urbanMSP

It doesn't bother you even a little bit that the private developers are all getting paid while the public isn't seeing the benefits they promised?

Any investment is a gamble. That's true regardless of whether the money is public or private.

This line was built during the worst recession in modern history, at a time when the building market is only beginning to recover outside of the obvious centers. I mean, look, I'd rather that everything the Met Council tried worked, and we had a building boom along University. But the fact that we'r...

Isn't this a catch-22? If the train hadn't even opened and there were a ton of development already going on along the line, the opponents of the line would have just said "why did we need this line? The development would've happened anyway!" If you don't believe me, look at this in DC, whe...

If we were spending extra $$$ to tunnel it to Uptown, it'd still be fodder for conservatives to attack public transit. As long as this meets or exceeds ridership projections and spurs some new apartment buildings here and there, this will be seen as a success. The average voter in the exurbs is goin...

How do you justify federal contributions to a region that makes up about 1% of the country? According to the Republicans in Congress, mostly, you can't. Within the bounds of what's politically possible, these are good projects. If they aren't as good as they' d be in magical fairy world where we ca...

Both are suburban commuter lines, just like what Southwest turned into. I wish Midtown would go before both Minneapolis proper has less than 10% of the state's population; even with St. Paul it's less than 20%. How do you justify a state contribution to transit systems that only benefit one of thos...

The thought came to my mind about how great it could be if they could close Nicollet Mall to buses/taxis from 10-2 on these days and move the food trucks over. Make it a true pedestrian mall and the GO TO spot downtown and make it very enjoyable for everyone. I saw many people frustrated by the cro...

I've been on streetcars in Seattle and in many European and Asian cities. They're nice. But that's really missing the point too. How can politicians justify building a streetcar like this when our core bus system is so inadequate? Once every local bus route is at aBRT standards, then we can look at...

The good? There's a good chance this will be slower than existing buses. It's a public art project, not a transit improvement. It doesn't matter if it's slower, because that's really missing the point. Maybe I have a different perspective than you because I've actually ridden on modern mixed-traffi...

Nonetheless, it's interesting to hear anecdotal experiences that portray Seattle in a negative light, since it seems that lately there is almost nobody on Earth who has anything bad to say about Seattle (I clearly have a case of schadenfreude!) I love Seattle, it is kind of a second home for me now...

But that isn't the choice; when do you ever, EVER see there being the political will and money for a grade-separated or dedicated ROW for this thing? It's never going to happen. The choice here isn't between Something Good and Something Meh; it's Something Meh or nothing. Getting the Nicollet-Centra...

And honestly, there aren't that many urban arenas of this type getting really beautiful or impressive renovations--there are some, but they're really the exceptions to the rule. It'll never be worse than how Madison Square Garden looks on the outside: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/6409002...

I have to imagine this would invite the criticism of anti-transit folks who would then scream, "See! The express bus moves faster! Why did we build the boondoggle choo choo for a billion dollars? MOAR ROADS!"

Seems like they're pretty happy to do that anyway.

And, more to the point, the express 94 bus is a much better option for downtown to downtown trips. I'm a little surprised no one has talked about eventually rebranding the 94 as part of the Metro system. Buy some more Red Line buses and build a handful of stations (even just the aBRT designs) and t...

I know there are some students living in the broken-up houses on 15th and 16th too, but I don't know how many that would be. I think Eliot Park has a lot of potential, as does Stevens Square, the parts of Loring Park that haven't been gentrified up, and even, eventually, Ventura Village (especially ...

Would it be possible to use the park as the venue for Soundset? Would the grass suffer beyond repair?

There are tons of music festivals bigger than Soundset held in urban parks (Pitchfork in Chicago's Union Park comes to mind). The grass gets trampled a bit, but there are ways to mitigate that.

I think it starts with schools. Have good (or even better) inner city schools and the working class families and immigrants with larger families will choose to locate in the core and not the suburbs. Isn't that sort of a chicken-and-egg thing, though? Think about the Downtown/North Loop school situ...

When I grew up, we used an antique reel mower (probably from the 50s) to mow the lawn. Granted, we were in a drier region, so the grass didn't grow very quickly, but I never really minded using it instead of a gas mower.

Yes it's express. Which is why the stretch of University should have been a transit mall or tunnel.

Would it really be worth spending twice as much money for the Target Field -> Union Station trip to be 30 minutes (or 25, maybe) instead of 40?

An analogy might help: it's less than 11 miles from Wall Street to the Bronx. A subway ride will take more than an hour It takes 35 minutes to get from the Bronx to Wall St on the 2 or the 5 train. http://goog.gl/maps/vI9Kd Are those express trains, though? Makes a huge difference. Those are indeed...