Cars and trucks parked in bike lanes seems like one of those enforcement challenges that isn’t going to get resolved anytime soon. Even if you bothered to call it in, the offending Uber or UPS or pizza delivery driver would be long gone by the time police arrived. It seems that keeping bike lanes clear […]
Drivers should slow down, look up and cease to run red lights. But pedestrians and cyclists on Lyndale won’t be safe without better infrastructure.
Last weekend, a car driver ran over a man trying to do what should have been the simplest of tasks: crossing the street. On Wednesday, the victim, Theodore J. Ferrara, died from his injuries. Ferrara is far from the first pedestrian seriously injured on Lyndale. The street is designed to accommodate cars to the detriment […]
[content warning/trigger warning: gun violence, police violence, murder, anti-Black and anti-Native abuse, r*pe, assault] 1821 The Metropolitan Police Department, the first municipal police force in the world, is created in London. The first American police force forms in Boston 17 years later. 1867 Minneapolis incorporates and the City Council establishes the Minneapolis Police Department, which […]
Check out the statistics used in this article: You can research Minneapolis crime statistics on the city website and check out the collected data behind this article’s charts on Google Sheets. Crime in Minneapolis has been a hot-button issue recently, flaring up tensions over perceptions of violent crime and a policing strategy to address it. […]
“Meet a Roundabout” is a new series of posts about roundabouts in the Twin Cities area that are improving traffic efficiency and safety. Posts include pictures and video of the roundabout and a history of how it came to be. This is the third post in the series. On Saturday, I drove my father to […]
I’ve been going past the red brick triangular building at West 7th and Leech for most of my life, and for pretty much the whole time, it’s been a dilapidated, sad place. For a while in the early 2000s, the building housed a marginal coffee shop. It was once one of many such cafés in […]
Sometimes I bike commute to work. It’s a 10 mile ride. Part of it on the greenway, which is like a dream (when it is open). But the bulk of my ride is on the streets of St. Paul. I’m not really up for that five days a week; I just don’t need my safety […]
A few weeks ago Our Streets Minneapolis published a statement of their position on the Minneapolis Transportation Action Plan, drawing attention for their view that they did not support greater enforcement of traffic laws. Meanwhile, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s 2020 proposed budget includes funding for a reconstituted traffic enforcement unit with three additional officers, a […]
Last Monday, I drove my father to a doctor’s appointment in Edina. We don’t usually travel these ways, but his regular general practitioner was on vacation. At the intersection of Interstate 494 and U.S. 169 are six linked roundabouts surrounding the freeway interchange. The two-lane roundabouts — with dedicated lanes for going either right or […]