Conrad deFiebre

Conrad deFiebre's picture

Biography

About me

Conrad deFiebre came to Minnesota 2020 after 34 years as an editor and reporter at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the last 11-plus years covering Minnesota politics and government from the State Capitol. He also was a copy editor, night sports editor, southern Minnesota correspondent, and St. Paul bureau reporter.

A safe walk in an autocentric environment

By Conrad deFiebre, Minnesota 2020

Walking, the original and most basic form of human transportation, is staging a comeback in Minnesota. Bike Walk Twin Cities reports that it increased 17 percent in the metro area from 2007 to 2010. But our growing numbers of pedestrians still face a built environment designed for car travel and little else.

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Minnesota 2020

Better transit, bigger crowds, safer downtown

By Conrad deFiebre, Minnesota 2020

Autocentric conservatives sometimes attack public transit as a magnet for crime. Police and commercial property managers know better.

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Minnesota 2020

Knitting together high-quality transit in the Twin Cities metro area

By Conrad deFiebre, Minnesota 2020

The Twin Cities' sole light-rail transit line, the Hiawatha from downtown Minneapolis to the Mall of America via the airport, has MORE »

Are we there yet? MnDOT takes stock

By Conrad deFiebre, Minnesota 2020

Minnesota has 142,000 miles of streets and highways, 4,458 miles of railroad track, 3,880 miles of walking and biking trails, 135 public airports, 77 counties with full transit service and nine ports for waterways shipment. Practically all of this multibillion-dollar array of transportation infrastructure is a product of intensive public planning. It won't keep underpinning our access, mobility, safety and prosperity without continued efforts to smartly map out maintenance, rebuilding, repurposing and expansion across all the modes.

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Relief for the Gateway Corridor transit desert

By Conrad deFiebre, Minnesota 2020

You've probably heard of "food deserts," inner-city and deep-rural communities that lack good access to stores with healthy, affordable groceries.Well, east of St. Paul, there's a different kind of wasteland, relatively affluent suburbs with little or no transit.

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Minnesota 2020

Three bridges coming back in service, safer and subsidized

By Conrad deFiebre, Minnesota 2020

Minneapolis, the national poster child for bridge failure since the deadly 2007 collapse of the I-35W span over the Mississippi River, is celebrating three bridge reopenings this month. All three projects were initiated after the 35W disaster killed 13 and injured 145.

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Minnesota 2020

Rideshare to Work Month brings incentives for Twin Cities drivers to beat the traffic, join a carpool

By Conrad deFiebre, Minnesota 2020

In the 1950s, long before America's social atomization described in the book "Bowling Alone," my dad went to work in a carpool. The other travelers were his fellow Ph.D.

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Hybrid buses good for Minnesota jobs, lungs, taxpayers

By Conrad deFiebre, Minnesota 2020

Metro Transit's newest hybrid-electric buses were unveiled at the State Fair, a fitting introduction for state-of-the-art technology that's made right here in Minnesota.

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Minnesota 2020

OPINION | Second thoughts about second-story transportation

By Conrad deFiebre, Minnesota 2020

Even though I seldom venture downtown, I've always thought the Minneapolis skyway system -- the most extensive and successful in the United States -- was pretty cool.

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State Fair travel options abound

By Conrad deFiebre, Minnesota 2020

If you're planning to visit the Minnesota State Fair starting Thursday, it's a smart move to study the many alternatives for getting there. Because of the huge crowds that assemble daily at the 320-acre fairgrounds in Falcon Heights, the customary default choice, the private car, is probably the most expensive, time-consuming and exasperating option.

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Minnesota 2020
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