Search found 648 matches

by Tom H.
April 18th, 2025, 8:49 am
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Regional Rail in Minnesota
Replies: 7
Views: 307

Re: Regional Rail in Minnesota

Sudden urge to go look at AJFroggie's old fantasy rail maps...
by Tom H.
April 17th, 2025, 8:32 am
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Northstar Commuter Rail
Replies: 1024
Views: 336718

Re: Northstar Commuter Rail

Looking at a few maps, I'd say St Louis Park, Hopkins, Excelsior, White Bear Lake, South St Paul, North St Paul, and Stillwater. And although they are within city limits, most of the outer portions of Minneapolis and St Paul are effectively of a "streetcar suburb" built form, especially South ...
by Tom H.
April 16th, 2025, 11:55 am
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Northstar Commuter Rail
Replies: 1024
Views: 336718

Re: Northstar Commuter Rail

It's a great idea to consider commuter rail to walkable suburbs, but unfortunately many of them haven't preserved the rail ROW adequately. For example, the recent Chestnut St reconstruction in downtown Chaska, while overall a good piece of urbanism, destroyed the historical rail ROW across Chestnut ...
by Tom H.
April 14th, 2025, 8:22 am
Forum: Minneapolis - North, Northeast, and Southeast / University of Minnesota
Topic: Northeast and Southeast Minneapolis - General Topics
Replies: 974
Views: 491228

Re: Northeast and Southeast Minneapolis - General Topics

Silophant wrote: April 11th, 2025, 11:43 am Also, that Grocery logo in the renderings is an absolute masterwork of being obviously Aldi while maintaining plausible deniablity about it possibly being any grocery store.
"Grocery"? Kinda old-fashioned word choice, no? :)
by Tom H.
April 14th, 2025, 8:20 am
Forum: Suburbs
Topic: Chanhassen - Chaska - Carver County
Replies: 122
Views: 192285

Re: Chanhassen - Chaska - Carver County


Redevelopment adjacent to the park and ride station in Chanhassen. 325 units, an Aldi, and other retail (plus more parking)

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2023/07/25/roers-cos-downtown-chanhassen-redevelopment-plan.html


The hotel has been torn down, looks like construction on this ...
by Tom H.
April 9th, 2025, 9:20 am
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Riverview Corridor B̶u̶s̶ S̶t̶r̶e̶e̶t̶c̶a̶r̶ Bus
Replies: 1303
Views: 757577

Re: Riverview Corridor B̶u̶s̶ S̶t̶r̶e̶e̶t̶c̶a̶r̶ Bus


MnDOT is interested in turning back West 7th to city or county ownership. It could be that just the portion east of 35E gets turned back or possibly the whole corridor from downtown all the way to the bridge.


Would this involve re-routing MN-5 onto Shepard Rd? This has always felt like such a ...
by Tom H.
March 5th, 2025, 1:18 pm
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Amtrak: Long-distance trains
Replies: 16
Views: 4107

Re: Amtrak: Long-distance trains


Minneapolis to Denver is overall a high-demand travel market, and is one of the busiest city pairs for MSP airport, and we should have rail alternatives for it.

There is certainly air travel demand between MSP and DEN, but how much of that is due to their status as air hubs, and how much is due ...
by Tom H.
March 5th, 2025, 10:19 am
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Amtrak: Long-distance trains
Replies: 16
Views: 4107

Re: Amtrak: Long-distance trains

As a native South Dakotan, it's clear this plan was trying to thread a needle of state-wide support by connecting Sioux Falls & Rapid City, the major East River & West River population centers. (And Pierre I guess.) The problem there is that (1) that's a long distance with minimal population centers ...
by Tom H.
February 25th, 2025, 2:21 pm
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)
Replies: 3129
Views: 1004452

Re: Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)

A transit station tied in to the Lindau pedestrian overpass would have been the obvious choice, but I don't think MoA is/was very interested in prioritizing transit. I think they prefer it to be tucked away out of sight.
by Tom H.
February 25th, 2025, 8:14 am
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)
Replies: 3129
Views: 1004452

Re: Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)

I'm hoping this 686 route at least demonstrates corridor demand and can accelerate American Blvd for aBRT consideration. This is actually a very useful route, connecting Green, Orange, Blue and Red lines.
by Tom H.
January 31st, 2025, 8:30 am
Forum: Minneapolis - Downtown
Topic: Downtown Minneapolis Office Market
Replies: 1362
Views: 1117926

Re: Downtown Minneapolis Office Market

I think 6 cents on the dollar means it lost 94% of its value, not 99.94%. But in any case, I still maintain that the value was lost awhile ago, it's just only being realized now. It is indeed terrible that we're losing such property values, but it's a done thing at this point - optimizing among bad ...
by Tom H.
January 31st, 2025, 8:11 am
Forum: Minneapolis - Downtown
Topic: Downtown Minneapolis Office Market
Replies: 1362
Views: 1117926

Re: Downtown Minneapolis Office Market

Agree with BoF above. If you take the loss of office demand downtown as a given (which I do), then a private sale at a loss to a creative, local owner is not a bad outcome. No bankruptcy, no foreclosure sale - this is just the market resolving a valuation reset via market mechanisms.

While this isn ...
by Tom H.
January 24th, 2025, 10:44 am
Forum: Minneapolis - South, Southwest, and Uptown
Topic: Hiawatha-Minnehaha Corridor - General Topics
Replies: 285
Views: 354797

Re: Hiawatha-Minnehaha Corridor - General Topics

Wow, way to predict the Cybertruck design years before it was a reality! :)
by Tom H.
January 24th, 2025, 10:36 am
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)
Replies: 3129
Views: 1004452

Re: Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)


Wish there was a schedule or map.

Glad it's 7 days a week, but it looks like they are using repurposed prime minibuses rather than normal transit buses which is kind of disappointing (take a look at the contest page). 45 to 60 minute headways is better than I was expecting to be honest, but I ...
by Tom H.
January 20th, 2025, 8:14 am
Forum: Updates - Announcements - Problems - Suggestions
Topic: Dark Mode?
Replies: 7
Views: 10297

Re: Dark Mode?

I know I'm probably weird, but... how do I turn it back to light mode?
by Tom H.
January 14th, 2025, 2:31 pm
Forum: Local Politics and Governance
Topic: 2025-2026 Minnesota Legislature
Replies: 22
Views: 4813

Re: 2025-2026 Minnesota Legislature

It's certainly an arguable position. Will be fascinating, as a civics nerd, to watch it play out.
by Tom H.
January 14th, 2025, 12:54 pm
Forum: Local Politics and Governance
Topic: 2025-2026 Minnesota Legislature
Replies: 22
Views: 4813

Re: 2025-2026 Minnesota Legislature

Are Republicans really pressing forward, purporting to conduct business in the House and conduct business despite not having a quorum? This is gonna be a chapter in some AP Government textbook in a few years.

Are they claiming that only 133 members were elected, and so 67 is a quorum, not 68?
by Tom H.
December 31st, 2024, 8:56 am
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Interstate 94
Replies: 416
Views: 240366

Re: Interstate 94

Is the ventilation mainly for exhaust removal? I wonder if standards could be revised in the future as emissions standards and/or EV adoption improve.
by Tom H.
December 27th, 2024, 10:03 am
Forum: Transportation
Topic: Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT
Replies: 5418
Views: 1780734

Re: Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

What is the issue with signal priority in St Paul? Is it the case that the technical capability exists to improve the running times through St Paul, but for some reason the city government won't give the ok to flip the switch?