urbanMSP

St. Paul has extreme and consistent NIMBYs of all ages and demographics. Oddly both in favor and against housing. Change = bad! Too tall, too expensive, too cheap(?), neighborhood character!, too much traffic (it's already so bad!), blocks my view, blocks my sunlight, students ruin everything, I sup...

That surface lot was the most unpleasant place to park/hunt for parking. They might have been better off just relying on street parking at least from a convenience perspective. Not to mention the hole in the urban fabric it has created.

Access-controlled roads and urban grid streets are far too often lumped together as it relates to this discussion. They are totally different beasts. Even 30 is too fast on city streets and in my opinion (and based on design speed) 55 is too slow for many freeways and it shows. Heck, have you even n...

Zero need for DC fast charging in residential. DCFC is basically for highway trips and occasional use for those who don't have slower L1/L2 charging. IMO just getting circuits put in (not that expensive) and allowing for 110/220 plugs really won't add much cost at all. As usage bumps, the cost can b...

DCFC (DC fast charging) charging infrastructure is a solvable issue and frankly totally separate from bus rolling stock issues. I will be looking into this more as I'm able.

Some are saying Met Council tried the locally-made (but less known) New Flyer buses and didn't have good luck with early production models. Might be shell shock from this? There are great, reliable brands other than New Flyer, such as Protera. My only other thought is maybe the corn lobby is heavily...

Met Council considering abandoning electrifying its bus fleet after promising it would do so back in 2018: https://www.startribune.com/biodiesel-n ... 600029359/

The building is a good use of the land, but it's sort of on an island due to Civic Center and the RR tracks. I hope it leads to even more development particularly along Civic Center and maybe some ped improvements (there isn't a continuous sidewalk along this road for some reason).

We can rightly criticize the alignment for the SWLRT. That said, from that video one can see that there are quite a few improvements to the Cedar Lake trail with grade separated crossings along the corridor. Beltline and Wooddale were both badly needed.

Planning commission again voted 8-7 to deny the site plan based (solely) on the 2040 comprehensive plan. Alatus has already announced its intention to appeal. Notable: Warner, city attorney for St. Paul, made it clear he felt there was no sound legal basis for the denial of the site plan. Will go to...

Great news -- I suppose the follow-up question is could they be repurposed in their current state for passenger rail? Perhaps a few cut and covers with existing ROW?

I still find the VFW project so odd in that the RR tracks just go right by it with no fencing or visual separation at all. I still hope they somehow someday can find a way to better integrate the downtown tracks snafu.

Does a Lyndale Ave S road diet count?

Hue apartments downtown are basically done and the VFW site project is also just about to wrap up.

Any chance Fed is trying to avoid prescriptive easement(s) across the lot? I don't get over here enough to know if this is likely (or legally possible).

Market forces should naturally allow for allocation of parking and prices according to needs and demands. Yes, the ramp next door might come down someday, but there's always somewhere else to park. Might be a bit farther away and more expensive, but that is exactly how we ween off our SOV addiction ...

Break ground before the NIMBYs get wind! Bummer about the loss of the bike passage but this sure beats the snowpile.

The proposed development would remove the god-awful parking lot/ramp thing on Chestnut, which would be a massive improvement to the area's aesthetics. I enjoyed the neighbor's very NIMBY complaints about you guessed it -- parking.

So much yes! It's a real trek to get down to the lower part and water feature right now, and it seems to get almost no use.

Marshall from Snelling to Hamline is such a sad sight. I hope this helps because it probably can't make it any worse.