbulb. I avoid the buildings that are on fire, flow past objects graffitied with […]

Screen Shot 2020 05 20 At 11.56.40 Am

Designing Cities for Women: Lessons from Barcelona’s ‘Feminist City’

In my recent streets.mn article, “Want Equitable Cities? We’ll Need More Women in Transportation Planning,” I argued that women’s under-representation in transportation planning and policy making leads to the creation of urban spaces that fail to meet the needs of girls and women. I ended the article with a bold question: What would cities look […]