Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/conrad-defiebre/)
The launch of the light rail Green Line has spurred an increase of 20 to 25 percent in pedestrian traffic at the downtown Minneapolis Nicollet Mall station where Blue Line trains have stopped for years, according to a new study. Unlike its predecessor, the new line traverses its entire route through the heart of the Twin Cities, an area particularly rich in vehicle, bicycle and walking traffic. Continue Reading
During an election campaign back in its Merry Prankster phase, an arm of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota bought Continue Reading
It’s urbanist dogma that you can build a city for either cars or people, but not both. Now there’s evidence to question that dualistic assumption. Continue Reading
Our culture loves speed. How else to explain the popularity of NASCAR, a spectator sport in which advertising-festooned motor vehicles circle an oval track at ear-shattering intensity, over and over again? Continue Reading
American urbanists have been cheered by persistent stagnation in rates of motoring going back years before the Great Recession, but there are new hints that the dreams of so-called “car-haters” may Continue Reading
With a divided vote by the Minneapolis City Council last week, municipal consent by all six jurisdictions along the planned Southwest light rail Green Line extension was wrapped up, qualifying the $1.7 billion project for final engineering approval from federal funders.
James J. Hill, the 19th century St. Paul businessman who built the St. Paul Cathedral and a great railroad to the Pacific Northwest, must be spinning in his grave. Continue Reading
As a newly minted think tank fellow seven years ago, I heard Bob Poole, the libertarian Reason Foundation’s thoughtful and nonpartisan transportation expert, argue in a local luncheon speech that private investment offered the only feasible way out of America’s chronic shortfall in funding roads, bridges, transit and other ways of getting around. Continue Reading
Under pressure from the City Council last week, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman outlined a $54 million street-improvement program—more than 10 percent of his proposed $515 million operating budget for 2015. Hizzoner thus significantly raised a group of rebellious council members’ bid of $22 million for streets after they likened his earlier plan to “putting a Band-Aid on a broken hip.” Continue Reading
It may seem strange to work up much sympathy for a booming industry that killed 47 people while virtually leveling their Quebec town last year and later touched off a giant fireball over Casselton, N.D., on the Minnesota border, but that’s what I’m feeling these days for the railroads. Continue Reading