urbanMSP

For the past few days Franklin Bridge/East River Road light has been a flashing red 4-way stop. It made me recall this thread as I noticed that traffic was significantly less backed up. This might be the most counter productive stop light in the city.

I was reading the Wiki article on Chicago's 'L'. We really missed a color scheme opportunity here by not naming this line the Maroon or the Gold line, much like the L's purple line. I suppose we could call the campus connector that in the future. Or even better, an express version of the Green line!

I visited a friend in this building over the weekend. Despite the high rent, the in apartment quality and amenities were surprisingly low. Cheap appliances, poor sound proofing. You are definitely paying for location. When I stepped foot outside and saw everything which was a short walk away, it was...

Any chance the buses like the 111 and 133 will eventually feed into the Orange Line (46th Street Station) instead of operating entirely independently. I've always thought it was strange how little the area around the 46th street station feeds into it. At the moment, I can catch the 5 to the 46 to th...

http://www.minnpost.com/environment/2014/01/river-runs-through-us-why-mississippi-crucial-msp-s-future I thought this was a pretty interesting series about our perception versus that of the Mississippi. My personal anecdotal evidence when traveling/working abroad lines up with the author's point. Wh...

I wonder if the anecdotes are actually true. I feel like even East River Rd and Franklin Bridge mess (the 5-way intersection) had less congestion when it was a 5-way stop. Obviously a roundabout would be better there, but it "feels" like the signal has increased congestion. That said, it c...

I agree that it is much better than when Washington was an arterial highway. That was the configuration when I was a student. Busing took forever, crossing the sidewalk was a circus act. WATM is an improvement and a much friendly environment has been created. Even during the bus "rush hour"...

I had been wondering why Target has yet to move on campus. It seems so logical, but now it is pretty saturated with two CVS and Walgreens.

Better than the abandoned Hardees which later turned in to a dirt parking lot???

WATM is officially opens to bikes (and buses... and dopey cars). For a trip from Oak/Washington to the West Bank, Bikes have a bike lane from Oak, to Walnut, bikes have the entire lane from Walnut to Church (buses switch to Rails), from there they are expected to take a right, then an immediate left...

The return to the WATM routes were not flawless, but were definitely an improvement. Particularly in the evening rush hour. Cars were being derps and driving in all sorts of wrong areas (on the tracks, on the transit mall). They had a metro transit bus blocking the "bike lane" section of W...

To be fair, there was very little (maybe no) painting done yet, so I think they were smart here and will be adding that once the mill/overlay is done in the next few years.

Unfortunately there was no mill/overlay.

Good point. This was particularly annoying as the lighting was poor so I really had to keep an eye out for potholes and had a fairly rough ride.

I rode the Southern Bike Connection (17th Ave S) from the Greenway to 52nd Ave last night. All of the bikeway improvements are in. I had taken it a few times throughout the summer, it definitely felt faster. The four-way yields were pretty fun and got the job done. Unfortunately there were no improv...

Southern Bike connection construction is rolling along. They have poured the connection from 17th Ave S to Minnehaha Parkway. I would imagine it will be done just in time for the winter biking season. Also, it appears from the photo ^^^above that the city is finally learning the lesson about what ma...

It appears up to 20 buses will be running on the WATM during rush hour. I could not find any evidence that there will be a spot near Moos/Transportation building. From the initial design, it looks like West Bank and Coffman will be the drop off spots. With that many buses, I would guess it would get...

I work, drive, bike and walk on Washington Avenue every day and can say the experience for everyone (including cars) is better. Unsurprisingly, a number of people were using Washington Ave as a shortcut from Downtown, not to get to campus. Biking, and walking is fantastic without the insane traffic ...

This feels a lot like the CCLRT back when they were trying to figure out what to do on Washington Ave. I think they actually came up with a pretty darn good alternative, which was making Washington a transit mall. I'd hope that cooler heads can prevail in this case as well. It certainly seems unreas...

The Southern Connection project is finally underway. This project was funded for 2012 but got bumped to 2013 for some reason. I biked it last night and they had all of the non-artery intersection improvements underway. I believe they are all mini-roundabouts. The biking experience was already improv...

I think that looks great. Easy cost saving measure would be to leave the old piers. Kind of cute, but I have no idea about the environmental and navigation impacts they have. Anyone have insights on if/when this would happen? It would have a big impact on my bike ride and car ride to work as I norma...