urbanMSP

You all don't get it. Once word gets out that this will require tearing down homes or businesses it will be seen as an intrusion by outsiders and bring back memories of 94. Policy talk and city planning best practices, wouldn't change this view. I'm sure people were told the same things when 94 was...

On a different note, denying services to lower income areas because they might gentrify if they got something nice is the absolute wrong way to think about planning a city. That's how you get concentrated, multi-generational poverty and segregation. Yes, precisely. Disinvestment is not an acceptabl...

Here's a story out today about the new lanes on Johnson. I wrote an email last year pushing for a roundabout here with zero luck. People are going 40+ mph off of 35W and then need to merge into one lane, or turn left. Really, this is a problem with how the city either can't coordinate with MnDot, o...

Seems like a good time to post this video, though I imagine many have seen it in this crowd.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra_0DgnJ1uQ

SWLRT pushing back its opening date, now 2024 at least, due to construction issues (somehow they are still discovering new soil problems on the chosen alignment). There were some other clues that the schedule might be pushed back, now we've got confirmation. I read the official press release, and i...

The Kenilworth alignment is truly the gift that keeps on giving.

The price of this thing is going up to $532M to add more parking spaces at stations, in an attempt to boost the FTA project rating. https://www.startribune.com/gold-line-brt-cost-going-up-by-70-million-for-more-park-and-ride-spots/600009761/ I'm increasingly convinced this one needs to go back to th...

Now I wonder how an automated rapid transit network in Montreal consisting of 42 miles will cost CA$6.5 billion (according to Wikipedia) while Honolulu's automated rapid transit line, which I believe will be built completely above grade, will cost at least $10 billion for a 20 mile route. I'm sure ...

OK I know this isn't really tunnels at all, but bear with me because it's a general question about grade-separated rail: I'm curious if anyone knows if we've ever seriously studied the possibility of running elevated LRT at a large scale, as something that would be a middle ground between extensive ...

Was planning to stay out because everyone knows my opinion on this, but then people started to put words in the mouths of us suburban conservatives. My goal wasn't to put words in your mouth at all, and I'm sorry it came across that way. It's frustrating to see outstate reps bash any and every expe...

Well said. My issue isnt with having it be a long term goal its that proposing it right out of the gate would gain almost no political traction. You need to do smaller projects that build towards that until one day people look around and see that its no longer needed/gone in its current state. Inve...

Replacing Target Field Station with an underground station seems really expensive, unnecessary, and unadvisable. I do hope that in the next decade, especially with the inevitable inconveniences and challenges of two through-running LRT lines on a downtown surface street, that discussions heat up ab...

Any total rethinking of I-94 should include not just a boulevard design, but also a narrowing of the entire right-of-way. From St. Anthony to Concordia, the width of the highway is about 285'. You could build a pretty supercharged street and still have half of the ROW left over. Ideally you would b...

What would be the plan for the semis and heavy trucks? University? When we talk about a boulevard to replace I-94, that would still be a major street which could support trucks and the like. This isn't a greenway or a woonerf or something like that. It would just be better adapted to the urban cont...

Not saying I’m for it but, diverting thru traffic on 94 to 494 and 694 and 35W thru traffic to 100, and 35E thru traffic to 494/694. While slowing speeds decreasing lanes to allow for more transit ROW does sound worth looking into long term. Still it seems like throwing away an iPhone 8 while you d...

What exactly does boulevard mean in this context? Like just a freeway with some extra trappings to make it nicer, kind of like 35E south of downtown St. Paul? Or like a full-on conversion to something other than a freeway? In an urban context, I think in order to be a boulevard and not a freeway or...

Minneapolis' resolution is very very good and lays out lots of smart priorities beyond just BRT. If there's one thing that's disappointing to me in this whole process, it's that removal/conversion to a boulevard doesn't even seem to be on the table, even despite all the clauses laid out for why the ...

I think having a tunnel on Broadway would be the most ideal choice, but I feel like it's likely that the Olson-Penn option is in the discussion again. I find it hard to imagine. That alternative called for the demolition of over a hundred homes! That was and is such a nonstarter, I'm suspicious of ...

Don't hold your breath for a deep-bore tunnel - all the metrics used for "cost effectiveness" would point away from that, and there isn't enough broad-based buy-in for the notion that a specific social good is worth making "ineffective" investments for it to actually happen. It's hard enough to jus...

Holy cow, they made St-Denis two lanes? Are people complaining about car congestion? Given Montreal's urbanism I think it's a good move, but it's surprising since that's one of the few arterials that actually runs all the way from Vieux Montreal way up north, and it has so many businesses. Haven't ...