urbanMSP

City staff have twice recommended against the historic designation, finding Glendale’s character-defining historic features had been altered long ago. The Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office also said in 2020, “None of the buildings resemble their historic appearance.”

Doesn't every one ...

It's not outrageous to ask, but considering Saint Paul has a massive existing pile of LGA requests that aren't going to get funding in a contentious budget year with a deficit on the horizon, the odds seem stacked against the ferris wheel. That's the "reading the room" part, understanding the ...

According to the 2024 MnDOT study, the $500m represented:

$6 million for planning
$30 million for project development
$93 million for rolling stock
$144.9 million for phase 1 construction
$279.2 million for phase 2 construction

There’s a breakdown of improvements that they estimate that would be ...

I think for the average person weighing the options, yes that's true. I think there are some outsized voices in the public discourse who argue about these things in bad faith, and offer expensive solutions that they say would bring them back but ultimately wouldn't.

Consider, for instance, the ...

It's a frustrating problem because it has nothing to do with the amount of money invested, the age of the equipment, or any of the things you mentioned.

It's a two pronged problem of:

- Bad things do actually happen sometimes and we need to reduce how often they happen
- Potential riders who want ...

Odd question.. what if the HSR line went faster say 400 MPH and didn't need expensive rails?

No seriously.. What about a RST to STP shuttle flight that was able to let riders get through TSA faster given they are both smaller airports and allow them still reasonable transit from each airport ...

In what world was anyone saying that the highway oriented Orange Line could be converted to LRT? And if someone was saying that, why were you taking them seriously?

I didn't think I'd have to say this here, but as I've explained in comment sections where this is a popular line of thought, it would ...

Based on that image at the corner of Hennepin and 31st, with the Seven Points crown at Hennepin/Lake seen in the distance, this looks like it's just focused on the cb2 and Kitchen Window. Original design was 272 residential units according to the (as of yet un-updated) entry on the Doran Cos website ...

Am I the odd one out for only just hearing the phrase "office condo" for the first time, or is this an unusual way to structure the ownership of office space?

Two things:

1. It's not handwaving away those problems to correctly name them. Because if you don't name these larger forces, someone might be convinced that getting rid of the sidewalks or trains will actually fix the problem. And there are more than enough people who are willing to take those ...

There's a key part of this article that I think is important.

One could just write the above off as a gaffe, but Mike Hicks — a fellow transit blogger and former Streets.mn contributor — recently dug into all the other ways the most recent study is flawed. It’s based on bad rail traffic estimates ...

I love it, but I think the issue with that plan (and chatter from real estate folks seems to confirm this for me) that said developer would need to be okay with the fact that they're undermining the very market that they'll use to get a return on their investment.

For all the good that the 24,000 ...

Honestly the whole side quest that Edina Mayor Hovland went on trying to get funding to study a hyper loop to Rochester makes me think we are bound to repeat the Zip Rail fiasco. Trading a solid plan for a shiny object with suspect timing and feasibility worked so well the first time, I'm sure our ...

A rail connection to Rochester needs to be viewed as the first step in a HSR line to Chicago. There should absolutely be a regional component to any line but it needs to be envisioned and built to a true HSR standard, ideally 200 MPH.


Honestly, I'd settle for 125mph just to get things going ...

Minneapolis is probably destined to remain a "quiet midsized metro" forever.


Is Albuquerque destined to be a major global metropolis because of the Rail Runner? The ridership on the CapMetro Rail in Austin is pretty dismal, if they cancelled that train would Austin stop growing like a weed?

I ...

In the backend, is there a way to set a different color for the highlighted "thanks" or "edited" banners?

When using dark mode, the banner is a pale yellow that makes the white text near impossible to read.

IMO we need to get Hennepin and Ramsey Counties, including their cities, to significantly densify and transform into walkable places before rail like this is going to succeed. That's not even likely based on the pace of change since 2020... Unfortunately, MSP is too car-brained to make our transit ...

If there was a huge crush of people who wanted to take transit from Big Lake and Elk River to Minneapolis, would we be in this position to begin with?

Come on, Saints. Read the room - They're asking the state for $8 million to build a ferris wheel at their stadium

It's not the biggest request for state dollars that's come out of Saint Paul in recent months, but the pile is growing.

Well, it finally happened - City Center owner defaults on their loan .

Hopefully we can speed run the obligatory "Downtown Minneapolis is doomed" news cycle this time around and skip to the part where a local group of investors buys the property for a song and uses the savings to lower lease rates ...