“Walk the Talk” is our biweekly invitation to readers to get outside, get engaged and gain more knowledge about transportation and land use issues — primarily in the Twin Cities (though we welcome submissions from Greater Minnesota).
Streets.mn’s carefully curated, highly partisan collection of both serious and fun-loving events, community meetings and opportunities for engagement
May 12, 2021 Macalester-Groveland, Summit-University (Cathedral Hill), Downtown, West End 21 Miles My first blogging bike ride of 2021 filled me with excitement and a touch of apprehension. Both emotions resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic, which limited me to a single blogging ride in 2020. Obviously, interviewing people last year was out of the question, […]
The St. Paul City Council recently approved the 9th and 10th Street portions of the Capital City Bikeway (CCB), and those are expected to be installed this summer during the city’s Pavement & Sidewalk Improvement Project. Those opposed to this project have gotten coverage from various local media outlets (Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, WCCO, City […]
I was walking through the skyway near Nicollet Mall on Monday and watching the backed up traffic below. Single occupancy fossil fuel vehicles, car commuters, were “blocking the box” and preventing buses full of other commuters from getting home on time. The flow of pedestrians at every signal cycle was more than the number of […]
Maps of “Downtown Saint Paul” are pretty consistent. They almost always depict a small slice of historical urban density, edging a river, and firmly enclosed by a ring of freeways on all sides. The end result is a downtown that is small, quaint, and looks nice in photos taken from a distance. Downtown Saint Paul […]
On November 7th, Saint Paul elected a new mayor for the first time in twelve years, former Ward 1 City Council Member Melvin Carter III. Carter campaigned on a platform that pledged to move Saint Paul forward, calling to “reduce our city’s carbon footprint by expanding transit, biking, and pedestrian opportunities citywide” and to “design […]
It is easy to look at the former Macy’s store in St. Paul and see an irredeemable wreck. It is large and hostile to pedestrians. Its few windows and huge floorplates were ideal for the retail environment of the 1960’s, but are stubbornly resistant to redevelopment. It is too expensive to tear down, and besides, developers aren’t […]
Each year my wife and I attend the American Craft Council show at St. Paul RiverCentre, this year on April 8. The level of artistry and skill is breathtaking. I highly recommend it, but that’s not the reason for this post. Each year we park in the Kellogg Blvd. ramp and walk across the skyway, […]
National Bike to Work Week is coming up and, for once, Saint Paul has something to celebrate. We passed a bike plan back in March and already we have three potential bikeway projects up for public discussion. We’ve moved from having public meetings about plans (many of which never got implemented) to having meetings about […]