Bloomington’s 2040 Plan, titled “Forward 2040” was officially adopted by the city on Aug 5, 2019. Unlike in Minneapolis, it passed with little notice and little controversy. Here are a few points that caught my attention. Housing and Diversity Although the need for more high density housing is acknowledged like in the Minneapolis plan, here […]
Join the Events Committee for one final ride on the midnight bus from Wayzata on Friday, August 16! Two years ago, as part of Metro Transit’s restructuring of transit service to better serve the West End, they introduced the 645 for workers along the 394 corridor. The 645, like the 675 it replaced, operates from […]
Engineers have a lot of options in how they design our streets and roads, how safe they make them, who they serve well and who they serve poorly. This post will examine why road design is so important, its underlying philosophy and, finally, some specific design options and why various elements are important. A future […]
This is “Meet a Roundabout,” 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 they came to be. This is the first post in the series. On a recent beautiful Wednesday night, […]
Edina’s City Council approved a draft comprehensive plan last Tuesday. While it’s not nearly as ambitious as the 2040 plan approved last year in Minneapolis, the Edina plan has still attracted some organized opposition. Bruce Christensen, creator of two anti-population growth websites in Edina (stopthelid.com and We Can Do Better Edina), led a contingent of of residents whose testimony […]
Next week, join streets.mn for the first ever “Night at the Movies.” The peerless Trylon Cinema in South Minneapolis is showing an absolute classic film about US suburbia — Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House — and we’re hosting a film and discussion evening. If you’re not familiar with this landmark film, it’s a 1948 […]
April 1, Bloomington — The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has announced an exciting new effort in its campaign to fight the dangerous epidemic of distracted walking, by targeting one of the metro area’s most dangerous areas for distracted pedestrians: the Mall of America. “Distracted driving claims thousands of lives each year,” noted MnDOT Commissioner […]
Home & Garden Television (HGTV) recently announced a new special called Rock the Block. The premise of the show is that four of the network’s top designers will be given four nearly-identical houses on a suburban block and each a budget of $150,000 and four weeks to turn them into dream homes. The designer that […]
It wasn’t always like this. This changed roughly five years ago. I’m talking about the parking restrictions, that is. See that sign? As I said, roughly five years ago my neighborhood’s sixty-year-old streets reached their functional end. When we moved in about 11 years back the streets were horrendous. Every Spring potholes were patched. The […]
The Metropolitan Council is proposing to eliminate Route 614, which operates Monday-Friday between Ridgedale Mall and apartment complexes in Minnetonka Heights (just north of County Road 101 and Townline Road/Highway 62). Frequency of this route is around every hour. The first northbound bus leaves at 5:16 AM, and the last northbound bus leaves at 5:35 […]