I spent half of a recent Saturday outside helping some friends do yard work in what most would call a working class to low-income neighborhood of Saint Paul. It’s a pretty diverse place, too, with U.S.-born black, indigenous, and white people living side-by-side with immigrant families from many countries. My friends’ duplex apartment is on […]
An Open Letter to Minneapolis 2040 Planners and Politicians: Donald Trump crossed the ocean to London, England this past summer only to land in a sea of local outrage and demonstrations, including signs and a comically small Baby Trump protest blimp. I’m glad to see people exercising their free speech rights but Trump’s visit clouded […]
“Are you sure that road is for 2-way traffic?” asked KYMN News about the new and improved Division Street in Northfield. Social media commenters asked whether it was wide enough for school buses, how two trucks could pass, and where are the bike lanes among other questions. Yes indeed, Division Street remains 2-way (as City staff […]
Writing about the 5th “E” of implementing Vision Zero – Encouragement – is long overdue, perhaps a symptom of a lack of encouragement in general. The other “Es”: Evaluation, Engineering, Education, and Enforcement, have been covered previously, with suggestions, sometimes contradictory, on the multitude of ways that St. Paul could become a model Vision Zero […]
This is part of a series of posts about a study on Little Canada’s transportation infrastructure for people who take transit, walk, and/or bike. In Transit: Parts One and Two, I discussed my motives behind my study along with some information and statistics about transit ridership in Little Canada. This part has an analysis of Little Canada’s pedestrian […]
The topic of the US 169 Nine Mile Creek bridge closure has been a good source of stories in the local news. TV stations and newspapers have gotten out and covered how the bridge closure has affected the very wealthy Parkwood Knolls neighborhood in Edina, but also how Edina police and public works were meeting […]
Listen to this song about roundabouts from streets.mn writer, Joe Totten. If you ever needed to know: 1) How to drive through a roundabout 2) Why roundabouts are seen as safer 3) Why roundabouts are seen as more environmentally friendly and reduce driver delays, or 4) Roundabout (neighborhood traffic circle) use in traffic calming, this […]
When Hennepin County opens the new stretch of Washington Avenue between Hennepin Avenue and 5th Street in 2017, it will debut a safe and accessible environment for pedestrians and bike riders alike in Minneapolis. However, the infrastructure will be largely stranded. Along Washington between 5th Street and I-35W, the County plans to install unprotected bike […]
There should be a complex German compound noun describing “the feeling of arriving in a new city and staring at an intersection in amazement.” I’ve felt this feeling more than once, in San Francisco, Copenhagen, and most recently in Boston, where I spent a week visiting friends and family. Boston is famously non-linear, eschewing the ubiquitous […]
If you have ever witnessed first-hand the glorious vehicular chaos that is dropping off or picking up someone up at a major airport terminal, you may have wondered how there’s not constant, complete system breakdown. This video of LAX illustrates nicely just how many moving parts there are all around at an airport drop off. […]