Bike lane ex machina
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A few weeks ago I was biking on 24th st. near Bloomington when out of a passing car a voice yelled, “There’s a sidewalk right over there!” Continue Reading
Revisiting “The Amazing Race:” LRT versus Car
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I’m not an unquestioning LRT lackey. Some questions about LRT strike me as very fair. Continue Reading
Ford, finally RIP
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I owned a Ford once. It sucked. I had reasons to agree with the jokes about Ford meaning “Fix Or Repair Daily” or “Found On Road Dead.” After that Ford, I didn’t own another car for 12 years. And I became a transportation planner because I never liked having to drive in the first place and wanted to improve options and safety for people who either have to or who choose to walk, ride transit, and bike. Continue Reading
A home is…
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Beacon board member Jack Sjoholm opened the June board meeting with the following remarks. We thought they were worth sharing for your consideration. Continue Reading
June 21: Imagine an Ayd Mill linear park
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Next Saturday, June 21, from 1-4pm, Neighborhoods First, a community group in Saint Paul’s Merriam Park, will be hosting an event on the corner of Summit Avenue and Syndicate Street. The event is titled “Imagine an Ayd Mill Linear Park.” There will be speakers, music, food and exhibits. It will be an opportunity for community members to look at what is currently known as “Ayd Mill Road” and imagine what it could look like as a linear park, or something other than a freeway. Continue Reading
A first ride on the Green Line – random thoughts
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Like some 45,000 passengers, my family took the Green Line yesterday. Since there were 5 of us, we made up and we went both ways, and assume everyone else did too, we were in fact 1/4500 of all passengers (sounds a lot less impressive). Continue Reading
Making money in real estate: Who benefits from blocking new housing?
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The Healy Project’s quixotic lawsuit to save 2320 Colfax hit a major snag earlier this week when a judge denied their request for an injunction. And for anyone who’s followed the saga, there were some interesting and amusing tidbits in the judge’s ruling (p 4-5). Continue Reading
A paradigm shift in defining “competitiveness”
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Some high-profile journalists in the business press and mainstream media are talking about economic competitiveness in a way that suggests a paradigm shift may be underway. Continue Reading
Walker Art Center a culprit in badness of Hennepin/Lyndale bottleneck
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The Hennepin/Lyndale Bottleneck: Not great by any measure. The City of Minneapolis is working on a plan to, basically, repave it. Many well-written thoughts about that project and whether or not it’s a good idea and what we’d do if we had exponentially more funding for it can be found here. But as with many large public works projects of questionable value, there are some helpful little things we can do on the side that cost considerably less than millions of dollars but still go a long way towards improving the experience of being alive in the area when not driving a car. Continue Reading
Cell phone spy devices used multitude of times, but no documentation
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Since last September with my first data request to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, I have been finding out more and more how the agency has been very secretive to keep from the public and policymakers information. Information that the public and policymakers have a right to have. Continue Reading