urbanMSP

Downtown needs more visually appealing skyscrapers. It's no wonder that Saint Paul has such a poor, vacant CBD in comparison to Minneapolis. I recently spent the day in the Wells Fargo Center in Minneapolis, and what struck me is that just having a view of other attractive buildings is a status symb...

Does anybody know if they are going to completely eliminate Routes 16 and 50?

So I drove down the entirety of Grand and Selby tonight to see if the road surface was very bad and to see if there could be construction cost synergies between road and streetcar construction, for instance using some of the streets budget to pay for some of the streetcar infrastructure. Unfortunate...

Somewhat relevant to this discussion, here is a dissenting view to the car-free movement in Boston. http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/columns/2013/07/12/parking-tough-enough-without-loosening-requirements-developers/g1c14Dh7KfV6UuAJpNDfYI/story.html Urban Redevelopers could have some cars on hand ...

I hope (and I'm sure) you're right-
My hope is that it doesn't get too gentrified-

Could someone explain to me why gentrification is such a bad thing? I've never been able to understand that...

If the goal is to make service simpler, and thus both faster and more attractive, to increase ridership, there are a few ways they could do that, some more feasible than others. One way would be to make the transit system entirely fare-free. All buses could pick people up faster, and because there w...

To some extent, we have to return to living within our own neighborhoods. The layouts of our transportation networks (curvy suburban streets that only connect to arterials, etc.) also have to change to reflect the needs of pedestrians and cyclists. I've seen a few plans for sustainable housing deve...

Related to five story buildings on Grand Ave:
http://finance-commerce.com/2013/06/st- ... t-heights/

Someone with a subscription want to tell us if this is something more than St. Paulites hating density?

Probably St. Paulites hating tommies as well.

My sole critique of the 21st St Station is that it would likely represent eight figures of cost to serve a couple hundred riders a day (at best). I'd rather see investment in transit stations in places where there's actually transit riders. I think the reason they are really working on these lines ...

"Why Conservatives Hate Citi Bike So Much, in One Venn Diagram" http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/venn-diagram-why-conservatives-hate-citi-bike.html I feel obligated to explain some of the sentiments of this Venn diagram, if only for the sake of understanding. As far as Bloombe...

It seems to me that with the Metro-Direct A Line having stops along Ford Parkway at Finn and maybe Woodlawn, the entire northern edge ought to be a "main street" style development, with shops on the bottom level(s) and some residential above it (maybe like rowhouse type condos or apartment...