Like many others, our extended family started having regular Zoom gatherings during the stay-at-home phase of the pandemic. Before Covid, we’d never had a group call of any type, but suddenly our four households in St. Paul, Jersey City, Baltimore and the Gulf Coast of Florida were spending an hour together on Zoom every Sunday. […]
Two opposite things are happening on December 4–a big service increase and an even bigger service reduction. The increase is the opening of the Orange Line bus rapid transit on I-35W from downtown Minneapolis to Burnsville along with new or upgraded feeder routes. Together they add 1342 weekly bus trips to the system. Metro Transit […]
By Sam Ding In December 2012, after two years of renovation, the brand-new Union Depot in Downtown Saint Paul revealed itself. Situated in the Lowertown neighborhood, this train station has transformed into a multimodal transportation hub while serving the people of Saint Paul as a public space. It was a heavy investment— from both the […]
With arguably the most decisive Minneapolis election in our lifetime rapidly approaching on Nov. 2, I went to Open Streets Minnehaha this past weekend on a mission to ask mayoral candidates questions submitted by streets.mn contributors. I got the three main contenders: incumbent Jacob Frey, former state representative Kate Knuth, and organizer Sheila Nezhad. I […]
I used to post a Quarterly Transit report, but that stopped with the onset of the pandemic. There was little to report and it was bad news anyway. I confess to have been in mourning for the transit system I helped build during my Metro Transit career. The transit system is now about half of […]
I recently read Sam Penders’ detailed piece about Metro Transit’s E Line Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and discussed it with a friend. Instead of getting into the details with me, they asked “Why don’t they just build a train?” I was surprised at first but worked my way through their questions as best I could to explain what BRT even is.
Metro Transit is upgrading the busy Route 6 bus corridor to an arterial bus rapid transit (BRT) line, named the E Line, with an opening date of 2025. This corridor runs from Southdale in Edina, through Uptown, Downtown Minneapolis, and the University of Minnesota, before terminating at the border of Saint Paul. BRT provides higher-quality […]
Every day at The Overhead Wire, we collect news about cities and send the links to our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the D.C. region. […]
The Twin Cities has the worst housing shortage in the nation, as reported by the Star Tribune. This comes as no surprise to many who were in search of a home this past year. Home buyers were met with competing offers tens of thousands over the asking prices. This has escalated the average home sales […]
Every day at The Overhead Wire, we collect news about cities and send the links to our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the D.C. region. […]