urbanMSP

It would be awesome to have all twin cities projects on one google map and be able to click on any project to get more info in a pop-up box. This may be a good way to make the basic factual information (height / # of floors / retail / rendering / link to the thread / etc.) easily available. This could work better than a sticky note on each thread (as had been previously suggested) so fundamental project information isn't buried in the thread.

And it would be cool, if you could click on a map icon on any page of a thread and it would take you right to that project's location on the map.

Maybe this is exactly what you were thinking concept wise, but I have no idea about the technical aspects of this.

An interactive map like that would be very useful.

Also, integrating it with a flickr pool could be awesome... maybe each project could have a tag, then we can sort by date to see photos of the progress.

Ok - I like both those ideas. This will be my next project! If anyone else has suggestions please feel free to add them here.

Google has updated their (vertical) aerials for the Twin Cities area (zoomed in, you may need to disable the 45-degree stuff). The imagery appears to be from late last summer. From the transit side of things, it shows the Green Line virtually completed aside from yard work at the Lowertown maintenance base and a bit of a gap in pavement on Washington Avenue. The Union Depot is shown in a more complete state, while it also shows the expansion at Target Field station.

Plenty of new buildings now appear in Uptown, the UMN area, etc.

I'd place the new aerial imagery in September, based on the partial completion of the Penn Avenue bridge over 62, among other things.

There's also some new Street View from September 2013 in parts of Downtown St. Paul. It's pretty awesome being able to jump between summers 2009, 2011, and 2013 in that area (follow the LRT route for fun!)

EDIT: Grab Pegman (Streetview icon guy) and hover over the Longfellow area neighborhoods south of Lake Street. They drove down every single frickin alley in this part of Minneapolis! Why? Has anyone else noticed that on the regular map view Google shows the lines for alleys in Longfellow, but nowhere else? Do they mistakenly think these are streets?

Doesn't that violate Minneapolis ordinance? Pretty sure it is illegal to drive down a Minneapolis alley unless a) you're a resident of that block or b) you have business on that block.

Their business is photographing the alley.

Question: I had noticed the new imagery on my iPad and phone a while ago, but on my computer it is still the old imagery. Same with Google Earth. Anyone else have the same mobile/desktop split? I even tried clearing the cache on Google Earth.

Actually, it looks like the mobile version of Google Earth (the 3D one, not Google Maps) has the old imagery, too.

I'm seeing the new imagery on the "classic" Google Maps in Firefox (not the WebGL-enabled "new" maps) on my computers as well as in Google Maps on my Android phone, but I see the old imagery when I use Google Earth on my desktop (both the standalone program and the browser plugin).

Doesn't that violate Minneapolis ordinance? Pretty sure it is illegal to drive down a Minneapolis alley unless a) you're a resident of that block or b) you have business on that block.

It may have become law in the mean time, but this was certainly *not* a city ordinance as of August 2006, when it was brought to the council and I wrote my CM to voice my opposition (I have the email); he spoke against the ordinance, and it failed by a significant margin. I've tried to keep alert to this topic and wasn't aware of it passing in the interim, though I may have missed it. That would be disappointing; alleys are publicly-funded streets in Minneapolis and as such it would not be reasonable to ban public use of them.

There are lots of things that are publicly funded and not open to the public.

Anyways, who hates the new Google Maps? I can't find a damn thing!! Where's my measure tool, 45º toggle, and draw a polygon to zoom in tool? I gave up and switched back to Classic mode.

Looks like the new aerials are in Google Earth now (at least for the standalone desktop program).

Here's a survey you can take about the new Google Maps that I got after switching back to Classic permanently: https://survey.googleratings.com/wix/p7049289.aspx?l=9

Also, my first ever Streets.MN post tomorrow is about how much Mpls/StP changed between the spring 2011 45º aerials and the new fall 2013 imagery. It's mostly going to focus on Uptown, North Loop, the U, and Green Line, but if you have any other major highlights I should add in, please suggest them now!

Here it is: https://streets.mn/2014/02/10/fresh- ... l-imagery/

Amusing find: http://goo.gl/maps/yzXjE

I'd say that's more upsetting than amusing, but what's interesting is that if you follow the streetview images taken on that date in succession, you can see the cop watching the Google car as it passes, and he waits until he thinks it's gone before he actually starts approaching the man on the ground.

Here's me in the high-viz vest, working the Uptown Art Fair back when I was a Metro Transit intern.

http://goo.gl/maps/TFuXU

EDIT: Grab Pegman (Streetview icon guy) and hover over the Longfellow area neighborhoods south of Lake Street. They drove down every single frickin alley in this part of Minneapolis! Why? Has anyone else noticed that on the regular map view Google shows the lines for alleys in Longfellow, but nowhere else? Do they mistakenly think these are streets?

Rofl, I've noticed that too. It looks like wherever they got the map data from, the alleyways east of Hiawatha show up like streets so maybe they thought that. The idea of someone driving down all those alleyways cracks me up.

Streetview time machine

http://www.onthemedia.org/story/google- ... hine-mode/

I was just trying that, I don't see the time machine.

This actually makes me really happy. Just imagine if they started gathering imagery in the 80s.

This actually makes me really happy. Just imagine if they started gathering imagery in the 80s.

It's a shame there isn't street level imagery to view from that far back, but historicaerials.com can be pretty interesting for the areas that they have coverage from. Not a lot of change is visible in my immediate Saint Paul neighborhood over the years, but if I look at the rural edge of suburbia where I grew up, I can see the neighborhood change dramatically, decade by decade, going back to the 1940's.