urbanMSP

I agree that people's perception of crime does not match reality in the CBD. The last time I walked Nicollet mall it seemed there was a much larger law enforcement and deed presence in this area especially in front of the US bank center. The last time I looked they had the building gated from the p...

Lane width can drop significantly with reduced speed limits. The difference between 10' and 12' lanes is not miniscule. This is talked about a lot, but in practice the correlation with projects in the Twin Cities has been pretty minimal. Saint Paul several years ago stopped advertising lower traffi...

For those with long commutes, the drive is worth it for one of 4 things typically: the pay of the job, the size of the house they have, the amount of land they have, or the location of the land. Driving further to have land in the country with a decent size house on it is worth it for some. And som...

I'd be more willing to buy the argument that Minneapolis issues with ineffective policing are a result of short-staffing if we didn't all see that they sent four cops to deal with a single reported counterfeit bill. There was a Park Police officer there too. Pretty sure he came by himself because P...

Seems like people are driving a bit slower to me, and less likely to freak out at me for driving slower. Which is the point. Lowering the speed limit lets other drivers know that the person in front of them going 25 (where posted) isn't being unreasonable. And enforcement only works temporarily (whi...

More people might see more of this if the City of Minneapolis doesn't do more to work with neighborhoods to make access more limited to their neighborhoods. The grid needs to be at least temporary broken to stop people from coming and in out of side streets shooting and buying/selling drugs. This s...

In this respect, Amy Klobuchar is different from other politicians how? You don't like her, and that's fine. But by most accounts, Klobuchar has been more effective at actually getting legislation passed than your average legislator. Other politicians show up for things, or send their staff, even w...

Perhaps I'm being uncharitable, but I think the only person in power seriously considering her for the court is her. As for governor, she could run, but if elected she'd have to actually do things other than hunt for cameras to get in front of. She should stay in the Senate where she can follow her ...

Nah. The one on 34th Ave re-opened. But if a station of sufficiently damaged, I can't imagine that they wouldn't think about right-sizing.

Maybe use part of the parking lot on the southwest corner which appears to belong to a church. Metro Transit uses it as a layover for buses. Coincidentally, the preacher was talking about how they've been after that lot during an outdoor service the Sunday after. I'm curious whether Speedway intend...

It WILL matter when our climate gets worse. However, we can change that by letting go of conveniences like our dependence on driving at high speeds. Have you ever considered that maybe instead of making roads supposedly safer with widening and grade-separation people could slow down, pay attention,...

Or the police were trying to teach us a lesson.

I know a lot of people here like mayor Frey, and until this happened I could have been considered in that category. I still like him as a person, he's very approachable; however, I think he looked very vulnerable in this. What the city needed was leadership and clear direction and he was clearly fl...

I've lost track of which night was which, but I think it was a tactical error not to enforce the first night of curfew, which I think the governor having a press conference at 1:30 in the morning basically admits. I understand why they did it, though. As with the pandemic, I think the governor has b...

Probably time to split this off into it's own thread? Anecdotally, the Walgreens at 31st Avenue was hit hard on Wednesday night, boarded up and broken into again on Thursday, and then destroyed by fire overnight Thursday. Definitely the hardest hit of anything in the vicinity. Not sure if there's a...

Yeah, I was over there yesterday and a little surprised it looked untouched.

Trying to balance keeping instigating cops away from justifiable protest versus maintaining order is about as unenviable task as could have exists. We got no policing Wednesday night, I assume because the mayor and chief wanted the cops to use restraint, leading the union to refuse to do the job as ...

I'm guessing many of them will be vacant until post recession. Will people buy up some of the properties betting they will be worth more in 5 years? Seems like especially Hiawatha and Lake with the LRT and etc might be a target. When I was over there, seeing how much has been destroyed I couldn't h...

I drove down Lake from Lyndale to Chicago around 9am. Lots of tags/graffiti and a few boarded up windows and doors, presumably smashed. I could see smoke in the distance, but turned south to avoid backed up traffic. Didn't even think that I was headed through the 38th St intersection, which was open...

I find it interesting the asseveration that Chicago's vibrancy comes from in part traffic congestion being so horrific that office workers are stuck after work buying overpriced food an beverages rather than being able to get home to their family in the suburbs. Also, on my article on the changing ...