urbanMSP

Thought people here might be interested in my traffic signal collection. Most of them are from New York or California as they have more interesting stuff than we do here, and I'm acquaintances with a collector in each place, but I do have a couple of examples that saw service in the city of St. Paul...

A lot of days my Jeep actually drives 0 since I telecommute, the main use is driving to the Minneapolis lakes on nice evenings, to the store once or twice a week, or the occasional road trip. So I suppose by that logic that's better than someone that drives a Smart Car from Credit River to downtown ...

I guess my Jeep Grand Cherokee is good for the city then since the cost of the gasoline (20 mpg on premium fuel) encourages me to combine errands and not go for a drive just for the heck of it? As far as the car-sharing concept, is it going to be nothing but Smart-Cars? I thought the whole point of ...

US 52 in Cannon Falls is currently a two phase project. The layout on the Mn/DOT project phase shows the complete project, but only the interchange near the southernmost signal and some of the frontage roads will be built at this time. The overpass at the northernmost signal and the balance of the f...

I think the right way to do it would have been to move the 82nd ramps to southbound only ramps at American, then build vehicle bridges over I-494 at Knox and somewhere east of the freeway so traffic heading north can get to 77th, and traffic going south can get to American without clogging Penn an L...

Since the bid came in so low they should rebid it to include both phases of the project, it'll be far cheaper to get the whole thing done now. County 68 is going to be converted into a "reduced conflict" intersection as an interim measure. Basically it eliminates the four most dangerous mo...

The long term goal is for a 4-lane freeway through Elk River, which would include rebuilding the BNSF track. The city doesn't like that much surface traffic and a very active railroad separating downtown from the rest of the city, so they paid for a study for the best way to deal with it. A six-lane...

E-Z Pass transponders with an "off" switch do exist, Virginia has them. I'm not sure if multiple systems are possible in transponders, there might be difficulty from a technical / cost / patent standpoint. All the interoperability efforts so far have been on the infrastructure end. Probabl...

Another "tip". If you travel to Florida and rent a car the rental place is going to want $45.00 a week for unlimited tolls, and you don't have the option of paying cash on some roads in the Miami area. Buy a sticker transponder instead, which costs $5.00 and includes $5.00 in tolls, then r...

Illinois and Indiana are compatible with each other, as well as with the entire Northeast coast. Unfortunately Minnesota chose a different technology from an Israeli company that wasn't electronically compatible with any other state. I'm unaware of any program in Wisconsin or Michigan. Right now the...

Given the dollar amount it would only be the first phase of the interchange. These pork barrel bills tend to go nowhere anyway.

Out in Burnsville, there getting a start razing the buildings for the new County 5 interchange. The former Vietnamese place is gone and theirs a dumpster and heavy equipment in front of the former Famous Dave's. The former Menards has a Napa Auto Parts store sign, and on the other end part of the pa...

My own philosophy is that anything the government provides should be funded by income taxes since it's easy to make those progressive, as opposed to sales taxes an user fees, but I do agree if we toll anything tolling this bridge would make sense due to the high cost and lack of a nearby free altern...

I am a big fan of freeway caps in the right locations, and I-35E might be one. If you look at Duluth they found a way to both move cars through the area and connect their downtown to the riverfront that way. The nice planter they tried in the middle of I-35E isn't working due to the salt spray.

What freeway parallel to I-35E? If you're talking about Shepard Road NIMBYs got an interchange blocked on Shepard Road and anyway St. Paul seems to want it to turn it into a place for people to picnic and sip Lattes next to rather than be part of the National Highway System. I-35E is the property of...

Fixing MN 252 / 85th and Cedar / 42 would make a big dent on the congestion in those areas without the expense of building two new freeways at this time. I'd suggested a diverging diamond at MN 252 since I can still see MN 252 being a full freeway in the future as that's an obvious gap in the freewa...

I agree MN 252 and Cedar should be freeways, but you can thank the city of Brooklyn Center for the former, and the city of Apple Valley for the later. Brooklyn Center wouldn't allow interchanges to be put in because they wanted land to develop to add to their tax base around the signals. Cedar there...

I guess we'll agree to disagree then. The $700 million figure every tosses around comes from rounding up the high estimate for the total project cost, not the Minnesota share, and not factoring in the costs of not building it. We can let the Wisconsinites deal with how to connect the freeway on thei...

The anti-car people shouldn't get their hopes up. I read the actual complaint, and what they're asking for is to halt work on the approach road on the Minnesota side until they are either awarded the contract or the contract is rebid. It doesn't affect any other part of the project, including the ot...

Mn/DOT decided to take the second lowest bidder for the Minnesota approach roads (which is 100% Minnesota money) because the lowest bidder didn't employ enough women and minorities. This act of political correctness will cost $6 million.