There has been a lot of discussion in the local bicycling scene about cycle tracks lately. “Cycle track” is a bit of a generic term. It may refer to a one-way or two-way facility. It may refer to something at street level or at curb height. It may create separation between cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians [...]
About Reuben Collins
Reuben is a transportation engineer and planner with the City of St. Paul. He has masters degrees in both Civil Engineering and Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota. He authors the cycling blog VeloTraffic.com and tweets at @reubencollins. He lives in South Minneapolis with his wife and daughter. In his spare time, he enjoys renovating his 1939 tudor home and riding bicycles.
Advisory Bike Lanes on Wooddale Ave to be Removed
A couple weeks ago, the City of Edina City Council voted to revise the striping on Wooddale Avenue. The plan will remove the experimental “advisory bike lanes” that were installed in 2012 and have proven to be a controversial issue for the City. In it’s place, the new design will feature a traditional bike lane [...]
Intuitive Addresses
A few months ago, Andrew Owen wrote a post I really liked about sequences of street names that occur throughout the Twin Cities. It was surprising to see the extent of the repeating alphabetical sequences. As the post suggested, one of the primary benefits of street names occurring in ordered sequences is that it greatly assists [...]
Best Practices for Traffic Control at Regional Trail Crossings
I’m short on time today, and writing from northeastern Nevada (where the big news today is that the entire county is having issues accessing the internet). So please forgive me if this post seems a bit hurried. I’ve uploaded a document called Best Practices for Traffic Control at Regional Trail Crossings. The document tries to establish some [...]
I Love State Trails
I love Minnesota’s many beautiful state trails. According to the DNR web site, there are 24 state trails (including the developing Brown’s Creek Trail). Hundreds of miles of trails – some paved, some natural surface, some urban, most rural, some hilly, most flat. When I moved to Minnesota in 2005, I had no concept of [...]
Utilizing the Space Beneath Bridges
Last week, David wrote about whether we should consider making better use of the space above our many depressed freeways. Today, I want to consider the opposite scenario: are we making the best use of the space beneath our elevated freeways and roadways? When freeways are constructed, it’s always cheapest to build them at-grade whenever [...]
What snow teaches us about roads
One thing I look forward to every winter is seeing where snow builds up in the roadways, effectively making that portion of the roadway unusable for several months until the spring thaw. I love that snow teaches us where people are driving, where they aren’t driving, and leaves evidence of them driving where they shouldn’t [...]
2012 Best Current Muliti-Million Dollar Public Works Project: Central Corridor LRT
Of all the categories included in the Streets.mn “Best of” series, this category was the biggest blowout. With 92.2% of the votes, the winner of the award for the 2012 Best Current Multi-Million Dollar Public Works Project (by a landslide): Central Corridor LRT The eleven mile light rail project linking downtown Minneapolis with downtown St. [...]
Splitting Hairs on Unmarked Crosswalks
I’m going to split a few hairs today. I hope you’ll indulge me. Take a look at the following image of a pretty typical minor T-intersection in a 2nd ring Twin Cities suburban community. The north/south roadway is a County State-Aid Highway carrying about 10,000 vehicles per day. The east/west roadway is a small cul-de-sac [...]
Understanding the Use of Non-Motorized Transportation Facilities
A recent report by researchers Greg Lindsey, Kristopher Hoff, Steve Hankey, and Xize Wang from the University of Minnesota is available for download from the Center for Transportation Studies website here. The report is titled Understanding the Use of Non-Motorized Transportation Facilities, and it is a fantastic read for anyone interested in bicycle and pedestrian counts in [...]
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The Politics of Dumb Infrastructure
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Three Half-Assed Freeways That Nobody Will Miss
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Rails to Trails…to Rails
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No Parking and De-Signing Streets
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Free transit? A thought experiment.
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Tactical Urbanism Builds Better Blocks and Streets
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Three Half-Assed Freeways That Nobody Will Miss
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The Cases for (and Against) Public and Private Networks
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Podcast #36 – East Side Better Block with Andrew Howard
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Water for our future
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Bill Lindeke: I'm not convinced that industrial land per se mus...
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Sam Newberg: My understanding is there were two fights - the on...
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Bill Lindeke: VERY TRUE! holy crap....
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Bill Lindeke: Really good questions Walker. That's why I'm kin...
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Alex Cecchini: No doubt, I was using the larger northern number f...
From the network
- All the Best US Cycle Tracks are Street Level: There has been a lot of discussion in the local bicycling scene about cycle tracks lately. “Cycle track” is a bit of a generic term. It may refer to a one-way or two-way facility. It may r...
- The Politics of Dumb Infrastructure [Revisited]: We have a political situation in the United States where Democrats are too eager to build anything if it creates a job and the Republicans are too willing to call a project a boondoggle without first...
- What is the Constituency of a Local Land-Use Decision?: cross-posted at Streets.mn In the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis, a local entrepreneur put together a proposal to develop a surface parking lot into a 5-story condo building with retail s...
- The Politics of Dumb Infrastructure [@ Streets.MN]: We have a political situation in the United States where Democrats are too eager to build anything if it creates a job and the Republicans are too willing to call a project a boondoggle without first...
- Why transportation doesn’t get the money it “needs”: In the transportation community we tend to think surface transportation is underfunded. We think there are “needs” unmet. National reports from industry groups say more resources are requ...
- The Gun Metaphor: Why Bikes are the Guns of Transportation Policy: [Second in the highly unpopular "metaphor series" of blogposts.] [Lyndale Open Streets.]I just learned Open Streets this weekend is going to have an exciting new event this year.For those who don't kn...
- Water for our future: Over at streets.mn I have a new post on the importance of water supply planning for the next regional plan. What does all this have to do with Minnesota? We have tons of water, right? Well, on the...
- A Timeline of Los Angeles Transit Agencies: This timelime and diagram of Los Angeles transit agencies is impressive. It presents an honest history of transit agencies in Los Angeles and doesn't promote the false idea that there was some type of...
- Three Twin Cities freeways that no one would miss: streets.mn The world’s longest on-ramp, on the west edge of downtown Minneapolis.We’ve been down this road before. Urban freeways impact their neighborhoods through noise, pollut...
- The Zoning Battle Over Al’s Breakfast – A Form Based Code With a Side of Bacon: “Why would anybody ever eat anything besides breakfast food?” – Leslie Knope “People are idiots, Leslie.” – Ron Swanson When I heard Al’s might get redeveloped, I thought the end of the...
- Bicycle Registry, Zap Twin Cities Update, Changing State Demographics: Luther Krueger of the Minneapolis Police Department joined the Encouragement, Enforcement, Education, subcommittee last week. His message: register your bike with the city of Minneapolis. It could...
- If Washington Ave doesn’t deserve bus lanes, what does?: According to Hennepin County, around 7,500 bus riders will travel on Washington Ave at peak hour (4:30-5:30 PM) between Hennepin and 35W on an average weekday in the year 2035. For some perspective, t...
