urbanMSP

I want to see something done with Highway 55/Olson in North. If I had a magical wand I would cut the road is half and only use the EB or WB half's and add a dedicated lane for BRT and then return the rest of the road to the community. If you look at a map, this would be a lot of real estate and returned tax base. You could also remove the frontage roads.

Housing and businesses could be added to help revitalize the area. I think honestly a best solution for routing might be to have a road which curves maximizing real estate and green space on both sides. There is a statue of Floyd Olson here at Penn , just hidden and stuck next to the highway. It was probably part of an actual park at one point.

If you're driving past here pull off, stop at the statue and imagine what this stretch once was and see what it is right now. It's really startling to be there on foot or bike and to see the devastating effect it has on the neighborhood and get out of the car. You'll see memorials on the road for a kid who was hit and killed trying to cross at Morgan Ave. Overall it's a really good example of the negative impacts of highway construction like this has on a community.

Maybe I should write a Streets.mn post and submit it haha.

I've been told that part of the reason the Nicollet Streetcar has never been quite killed is so the city could have something shovel-ready in case Infrastructure Week ever happened.

Apart from that project being bad and apart from it not really being shovel ready, everything I've seen from the Biden Admin. proposals stresses that this money would roll out over a period of years. The focus of this effort isn't to jolt the economy out of a recession, but to actually fix and improve American infrastructure. There are existing and well-funded pools of money that a Nicollet Streetcar could tap into today. But flooding money into BUILD/RAISE grants is what could make a huge difference for expensive but potentially transformative projects like the two greenway river crossings, which really don't have an obvious source of funding outside of major bonding and stimulus efforts.

I think my number one wish is the previously approved....and now dead.....streetcar line down Nicollet. Maybe that paused because the city had to solve the Kmart issue, but now that the city owns the land.....lets get on with it. Submit an RFP for that whole lot, reconnect Nicollet and grab some of the infrastructure money that is coming for the streetcar project. I thought originally the city approved $200M for that but perhaps that is just wishful thinking. I think the line should not terminate at Lake St but continue down to 50th. Why......because I live near there!

I have an idea to toss out.

Why not have Metro transit and the Minneapolis park board identify and plant trees wherever a bus stop could use shade and has room for a tree?

Stop visibility. That's the response I got when doing a similar boulevard tree study.

I wish this Skyway color coded routes would be implemented

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view ... 52BEJPK8WA

Better yet, there ought to be an official app for the skyway system that includes a map like that, plus a directory of all current retail/restaurant businesses and their hours of operation. Anyone have Steve Cramer’s number? Because the Downtown Council / DID should absolutely spend their money on that.

Better yet, there ought to be an official app for the skyway system that includes a map like that, plus a directory of all current retail/restaurant businesses and their hours of operation. Anyone have Steve Cramer’s number? Because the Downtown Council / DID should absolutely spend their money on that.

You're better off with signage than an app. People should know where they are going by looking up without trying to download yet another app.

It would be cool if they'd finally get around to painting the downtown bus lanes on 7th/8th that were supposed to go in last spring, before traffic picks up too much more.

A wish of mine is to develop and implement a citywide wayfinding system for pedestrians and cyclists. Like "Legible London" or "WalkNYC"

Better yet, there ought to be an official app for the skyway system that includes a map like that, plus a directory of all current retail/restaurant businesses and their hours of operation. Anyone have Steve Cramer’s number? Because the Downtown Council / DID should absolutely spend their money on that.

Like the app they made 3 years ago?
https://www.mplsdowntown.com/new-minnea ... old-north/
It's not working on my phone anymore so it may no longer be supported.

Stop visibility. That's the response I got when doing a similar boulevard tree study.

If increasing ridership is a goal then adding shade seems like an easy way to make the bus stops more attractive.

If the reason against trees is the bus might miss them wouldn't having people wait in shade 70 feet away as they do in this article also make the bus miss them?

https://la.curbed.com/2019/8/21/2080267 ... tops-shade

Another amenity that might help ridership is a bicycle rack.

I was at Powderhorn Park a few months back and noticed this tree was removed.

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9409627 ... 2?hl=en-GB

I was thinking this large trunk could have made an interesting chainsaw carving of something. An animal or a famous person could have been sculpted from it. I think it would have added a little something to the park.