State Fair, done. Defeat of Jesse James Days, almost over. School open, yes. Local apples, definitely. Must be Fall! A light week here on streets.mn, but here’s what we’ve got: A Walk in Eastern Como is the next walk in the alphabet from Max Hailperin and the third in the Como area of Minneapolis. As always, […]
Much of the Como neighborhood lies between two diagonal sets of railroad tracks. The more northerly was originally the Northern Pacific, while the more southerly was the Great Northern. Today both belong to BNSF. (I previously photographed these tracks running southeast out of Northtown Yard in Columbia Park, adjacent to the Shoreham Yard interchange.) The one exception […]
August 1st, 2007 was Minnesota’s day of infamy, when one of the most heavily used bridges in the state collapsed into the Mississippi River. Looking back 10 years and a month later, it’s time to reflect on some of the changes since then. It Ended the “Funny Money” Era at MnDOT The 1990s were a […]
A few weeks ago, Bill Lindeke, Mike Hicks, and myself toured the Red Line. I’ve taken it a few times before for errands, but never to just explore. It’s an unique mode of transit here in the Twin Cities that tries to be LRT on rails and…well, determine for yourself how well it does this […]
Shared Wednesday, August 30, 2017 on the streets.mn Twitter feed (which you should be reading!), this amazing 1970 Mobil ad will resonate with local pedestrian advocates: Text: There are very few principles worth dying for. Last year, 9,800 pedestrians laid down their lives for this one: “The pedestrian always has the right of way.” […]
As of right now, Thrivent Financial owns a collection of surface parking lots and one uniquely shaped 18-story tower in Downtown Minneapolis. For what seems like ages, their tower loomed over a vacant corridor of the city where even surface parking was off limits, contracted only to the employees of Thrivent Financial. But following the […]
When controversy happens….when tempers flare….we read the comments, so you don’t have to. On Sunday, as teased on Twitter by our own @streetsmn account, the Star Tribune posted an article It’s not your imagination — parking is disappearing in Minneapolis. The subhead and picture on the article gave a taste of what was to come, with a […]
Happy September! Labor Day weekend traditionally signals the end of summer when we get back to school and buckle down to work. You could use your new pencils/laptop to write for streets.mn. streets.mn welcomes new writers at any time to extend current discussions, bring new perspectives to issues on streets.mn, or add new voices to […]
The Saint Paul City Council hearing on the Snelling Avenue South Zoning Study is on September 6th, 2017. Highland District Council, Macalester Groveland Community Council and Union Park District Council voted to support the Study. The Snelling Avenue South Zoning Study recommends Traditional Neighborhood rezoning of Snelling and its commercial nodes. Traditional Neighborhood zoning will […]
“There aren’t enough bikes here to justify a bike lane…” I hear some variation of that line with almost every bike project, no matter where it’s located. Especially for people that rarely ride bicycles, it can be a pretty convincing argument! But it’s not that simple. Bicycling is deeply connected to street design, and (as […]
Part two of “A New Vision Zero for St. Paul” was about the first of the “Five E’s”: Evaluation, which very quickly led to rudimentary Engineering solutions simply to gather data and attain target goals for a transportation plan. Engineering is the second of the “Five E’s”, and often the most contentious, as it often controls […]
Here’s a chart from a new study (via Ritholtz) about the big picture of US demographics. To make a long story short, older people! The report, titled “America’s Demographic Challenge: Understanding the Role of Immigration“, is all about how aging and population dynamics intersect with ethnic and racial difference. In Minnesota, as in the rest […]
A couple of days before the Nice Ride season started this year, I looked at their map to scout out stations by TCF Stadium. I was getting ready to go to a soccer game there and was looking forward to being able to use Nice Ride to get to or from games. But my neighborhood […]
The bridge over Summit Avenue will be rebuilt during the 2019 construction season. This is an exciting opportunity for the City of Saint Paul to start making Summit Avenue, the premier bike route in the city, safe and comfortable for all riders. Details about the project can be found on the project website as I […]
Right now, even in Minnesota, all eyes are on the flooding and storm impact in Houston, Texas. Earlier today I read an article about why the Mayor of Houston did not put out a call for an evacuation of the city ahead of the landfall of Hurricane Harvey. It turns out the answer was that […]
A year or so ago, I was invited to a “greet your local legislator” gathering at the Minnesota State Capitol. A casual, brown-bag affair over a weekday noon hour, it seemed designed to draw working types from my politically progressive district. Surprising, then, that the otherwise detailed instructions included parking information only. Not a word […]
This week’s podcast is a conversation with Amanda Willis and Brandon Long, two of the people who have organized called Sustain Ward 3, a new community group in Saint Paul focusing on urban issues. We sat down in Long’s living room the other day to chat about the history of the grassroots organization, Sustain Ward […]
It’s peak construction season, pretty much, and here are some things that I wish were happening with bicycling in Saint Paul. Warning: This post is a little bit depressing! There are a few good things happening in Saint Paul too, including the completion of the Jackson Street leg of the Capital City Bikeway, more construction […]
The Great Minnesota Get-Together is now in full swing (and still time to get there for my favorite Stock Dog Trials tomorrow starting at 9), it is back to school time, and early voting for Minneapolis and Saint Paul elections starts in only a few weeks. Here’s the week on streets.mn: Join us You’re Invited […]
The day after I walked western Como, I returned to fill in some of the area east of 18th Avenue: all of the area between the railroad tracks as well a few blocks of the area between the northern tracks and Hennepin Avenue. I did quite a bit of backtracking, shown in red, especially in the […]
