So, as I mentioned in the first installment I sometimes take the bus for errands and to get to meetings. As part of the city’s desire to reduce congestion by encouraging public transit Accessory Dwelling Units are not required to have additional parking space of their own. We are likely to either replace our current two […]
National Links: The Curb of the Future is in Cincinnati
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 DC region. […]
Google Maps in the Minneapolis Bottineau Neighborhood
Note: Original post is from the LocalMN Stories blog in July, 2017. It’s edited just a bit regarding any recent changes to my knowledge. Definitely comment away if there are more! Plus, it’s chilly outside. Thinking happy summer thoughts. The Bottineau neighborhood is at the very north end of the 3rd ward. Google Maps does make it a bit […]
Baby Biking Book Bleg
Our two year old, known on the internet as Tiny Baby (she’s no longer either of those things, but she was), loves big trucks. She loves the dress she got for Christmas that features big trucks and has pockets. She loves buses and construction equipment. We’ve got books about all of those things. The other day […]
What Can Walkers Learn From Winter Cyclists?
I live in a privileged St. Paul neighborhood with professional cyclists — men and women of varying ages who commute by bicycle all year round, including during the recent polar vortex. Their financial investment, beyond the cost of the bicycles themselves, includes heavy gloves, facemasks, hard-bottomed boots, helmets and goggles, lights and reflectors, and reflective […]
Map Monday: Saint Paul What Even Am I Looking At
Here’s a map on the wall at the new Treasure Island Center in downtown Saint Paul, which is the old Macy’s Building which was the old Dayton’s, which was designed by famous mall architect and quasi-pedestrian-focused architect Victor Gruen to be a windowless box. Today it has windows in it thanks to a drastic deconstructive […]
St. Paul 2040 Could Learn Something from St. Paul 1922
As Saint Paul debates its 2040 plan, it is revealing to look back at one of the city’s first zoning maps from the early 1920s. A little inspection of the map reveals some of the origins of the city’s current social geography and social divides, but also some elements worthy of resurrection. The dominance of […]
Sunday Summary – February 2, 2019
Groundhog Day in Minnesota is ridiculous. Of course whether or not any groundhog saw its shadow yesterday, we’re going to have six more weeks of winter. Given the whipsawing of temperatures, we may have spring-like interludes, but I’m quite confident we’re not going to be seeing green leaves in mid-March. February is a great time […]
Chart of the Day: Minnesota Transportation Emissions 2005-2016
In the midst of the polar vortex / rapid warming / re-cooling / wild temperature fluctuations that are linked to climate change, it’s worth re-reading this recent Minnpost piece about where Minnesota’s CO2 emissions are coming from. Transportation has become the largest culprit: In Greta Kaul’s article, she talks about the reasons behind these trends, […]
International Winter Bike to Work Day 2019
Friday, February 8th: a great day to enjoy some winter bicycling with people around the world. It’s International Winter Bike to Work Day! Arrive at work with some snowflakes on your coat, frozen eyelashes, and enjoy bicycle benefits like: Climate-friendly living Does bike commuting impact your carbon footprint? And how much? by Frances Stevenson Mindfulness: Moving meditation: […]
Walking All the Streets of Northern King Field
Yes, I know the neighborhood’s name is normally written “Kingfield” with no space. But I’m going to stubbornly stick with using names from some anonymous Minneapolis bureaucrat’s list, so “King Field” it is. Either way, it memorializes William S. King. As shown by the blue shading in the route map, the neighborhood occupies a rectangular portion […]
The Gas Tax is Too Damn Low
The price of gasoline in the Twin Cities is very low right now, averaging $2.22 a gallon across the metro. Cheap gas is a short-term benefit to people who drive cars, but is horrible for just about everyone in the long term. Cheap gas incentivizes people to drive more miles, make more solo trips instead […]
Ship Shape
August 6, 2016 West End, Downtown, Lowertown 16.3 Miles A trip Downtown via Shepard Road seemed like a good idea. And so I got onto the Sam Morgan trail and took it from Highland Park to Lambert’s Landing on the edge of Downtown and Lowertown. Docked at the Landing was an enormous Army Corps of […]
Walking Crookston
8am. I just finished walking an hour and a half from the Grand Forks Amtrak station. It’s a Saturday morning at the end of September in 2017, and the night before, I spent 6 hours on the Empire Builder traveling from the Twin Cities. After crossing the bridge to briefly visit East Grand Forks, and […]
Mattocks Park: A Contradiction of Sorts
[Part of the Saint Paul Field Guide to Public Spaces, put together by a Geography class at Macalester College in fall 2018. See introduction here.] by Julia Bayer Mattocks Park is located in the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood a family friendly, relatively affluent, predominantly white residential neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. The neighborhood extends from its western border, the […]
National Links: Interaction Planning and the Planning Room
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 DC region. […]
Get to Know a Four-Lane Death Road: Broadway Street, NE Minneapolis
I’m going to posit that most readers of streets.mn are familiar with the four-lane death road and the very easy method of fixing them, the four-to-three-lane conversion or “road diet”. The road diet is one of those rare free wins in the area of public discourse, or it should be: a solution to dangerous and […]
streets.mn Happy Hour — Our First of 2019!
With the good news that the federal government shutdown finally is ending, at least temporarily, we are feeling celebratory. We haven’t seen one another this year yet, so let’s get together! Join us for our first streets.mn Happy Hour of 2019 on Thursday, February 7. We’ll be at downtown St. Paul’s newest brewery, Stacked Deck Brewing, […]
Map Monday: 494 Corridor Land Uses, 1953-76
Here’s a fun historical map showing how land use changed during the boom time heyday of the I-494 strip on the south edge of the Twin Cities. It’s from a chapter out of a book called “The Geography of Urban Transportation,” edited by Susan Hanson and Genevieve Giuliano. The chapter, by Peter O. Muller, is […]
Sustainable To-Go Packaging: Still a Push in St. Paul
Streets.mn readers care about the environment, right? That’s why we’re counting on you to care about the push for sustainable to-go packaging at restaurants and eateries in St. Paul. St. Paul City Council members are warming up to the idea of updating the city’s ordinance to require sustainable to-go packaging, with an implementation period of […]