urbanMSP

I live in Ward 4 and it will be curious to see if Tom Goldstien, who also has what appears to be a fair amount of yard sign/Facebook support, has enough votes to beat incumbent Russ Stark. I personally think Goldstien is running on a backward facing platform intended to tap into discontent over park...

Here is a plug for Saint Dinette. Great menu and nice atmosphere. The Rayette Building is such a tremendous upgrade for the neighborhood.

Seems like satellite lots with shuttle buses will need to be a major part of the solution,

I'd rather have the stadium closer to I-94 than to University. You want to keep the urban presence of retail, office, and residential to be what you see along the green line. I don't think looking at 3 blocks of stadium concourse is what we want on University. I agree, and it sounds like the Pohlad...

When I do renderings, I use silhouetted people for that exact reason. People in renderings are useful to show scale, and should not be put in to "prove" that a space will be vibrant, to suggest a certain type of user, or to hide ugly parts of the building. Putting real people in there open...

Financially, no. But it would mess with pedestrian circulation at major intersections and it would have a negative impact on car traffic. So it comes with a political cost that needs to be considered.

At the rate ridership is growing, it'll hit 60K on its own sometime in 2017. It would be nice if the train were faster, but ridership numbers seem to indicate that lack of speed is not a dealbreaker. I live in the middle of the line, and frequency was a far greater consideration than speed when I ma...

Well the parking meters on Grand idea was nice while it lasted.

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_ ... s-official

I've found the ad blocking conversation to be more interesting. While I also don't like the tracking aspect of ads (someone recently mentioned researching ignition lockouts for drunk drivers and then being bombarded with ads for legal assistance, which is a rather creepy issue to see), I've also ha...

While biking is a great last mile option that should be encouraged, you can't realistically assume all your riders are going to be willing or able to do that. If your bus system requires you to use a bike or car for part of your inner-city journey and not your own two feet, it's failed you as an ur...

Our bus system is built around connecting high-demand nodes rather than establishing a uniform, frequent grid of service. The 21 jogs up to Midway because that's where the jobs, shopping, and riders are. I think encouraging bike use as a supplement/last mile transportation option is a better use of ...

My wife and I flew to Rome via Paris last year. FCO airport seems sleepy compared to LHR, AMS, or CDG - our incoming flight had us disembark onto the tarmac and take a bus to the terminal - but it offers most of the same connections to Europe,Africa, and Asia as the big gateway airports. I could see...

Maybe it is my ox being gored, but the marathon has the following attributes: 1) It is free to attend. 2) It celebrates athletic achievements of ordinary people from all walks of life 3) It brings a sense of civic togetherness for both spectators and runners that happens rarely, if ever, outside th...

Maybe it is my ox being gored, but the marathon has the following attributes: 1) It is free to attend. 2) It celebrates athletic achievements of ordinary people from all walks of life 3) It brings a sense of civic togetherness for both spectators and runners that happens rarely, if ever, outside the...

http://www.startribune.com/st-paul-s-como-dockside-revenues-better-than-expected/327804511/ Como Dockside is doing great business under the new owners. Does the end justify the means in this instance? Honestly to me it sounds like everyone wins. The old operator got the boot, but he also got paid fo...

My company does federal and state work, and I can report similar frustrations as MNdible. Here's how it works: my company gets asked to partner with operators that exist solely because of their disadvantaged status. The partnership looks like this: my (large, sophisticated, well-connected, white-mal...

I live near Lexington station on the green line, and can testify that even with generous numbers of trash/recycling cans, people still litter like crazy on the platform. Drives me nuts.

The Strib article says that WBL or Forest Lake are being considered as endpoints.

1) Skirts the edge of a densely populated, transit-using community in favor of a park > Check. 2) Proposed to run through a park with a fiercely dedicated group of users that don't want transit > Check. 3) Runs to a far-flung endpoint that doesn't warrant rail transit and will generate few reverse r...

I don't think housing lower-income people in trailer parks in the suburbs is a great idea, but the larger point that the affordable housing system is broken on some level seems to make sense. Hamline Station is symptomatic of many of the problems - convoluted financing, drawn-out construction proces...