Municipal Sidewalk Clearing in Richfield: An Interview
Municipal sidewalk clearing in Richfield helps those who use strollers or wheelchairs — as well as people who simply don’t want to risk a fall.
Category: Sidewalks
The Park Board’s Vision for Gateway Park
Recently, I met with Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board District 4 Commissioner Jono Cowgill across the street from Gateway Park to chat about the current state and future of the park. Welcome to Gateway Park 🦖 Gateway Park is a plaza located at the intersection of Hennepin Ave and S 1st St and is bordered […]
An Easy Way to Make Suburbs More Walkable: Sidewalk Shortcuts
Making the suburbs, especially outer ring suburbs, walkable will require a significant shift in how we treat pedestrians in terms of infrastructure investment and in terms of interacting with them while driving. However, there is an easy way to make the suburbs more walkable without requiring significant investment: simply adding a sidewalk connecting streets and […]
Paul and Danielle’s Downtown Rochester DMC Districts Walk
So, it’s time for a streets.mn walk again and this time I’m in Rochester walking with my niece, Danielle as we went through a couple Rochester Destination Medical Center (DMC) sub-districts. Very short story – it’s where I grew up, studied piano, worked at a Shopko, rented in a 4-plex with a buddy, trekked the pedestrian […]
Pianos Contribute to the Sidewalk Ballet in Downtown Minneapolis
Hands-down my favorite part of downtown Minneapolis this past summer was the pianos on Nicollet Avenue. Not necessarily a new idea, to be sure, but I was struck by the talent of seemingly random players and the joy it gave passers-by. Any given morning on my walk from the train to the office I’d pass […]
Minneapolis Should Embrace Entropy, Dockless Bikes
If you are interested in Twin Cities history, one of the more amusing things this year was the parallel development in Minneapolis and Saint Paul of dockless bike sharing systems. Dockless bikes are a big leap forward in bike sharing technology — the use of which is something that tech blogger Kottke recently compared to bluetooth […]
The Curb is Everything
The curbside has long been overlooked and is playing a growing role in our increasingly multimodal society. It was a main topic of conversation when I attended the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) Conference in Los Angeles earlier this month. During one of the sessions, the Parking Manager of Pasadena, CA, Jon Hamblen, […]
RRFBs: A False Sense of Protection
When Rectangular Rapid Flash Beacons (RRFBs) started appearing in Bloomington and Edina I thought they would be a huge improvement for pedestrian safety, but having used them numerous times I’ve realized they’re a compromise on safety and neither motorists or pedestrians are the winners. RRFBs are a safety device used at crosswalks in which a […]
20 Random Thoughts About Dockless Bike and Scooter Share
A list of thoughts as random as the bikes strewn about my neighborhood. The scooters are super fun. Like SUPER. I was a menace the first time I tried a scooter. Seriously dangerous. Had to bail three times before I figured out the brakes. Bicyclists in Saint Paul’s bike lane said cuss words at me. […]
My Annual Minnesota State Fair Experience
Tradition is a hallmark of the Great Minnesota Get-Together. For a Greater Minnesota transplant, it’s now more wine samples than Machinery Hill.