Jeff Wood • August 12, 2020 • 0 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 Covid-19 pandemic has given many of America’s governments—local, state, and federal—an opportunity to fail spectacularly at basic governing. A virus which has been contained in many European, Asian, and South Pacific countries within a couple of months rages on in the United States. One government that has done a decent (not perfect) job with […]
I’ve lived in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood of St. Paul for a few years now and have become very well-acquainted with its bike facilities, both good and bad. Overall, the neighborhood is roughly on par with most of St. Paul, with maybe slightly better connectivity to other parts of the city, though we lack any real […]
Effective April 29, the City of Minneapolis will begin creating “Stay Healthy Streets” in the 3 geographical areas of the City (North, South, Northeast). From the Minneapolis Website: Streets on these routes will generally be closed to thru car traffic but remain open for local resident access. On-street parking will generally be retained; some connection […]
Early last week, I accompanied my spouse on his morning bicycle commute to the hospital. I do this every once in a while, when he’s working on a weekend or I have the day off. It’s pleasant to ride together, and to start the day off with fresh air, exercise, and bike chat. This ride, […]
This article is the story of how I ended up recording the following activities on Strava, all in one day: But before we talk about my day of skiing for four-and-a-half hours in between two two-hour bike rides, we have to talk about why that seemed like a good idea at the time. The problem […]
Winter in Minnesota can be delightful, gorgeous, fragile, challenging, and sometimes far too gray. In January of 2018, Melissa Wenzel issued herself a challenge to a winter-weather version of April’s “30 Days of Biking.” Fellow winter bicyclists in Minnesota and around the world joined Melissa in her pledge to bike every day in January. In 2019, […]
In the depth of winter, as messy as it is, there are a lot of improvements to wish for on our streets. Despite the many merits of our current season, our hearts ( and calves and lungs) yearn for spring to come. One way to stay attached to the free-spirited feeling of warm-weather walking and […]
I have been known to harshly criticize St. Paul for its consistent—one could say unconscious, institutional—prioritization of car speed and convenience over the safety and comfort of people traveling sustainably. But this past fall St. Paul did something incredible, illuminating how different things could be with nothing more than a change in mindset. In October, […]
In May of 2016, I wrote about Rethinking the Status Quo on Summit Avenue. I made some quick back-of-the-napkin sketches based on rough Google Map widths (e.g. I assume street curb-to-curb is 30′, it is actually 28′). It was meant as an overall test around the city’s vision for the future of our premier bike […]