urbanMSP

Not only did the legislature put a 2040 expiration date on the HERC by refusing to classify incinerators as clean energy, but they also are requiring Hennepin County to create a closure plan in order to access $26 million in bonding bill money for an anaerobic digester project. https://sahanjournal....

I assume they're stuck trying to get pre-pandemic lease rates to pay back the loans it took to renovate it?

I guess at least the next owner won't be stuck with that problem.

Yes! The benefit of a downtown office is we drive from all directions. If my company would move to Eden Prairie or Bloomington, I’d seriously consider leaving because my drive is already long into downtown from the North burbs. And regardless of the current transit situation (frequency or condition...

This thought process would imply that every other country that uses these has a total Armageddon of just burning homes and buildings... which they don't. And yes, they have tall buildings too. Crazy stuff. It's the same thought process that leads us to immediately dismiss any innovations or process...

That would have been a logical solution, but I don't think that was politically tenable. The opponents of bike trail removal/relocation were pushing for a tunnel through the entire Kennilworth corridor. I think the actual users of the trail would have been fine with staying on the Greenway for a bit...

When's the last time a MnDOT project for badly needed highway expansion or bridge replacement came out more than double the projected cost? When's the last time a highway expansion project had funding delayed and obstructed by the legislature to pointlessly drag out the project timeline and add inf...

Hand wringing over budget overruns is pointless since the two options are either to pay them or pay billions more to undo the entire project. Hard working taxpayers probably would prefer 1.5 billion to 3-4 billion in FTA grant repayments and remediation if they're not entirely blinded by their anti-...

Good thing the loud anti-transit voices in the media reacted like this was another billion dollar problem immediately after this was reported. I can't wait to see their subsequent articles and pieces on the subject now that we have more information.

I've always thought the biggest barrier to a downtown tunnel would be that you'd probably have to lose the Hennepin/Warehouse station for the portal, considering that the tracks would have to rise above the underground portion of 394 to reconnect with the first Target Field platform.

Would it be possible to extend the Northstar service from St. Cloud to Brainerd? It's a relatively large region that continues to grow. In particular, I imagine folks taking the train during the summer and meeting up with family or friends that drove avoiding the weekend traffic congestion. IMO it ...

For all the faults of the interstate system, it takes incredible political will and effort to remove even the most redundant parts of the freeway network. The Class 1 railroads will rip up a double track section of their routes the second they aren't being used to lower their tax burden. That wouldn...

I love the zany thought process required to come to the conclusion that spending tens of millions our transit system doesn't have on turnstiles that can be easily avoided is somehow better than requiring the people we give an embarrassing percentage of our municipal budgets to actually get out of th...

Gotta love the things that are possible when people who actually want to get things done are given the power to do so.

This is something that everybody loves to get behind, but where's the cut-off where a part of the state is too remote or too sparsely populated to justify extending this service to? Especially if there are satellite based options as an alternative? (Sorry, off topic.) We forced the electric compani...

Let's see them actually get Brightline West up and running before we start imagining they're going to duplicate TCMC any time soon.

Alan Fisher has me thinking nationalising the railroad lines is a good idea. Something I hadn't thought about until I watched one of his videos a while back. It is an unquestionably good idea for everyone except the people profiting from the private system. - We the people handed these companies an...

Whoops. I guess the site I was picturing is actually the Wendys in Stevens Square. Talk about crossed wires.

It'll be interesting to see if there's any interest from other fast food franchises, to either validate or put to bed the theory that non-conforming drive thrus will be prized and sought after by other restaurants.

I could see an S-Bahn style route, as either a future extension of NLX or one of the other wishlist projects to the west. Might as well keep the train sets rolling, and what better way to add utility to any train line than to provide a direct link to Mayo.

For all the drooling over European and Japanese high speed systems, it's worth remembering that those HSR trains are supported by healthy networks of lower and medium speed trains that built a culture of rail travel for decades before HSR corridors began to emerge.