Within the past few days, if you’ve been at either the 38th or 46th Street stations on the Blue Line, you may have noticed new navigational markings on the platforms. Metro Transit is testing platform decals that show riders with bikes where the light rail doors will be closest to the bike racks inside the […]
Active rail lines are a headache for urban planning. But we should keep them wherever we can.
My last few posts have looked at the rail networks in Minnesota and Wisconsin to look for opportunities for adding passenger service where little or none exists today. I also examined the system in Norway, a country with a similar population to Minnesota and Wisconsin, yet with a much more functional and robust intercity public […]
In my most recent two posts I looked first at the opportunities I see for passenger rail in Minnesota, followed by an entry examining Norway’s passenger rail network to make some comparisons. There are similarities between the two such as the fact that Minnesota and Norway have about the same population and have been growing […]
When talking about expanding passenger train service in Minnesota and other parts of the U.S., it’s common to be told that our area of the country has cities that are too small and spread out for it to ever work. Supposedly, only the Northeast and a few other heavily-populated areas have the population and travel […]
The current historic preservation issue in Minneapolis right now is not a campaign to save a building because its gingerbread ornamentation is too precious to lose. The slightly rusty and unornamented round steel sides of the Electric Steel Elevator complex in Prospect Park, part of a large complex of tall concrete cylindrical grain silos, may […]
August 14, 2015 Macalester-Groveland, Merriam Park, Lexington-Hamline, Como Park 16.2 Miles Cleveland Avenue, because of its proximity to my house, is the north-south street on which I ride most often. Despite that, I am still surprised by a sight or two on or near Cleveland. On Selby Avenue, three houses east of Cleveland, […]
I’ve spent a lot of time on mapping projects over the past several years, focusing in particular on rail lines through Minnesota and nearby regions. Since the state and national rail networks peaked in the 1920s, and have been shrinking ever since, a lot of that mapping has been a bit depressing. There have been […]
I am what transit professionals would call a choice rider. I have a well paying job and a rather new car at home. However, I choose transit and biking to commute to work, rather than driving. Because of this preference I’ve arranged my life so that transit and biking are more convenient for many of […]
A pretty cool video explaining how single-track lines work with sidings for freight trains from BNSF. Hat tip to Mike Hicks (@mulad) who tweeted the video.
