The majority of people who use public transit in the United States are women, yet transportation planners and engineers are predominantly men. The underrepresentation of women in planning has created cities in which women’s needs are not met. This begs the question, what would public spaces and transportation look like if women had a greater role in […]
Most of my trips to the Mall of America aren’t to the actual mall but rather to the transit station for getting on a bus or train. For over half a year, however, I’ve made an effort to avoid using Mall of America Station, going so far as to walk from 28th Avenue Station to […]
The Climate Action and Resilience Plan (CARP) recently passed by the St. Paul City Council is an excellent, and necessary, first step to move St. Paul toward a sustainable future. You can read the plan here. Making the plan’s vision a reality will require developing many specifics that the plan does not flesh out. It’s […]
A wave of faster limited stop transit services will arrive in the next few years. The Orange Line BRT (I-35W Minneapolis-Burnsville, replacing Route 535) is fully funded and construction is underway. The B Line (overlaid on Route 21 Selby-Lake), D Line (overlaid on Route 5 Chicago-Fremont), E Line (overlaid on Route 6 Southdale-Hennepin-4th Street SE), […]
I’m proud to say I’m a second-generation St. Paul resident – not that I’ve known that for a long time. I was introduced to St. Paul when I started my bachelor’s degree at Hamline University, nestled comfortably in the Midway. It was only then my father first told me stories of his childhood growing up […]
Carol Becker is right about one thing in her September 18 opinion piece in the StarTribune (“Let’s Talk About What Density Really Is“): Having 150- to 250-unit apartment buildings spaced a half mile apart or more, with little in between, is not functional density. That’s it, though; the rest of the opinion piece is, well, […]
How could Nicollet Mall, now an ode to concrete, be “re-engineered for street activation”? Our writer imagines bikes, scooters, trees and more.
I was walking through the skyway near Nicollet Mall on Monday and watching the backed up traffic below. Single occupancy fossil fuel vehicles, car commuters, were “blocking the box” and preventing buses full of other commuters from getting home on time. The flow of pedestrians at every signal cycle was more than the number of […]
Hey! It’s been a while, huh? We are out of spring and well into summer, and our project finally is getting into the swing of things. I owe y’all a few updates. When we last left off, we were concerned about what type of accessory dwelling unit (ADU) was possible on our property. So, we […]
On Thursday, the Minneapolis Planning Commission was supportive of a proposed ordinance from Council President Lisa Bender that would prohibit new drive-throughs for banks, drugstores, and fast food restaurants (or any other “facility which accommodates automobiles and from which the occupants of the automobiles may make purchases or transact business”). It’s important to emphasize: if […]