Lyndale Avenue Deserves a Multimodal Future
In 2026, Hennepin County will rebuild Lyndale Avenue South. With new designs on the horizon, it’s time to advocate for bike and bus lanes on the corridor.
Tag Archives: urban design
How Our Urban Form Confines Our Transit
Why do some cities have so much better transit than others? The distribution of people in those cities plays a key role, as our reporter explains in a dispatch from Milan.
Preserve The Future, Not Just The Past
Because I have a lot of important things to fill my time, I recently tuned in to a meeting of the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission. There was just one item on the agenda: the proposed demolition of a low-slung downtown office building at 17 N Washington Avenue, which would then be replaced by a 27 […]
Designing Cities for Women: Lessons from Barcelona’s ‘Feminist City’
In my recent streets.mn article, “Want Equitable Cities? We’ll Need More Women in Transportation Planning,” I argued that women’s under-representation in transportation planning and policy making leads to the creation of urban spaces that fail to meet the needs of girls and women. I ended the article with a bold question: What would cities look […]
The Edina Public Works Site is a Once in a Generation Opportunity
On my bus ride home each day the bus takes me by the vacant former Edina Public Works site in the Grandview district. I’m not the first to write about this topic – there’s an entire section of the city website dedicated to this parcel of land. Dating back to 2014, the Star Tribune did […]
Pedestrian Hit by Car. Driver OK, Say Authorities
Last weekend, a car driver ran over a man trying to do what should have been the simplest of tasks: crossing the street. On Wednesday, the victim, Theodore J. Ferrara, died from his injuries. Ferrara is far from the first pedestrian seriously injured on Lyndale. The street is designed to accommodate cars to the detriment […]
Ritzy Rafter Apartments in CenHen Opening August 1st
The new Rafter development will likely be one of the last large apartment buildings finished in Minneapolis before inclusionary zoning requires new construction to include affordable apartments. Pricing is out for units ranging from a 442 square-foot studio for $1,270 ($2.87 per square-foot) to a 2733square-foot 3-bed for $9,970 ($3.65 per square-foot). In other words, if they don’t […]
Here to There Episodes 7 (SOCIAL COHESION | circulator) & 8 (ACCESSIBILITY | wheelchair)
After a brief hiatus, Here to There is back with two new episodes. In episode 7, we take on the complex issue of social cohesion and the ways in which mobility and transportation impact the ability of individuals or groups to thrive as members of society. In the first half of the episode, we join […]
The City That Made Me an Urbanist
A few years ago, like many other young Americans, I ventured to Europe for a study abroad experience. In my case, I spent half a year in the city of York, England. What I saw in York thrilled me: a city that was actually a place for people rather than cars. What an idea! I […]
Pedestrianizing Big Box Stores – Midway Super Target
Like many parts of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the Midway in Saint Paul is a slightly strange hybrid between urban and suburban built forms. Houses and apartments on narrow lots and streetcar-era retail buildings with zero setbacks coexist (oftentimes uneasily) with suburban-style big-box stores that have giant parking lots. The Green Line provides frequent transit service to places that have […]