Sketching Twin Cities snow piles

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Winter in Minnesota does not favor plein air sketching – ink freezes in pens, watercolors turn to ice and fingers develop frostbite. Fortunately, there are many good places to sketch indoors in the Twin Cities (watch this KARE 11 report about the Metro Sketchers sketching at the Como Conservatory). Towards the end of the season, I get bored of sketching indoors and venture outdoors into the cold. I put on my fingerless gloves and dilute the ink in my fountain pens with alcohol and step outside to sketch the predominant feature of late winter in Minnesota: snow piles. Snow piles are a ubiquitous, though fleeting part of the urban, winter, Twin Cities landscape and every year, a few of us urban sketchers take up the challenge to celebrate and immortalize snow piles on paper before they melt away. Continue Reading

Sketching the awesome awfulness of present-day landscapes

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Until the modern age, visual artists such as Rembrandt or Van Gogh had a relatively straightforward task when it came to painting or drawing landscapes; all they needed to do was paint what they saw just outside their front door or down the street. Today, the visual artist has to contend with a landscape cluttered with cars and commercial crap. It’s safe to say the landscape painting that you will see hanging over sofas in a suburban Minnesota home is more likely to be painted in the French countryside than the Interstate 494 strip in Bloomington. James Howard Kunstler describes the American landscape as a “landscape filled with cartoon buildings in clownmobiles, absorbed in clownish activities”. Continue Reading

Midtown Exchange responds to bicylists’ criticism

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Ken Avidor

A while back, I reported the sorry state of bike parking along the Midtown Greenway at the Midtown Exchange in Minneapolis. I’m happy to report that there are new bike hitches installed and a concrete path is being constructed from the Greenway.

Another improvement is a wider Loring Bikeway. The bikeway connects the new bike bridge over Lyndale Avenue with Loring Park. More information at the City’s Loring Bikeway page.

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An Inconvenient Treaty

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Ken Avidor

“Erosion of cities by automobiles entails so familiar a series of events that these hardly need describing. The erosion proceeds as a kind of nibbling … —Jane Jacobs

In the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, former Vice President Al Gore mentions that nearly 300 mayors of American cities have pledged to abide by the Kyoto Treaty . It was a proud moment to see that Minneapolis was one of the cities that signed the Climate Protection Agreement pledging to “reduce global warming pollution by 7 percent below 1990 levels and meet the Kyoto Protocol”.

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Shortage of parking at the Midtown Exchange disappoints bicyclists

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Ken Avidor

More and more people are bicycling this summer. The rising cost of gasoline, greater awareness of global warming and cool, sunny weather has contributed to the increase in bicycling. Minneapolis, however is not keeping up with the demand for bicycle parking. On new projects, such as the new downtown library, only a bare minimum of racks are being installed.

On June 3, I bicycled along the Midtown Greenway to the opening on of the Midtown Exchange with my wife and a friend. We expected to be able to park our bikes on the Greenway and walk easily to the Midtown Exchange.

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Ballpark plans threaten Cedar Lake Bicycle Trail?

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Ken Avidor

What happens when funding for a new baseball stadium, a commuter rail line and a commuter bike trail is approved and all three of those projects have to be crammed into a tight spot in downtown Minneapolis?

Nobody can tell me.

I’ve asked several public officials and all of them haven’t a clue.

The Cedar Lake Trail is considered to be the nation’s “first bicycle freeway”. The trail is 4.4 miles long and connects the western suburbs to a spot just west of downtown next to Lee’s Liquor Bar on the corner of Glenwood and North 12th Street. The Phase Three extension of the trail takes it all the way downtown and eventually to the Mississippi River.

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End of an era for Personal Rapid Transit

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Ken Avidor

The 2006 Legislature has adjourned this year with transportation winners and losers. Northstar Commuter Line got $60 million in bonding and the Central Corridor got $7.8 million. Among the losers of this session was Personal Rapid Transit (PRT).

Personal Rapid Transit is a futuristic transportation concept comprised of thousands of little pods on an elevated, monorail-like structure with many off-line stations.

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Transit Advocate Antonio Rosell Announces Candidacy for Minnesota House District 58B

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Ken Avidor

Antonio Rosell, a civil engineer and urban planner, has announced his candidacy for the state House of Representatives in District 58B. The seat is currently occupiedby State Rep. Keith Ellison, who last Saturday won the DFL endorsement to succeed U.S. Rep. Martin Sabo. Rep. Ellison was up for reelection this November.

In announcing his candidacy, Antonio Rosell said, “Our district and the people of our state have been well served by state Representative Keith Ellison, but as he prepares to go to Washington on our behalf his seat in the Minnesota House is open. I am stepping forward as a candidate for this seat because I believe I have the ideas, energy and passion to continue the work he has started, and to make a positive difference in our district, our city and our state.”

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Bus Rapid Transit no longer an option on 35W

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Ken Avidor

I interviewed Representative Liz Hoberg in Monticello last Saturday at the Republican Convention for the 6th Congressional District. Holberg told me that Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) was no longer part of MnDOT’s plans for widening of 35W. Holberg said the 35W BRT did not get funded in the Senate. Holberg said the project would go forward and add high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes.

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Update: An acccident waiting to happen.

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Ken Avidor

Yesterday, I reported that pavement markings for the bike lane on Hennepin Avenue were nearly invisible to motorists.

I just received this reply from Donald Phlaum, engineer and bicycle czar at City Hall about the faded markings and other hazards to bicyclists: “Re-striping of all pavement markings in Downtown Minneapolis will begin in May. Bicycle lane lines will be re-striped as part of this work.”

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