Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/conrad-defiebre/page/6/)
The Sisters of St. Joseph who live across the street from me in south Minneapolis tend their lawn with an electric mower. One of them, a brilliant Ph.D., boasted of the corded machine’s zero emissions. “That’s nice for us here,” I replied from the back of my gasoline-powered mower. “But what about the stuff they’re burning up the river to run that thing of yours?”
Long before luggage with wheels eliminated many travelers’ need for personal service, distinctively outfitted African-American porters were fixtures at train stations across America. The history of St. Paul’s Red Caps extended from the late 1800s to 1971, when the last passenger train pulled out of Union Depot. Continue Reading
With relatively little fanfare, the Twin Cities’ first bus rapid transit (BRT) line opened Saturday along Cedar Avenue from Apple Valley to the Mall of America in Bloomington. Its performance over the next few years will have a lot to say about the future of transit development in the region.
To Minnesota’s two universally acknowledged seasons — winter and road construction — we can add a third: bikeway openings. Bike Walk Twin Cities, the federally funded nonmotorized transportation developer, expects a record number of projects to be completed this year in Minneapolis, St. Paul and suburbs.The most long-awaited of them is the University Bike Trail from the St. Paul campus to near downtown Minneapolis via the old Northern Pacific Railroad No. 9 bridge across the Mississippi River. Continue Reading
Residents along the route of the planned 15.8-mile Southwest light rail line from Eden Prairie to downtown Minneapolis will get a chance to weigh in on station locations and designs at six open house meetings this month. The free sessions are intended to identify 17 station plans that “would enhance connections to existing neighborhoods and promote future development opportunities,” according to a project news release. Continue Reading
When it comes to eliminating Twin Cities highway bottlenecks, there’s hardly ever any controversy. There was no apparent opposition to rebuilding interchanges such as the Crosstown Commons, the Devil’s Triangle and the I-35E-694 Weave to smooth traffic flows.
It’s been nearly six years since I last posted about Minneapolis’ plans for a streetcar revival, but except for a short park ride at Lake Calhoun, no trolleys are clanging in the Mill City. These things take time.
Spring seems finally to have come to Minnesota, and that means more motorcyles on the roads. If the recent past is any guide, it also means more motocyclists maimed and killed. Continue Reading
Minnesota’s St. Cloud and Blaine airports won’t be seriously affected by pending closures of their control towers due to federal sequestration spending cuts, local officials say. Nine out of 10 U.S. airports already operate safely and efficiently without towers, and the scheduled closures of 149 across the country were based on their relatively low traffic levels.
A century ago, the idea of a Complete Streets movement would have left Americans scratching their heads. Public right-of-way of the time was already complete, teeming with pedestrians, bicyclists, pushcarts, horse-drawn conveyances and a few newfangled motor vehicles. Then the mayhem began. Continue Reading