Search found 23 matches

by thom
January 29th, 2019, 10:25 am
Forum: Minneapolis - Downtown
Topic: Minneapolis Skyway System
Replies: 519
Views: 103253

Re: Minneapolis Skyway System

Because it's thriving for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week (slight exaggeration but you get the point). So the goal is to force people to walk somewhere they'd rather not walk, in the hope that you can manufacture a thriving street culture similar to those found on the East Coast? Why not just try to i...
by thom
January 29th, 2019, 9:59 am
Forum: Minneapolis - Downtown
Topic: Minneapolis Skyway System
Replies: 519
Views: 103253

Re: Minneapolis Skyway System

Let's use projectors to make it look like everybody in the skyway is actually on the sidewalk.
Why do you want people to walk on the sidewalk so badly? There's already a thriving pedestrian scene one floor higher.
by thom
January 29th, 2019, 8:54 am
Forum: Minneapolis - Downtown
Topic: Minneapolis Skyway System
Replies: 519
Views: 103253

Re: Minneapolis Skyway System

I don't think anyone disputes that skyways are great when it's -20. The argument is that comfort on those five days is not worth sacrificing the vitality of the downtown for the other 360 days in the year. The vitality of downtown is the Skyway system. Our street level is at Level 2. It's an import...
by thom
November 1st, 2018, 7:58 am
Forum: Minneapolis - South, Southwest, and Uptown
Topic: Nicollet-Lake - greater Kmart area
Replies: 486
Views: 306819

Re: Lake & Nicollet Redevelopment (Kmart site)

If the City is the lessor, why couldn't somebody just do a FOIA request and get a copy of the lease?
by thom
May 1st, 2018, 1:17 pm
Forum: Anything Goes
Topic: City living trends and predictions
Replies: 129
Views: 79770

Re: City living trends and predictions

Do I foresee entire cities being manually mapped and then constantly updated by Waymo?
Google also has Streetview. Why wouldn't they just integrate Streetview cameras onto the Waymo cars so that the cars can keep the maps updated in real time?
by thom
May 1st, 2018, 8:49 am
Forum: Anything Goes
Topic: City living trends and predictions
Replies: 129
Views: 79770

Re: City living trends and predictions

I bet the current roads would handle much higher volumes if people would drive 'correctly'. Autonomous vehicles will be better drivers and much more efficient users of space than human drivers. Eliminating most of the need for private vehicle parking means that lanes used for car storage can be use...
by thom
May 1st, 2018, 8:34 am
Forum: Anything Goes
Topic: City living trends and predictions
Replies: 129
Views: 79770

Re: City living trends and predictions

If ride-sharing apps, increased transit and computer-driven cars could reduce the number of vehicles on the road maybe we could make convert more of our streets to those proposals with Northside Greenway or etc. It'll be great to get back some of that acreage. (As you mention in your article.) I pe...
by thom
April 25th, 2018, 9:27 am
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Pedestrian Safety and Infrastructure Improvements
Replies: 323
Views: 92157

Re: Pedestrian Safety and Infrastructure Improvements

I believe that the only way a pedestrian can fail to yield to a vehicle at an intersection under MN law is if they are directly crossing against a red light.
by thom
March 23rd, 2018, 9:09 am
Forum: Minneapolis - Downtown
Topic: Downtown Minneapolis Office Market
Replies: 1291
Views: 813331

Re: Downtown Minneapolis Office Market

Target, appears to be a stronger company than Kroger. Although they have fewer stores and less revenue they have a larger Net Income and are more up with the times. (Kroger $1.9 billion vs Target $2.7 billion) Minneapolis might not come out bad with a merger. However, this is just all rumors with c...
by thom
January 24th, 2018, 2:39 pm
Forum: Transportation
Topic: D Line - Chicago-Fremont/Emerson Rapid Bus
Replies: 225
Views: 75965

Re: D Line - Fremont/Emerson/Chicago Rapid Bus

I know it's only 2 blocks from 46th but a little surprised they went with 52nd over 48th, considering it's a likely destination for some riders given the commercial node there. The whole concept kind of falls apart on Chicago Ave between 46th and 56th. 46th is the major cross street so there should...
by thom
November 9th, 2017, 3:53 pm
Forum: Local Politics and Governance
Topic: Minneapolis Mayoral Election 2017
Replies: 379
Views: 72875

Re: Minneapolis Mayoral Election 2017

The whole thing with ranking Nekima Levy-Pounds third is kind of a cop-out too, isn't it? It's signalling. I feel like a lot of people tried to express themselves through their ballots. I do think that a lot of people are so used to voting strategically with their first vote that they are having a ...
by thom
October 9th, 2017, 1:28 pm
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Bicycle Infrastructure
Replies: 1800
Views: 1034486

Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

The bike signals on the new stretch of Washington are turned on. Now there's a flashing yellow bicycle to let you know to be cautious at all times, I guess. I was rather surprised that the green for cars came on first, then the flashing yellow. I asked two city workers about it - one of whom said &...
by thom
October 6th, 2017, 2:41 pm
Forum: Minneapolis - General Topics and Citywide Issues
Topic: Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board
Replies: 681
Views: 310086

Re: Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board

Or we could just acknowledge that not everything has to be an act of political symbolism, recognize that we're really just no longer comfortable having the lake named after a person who lived in a different time and operated under different mores, and rename the lake something relatively benign. Ca...
by thom
October 6th, 2017, 7:39 am
Forum: Minneapolis - General Topics and Citywide Issues
Topic: Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board
Replies: 681
Views: 310086

Re: Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board

Changing it to something that has some resonance for where we are as a society today makes more sense to me (although the rush of people falling all over themselves to give it this Dakota name of questionable provenance perhaps tells us an awful lot about where Minneapolis is today). Yes, wanting t...
by thom
September 27th, 2017, 4:27 pm
Forum: Anything Goes
Topic: Amazon's New HQ?
Replies: 280
Views: 36157

Re: Amazon's New HQ?

It's sillier thinking to assume a site that doesn't come close to meeting their mass transit criteria would be chosen anyway. And for all the whining Highland Park has been doing about the traffic they're worried about from the current site plans, what do they think 50,000 people commuting there wo...
by thom
September 27th, 2017, 3:56 pm
Forum: Anything Goes
Topic: Amazon's New HQ?
Replies: 280
Views: 36157

Re: Amazon's New HQ?

"The Ford site’s master plan — which could be adopted soon— only calls for 450,000 square feet of office space, so it couldn’t handle an entire 8 million-square-foot Amazon campus. Isn't this kind of silly thinking? The site probably could handle the entire 8 million square foot Amazon campus,...
by thom
September 27th, 2017, 8:58 am
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Bicycle Infrastructure
Replies: 1800
Views: 1034486

Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

The City has posted early layouts for protected bikeways near the U of M on 10th/19th/20th from 5th St NE to Franklin and in the Como area: http://minneapolismn.gov/bicycles/projects/WCMSP-197539 Both seem to have generous amounts of space for bicyclists and the south end connects south Minneapolis...
by thom
June 27th, 2017, 10:53 am
Forum: Anything Goes
Topic: Homeless tent city along the Hiawatha Bike Trail?
Replies: 24
Views: 4831

Re: Homeless tent city along the Hiawatha Bike Trail?

I had to dodge some discarded needles yesterday in the evening while biking home around that part of the trail. Would be nice if somebody could get in there to at least make sure the people involved have necessary disposal vessels for trash, etc.
by thom
January 9th, 2017, 4:05 pm
Forum: Transportation
Topic: MSP Airport / Metropolitan Airports Commission
Replies: 1359
Views: 346065

Re: MSP Airport

People flying out of T2 won't be able to afford to stay at the hotel. Problem solved. But seriously, the post office is in the way so they can't extend the tram all of the way to the hotel unless it's demolished. I've seen a few disparaging comments about the airlines in T2 and the "people in ...
by thom
June 22nd, 2016, 9:47 am
Forum: Minneapolis - South, Southwest, and Uptown
Topic: South Nicollet-Lyndale-Kingfield-Tangletown-Windom
Replies: 246
Views: 113961

Re: South Nicollet (Lyndale & Kingfield & Tangletown & Windom)

^"The sun will be blocked." "It's ugly" "I envision a single story row of owner-occupied record shops and florists" Exactly. More generically, a complaint about certain development often used on this discussion board: "It's not the specific development I had imagi...