urbanMSP

How else am I supposed to access a business on Hennein or 1st?

Typically by biking on an adjacent bike-friendly street, and then riding a cross street the remainder.

I think it looks pretty good from a couple blocks NW on 5th, too. It doesn't even look bad from the east, just not inspiring.

I've never really understood the hate about this building. It's a little short, sure, and a little bland, but it's not a turd by any stretch. I'm glad it's there.

Well, for most of the aBRT lines proposed, well over 90% (mostly 98-99%) of existing riders are within one local stop of proposed stations (at 0.3 to 0.5 mile spacing). I think most here share a concern for the elderly, but in many cases they'll be close to an "arterial-like" station spac...

You very quickly get diminishing returns on the local routes if you made them all aBRT, and you create problems that you're not really considering. 1) As annoying as it is for us, local buses have their current 1/8 (and less) mile stop pattern for a reason; the rectangular grid system on the streets...

It would probably be far cheaper to just add another car than to retrofit the existing ones. Besides, since stations are all designed for 3-car trains, it would probably require extensive work to make them suit anything longer. Better to increase frequency and to relieve congestion at resulting bott...

Every time I've seen someone bring a bike onto the train, they struggle for a couple minutes before someone else comes and helps them. I'm sure for serious bikers putting them in those racks is old hat by now (I've never had much trouble with it myself) but a LOT of people just stand with their bike...

Helsinki has one of the worst public transit systems of a major European city right now--a single line with 17 stations, even we beat them. I'm skeptical they can get this to work.

Train travel would be extremely reliable if we were willing to make the necessary investments. But yeah, running on mostly century-old infrastructure, it's hard to make long train rides run on time.

For that triangle block to be made into a park, you'd have to do a lot of work to the streetscape there (particularly of Hennepin--cars move very fast through there, there are no crosswalks, and the sidewalks (where they even exist) are tiny. Besides, there's a park two blocks away adjacent to the M...

I've been impressed by how much foot traffic there is at even some of the lesser stations. The ethnic restaurants at Victoria have got to be seeing some increases in business.

Are the aBRT lines going to have METRO branding (/map prominence) or are they going to be under their own brand? It seems like it would be strange to have them anywhere else, but maybe that's the plan. Nah they will get the name Rapid Bus or something and be labeled A, B, C ect. They don't have ded...

The fact that so many people don't acknowledge that high density mass transit only makes sense in high density areas is not surprising.

Thank god that you understand all the issues behind urban transit planning way better than mayors and people with degrees in planning these things.

Are the aBRT lines going to have METRO branding (/map prominence) or are they going to be under their own brand? It seems like it would be strange to have them anywhere else, but maybe that's the plan.

But why? WIth the amount of vacant office space downtown, it wouldn't take a lot of shuffling to open up some big areas for businesses who wanted to be downtown. Why build a new tower right now (especially a tall one) except for vanity?

I don't know about that. Minneapolis and St. Paul are probably the two most liberal parts of the metro, but do you think they're more liberal than Susan Haigh? If the Council ends up being conservative overall, it's more because there are institutional and legal incentives up and down the line, from...

Ideally we'd get rid of the counties role entirely, and get an elected Met Council. It doesn't get rid of the politics, but it does mean we don't have multiple independent units of government trying to make these decisions, and then having veto power. An elected Met Council is a recipe for nothing ...

Is the Red Line (and the connections from it) not worth 12% of the pot?

It also has the advantage, in general, of having a clearer relationship with the neighborhood to the east, making it a little more tempting for North Loop residents.

The ING building is quite popular among normal people; I've had several people tell me they thought it was the prettiest building in town. It'll never be torn down.

How much would nixing the north tunnel save? Would that be enough for a decent chunk of Nicollet Streetcar?