Being raised in a family that didn’t default to driving gave me the wind in my hair as a toddler on the back of my mother’s bike; a sense of self-confidence as my father would walk with me to school; the knowledge that I will always have choices in how I get around. But that […]
By one count, there are over 7,600 streets named “Main Street” in the United States. But there is only one that became the title of Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis’ 1920 classic “Main Street”, and that’s the one in Sauk Centre, MN (alias “Gopher Prairie”), the writer’s hometown. Main Street—the novel—is about a progressive and […]
Like many transit riders, I have been riding much less since the pandemic, mostly because I have been sticking closer to my home and neighborhood. (Though note: there is starting to be evidence that transit-riding is not a big contributor to COVID-19 rates.) That decrease is a personal sadness because of the lost human connections […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
I wanted to take a moment to pause and look back at 2019, which was a brutal year for people walking in Saint Paul. Last year, five people were killed by automobile violence, making it an especially tragic year. For every name here, there were many more people hit and injured by people driving cars […]
I was on 6th Street, carefully navigating three lanes of traffic and construction. I signaled my turn as I eased into the left lane, aware of drivers moving urgently around me. Suddenly I bounced, failed to reestablish grip, and tumbled. I rolled off my bike and onto concrete. Something hit my knee bad enough to […]
Last night, I attended a listening session for Lyndale Avenue in Minneapolis, focused on the serious safety issues between Lake Street and Franklin Avenue. The event was organized by the county commissioner for the area, Marion Greene. Dozens of neighbors spoke about their experiences walking, driving, and biking on Lyndale. The neighbors covered a lot […]
Earlier this year Metro Transit and the City of Minneapolis did a demonstration of rush hour bus lanes on Hennepin Avenue between Franklin Avenue and Uptown Transit Station. Bus service has always been extremely slow due to morning backups from I-94 and afternoon backups from Lagoon Avenue. The demo worked just fine, but relied on […]