urbanMSP

Yeah, when I first read about this, I envisioned that we were talking about ballasted tracks, which are pretty simple to move around. But seeing the images, these are all set in concrete at a crossing and there's no way that it was always the plan to move them. The contractor screwed up, it happens...

To be (somewhat) fair, I think our only source for this "always being the plan" is something that angrysuburbanite heard on a tour. However, *assuming that it's true*, somebody from the project or Met Council needs to be out there setting the record straight. It's not doing transit in the ...

Wow - great photos! I have to imagine that the warm weather this winter must have helped keep tunnel progress moving.

Can't wait to see the breathless follow up report from KSTP to set the record straight. It's also PR malpractice that the SWLRT project manager didn't respond with this information immediately, and instead let the narrative of "this is a screw up" take root.

I saw this snippet in today's construction update: Expect a one-day full road closure of West 21st Street at the rail crossing (between Thomas Avenue S and Upton Avenue S) on June 1, weather permitting, from 9:00 AM and finishing around 8:00 PM. The purpose of this closure is to shift the freight ra...

One can hope that as the long-awaited Great Generational Wealth Transfer gets underway, a lot of younger folks will find themselves in possession of properties long held by their NIMBY-adjacent parents that they wish to monetize, and that a flexible zoning code could help them up-develop and capture...

Borealis train makes its maiden voyage Tuesday from Minnesota to Chicago

Anybody attending the celebration, or riding the maiden voyage?

Excellent points. One could argue that Roe wasn't judicial policy-making, but rather an articulation of constitutional policy / rights that were always implicitly present but not yet "discovered". When viewed in that way, I think this problem is a symptom of our 230+ year old constitution....

It is pretty funny that you can file a lawsuit and the courts will spend six years on procedural back and forth with laypeople skimming the 500 word articles throughout thinking that they are addressing whether or not the thing is good or bad. Agree - a little civic literacy would be nice. Elected ...

Nice to see that Northstar has now surpassed (checks notes) vanpool to be the second least used transit mode in the metro.

It seems like eventually all intercity service to the Twin Cities should stop at both TFS and SPUD. To go from SPUD to TFS (or vice versa), you have to back in/out of both stations, so it actually seems to work out operationally, since trains would always be facing the "right way" after ar...

I believe the annual ridership estimate for Borealis was 100k+, so some napkin math (100k divided by 365 days per year divided by two trips per day [one each way]) gets you to something like 130 expected passengers per trip. Combined with the Empire Builder trips, and that's an expectation of severa...

(Do people have a legitimate problem with CityNerd? Or is it just a taste thing? His voice is a bit grating to my tastes, but I enjoy his content.)

Obviously that church playground was generating an unacceptable amount of traffic - good riddance! /s

Yes, only two lines, but ~52 miles once both extensions are complete, which (according to Wikipedia) is comparable to Denver's LRT system which has 8 lines. If we really wanted to, we could claim 4 lines once the extensions are open by running an EP to MOA service plus Brooklyn Center to St Paul ser...

So would the Blue Line extension be grandfathered in, or would the Hennepin County funding (presumably with the transit sales tax dollar) be required to change, along with handing off the whole project to MnDot?

Do you reckon there are any lane centerlines / offramps / curbs that are 7 inches off of their design specs in the 35W south Minneapolis rebuild? I daresay you could probably find one or two spots like that. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which piece of infrastructure will have...