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We are Car Country

By on April 23, 2013 in Books, History

Join local author Chris Wells (recent Streets.MN podcast interviewee) for a reading and discussion of his new book, Car Country: An Environmental History, at 7 p.m., April 30, at Common Good Books in St. Paul. “Witness the emergence of [America's] automobile-dependent landscape in the pages of this book, and you will never again see the world around you again [...]

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Twin Cities Model Railroad Museum

Streets Weekend: Rail Museums of the Twin Cities

By on February 16, 2013 in children, History, Trains, Transportation

We talk a lot about transportation and transit here at streets.mn. Trains are ever and always in the mix, what with Hiawatha and Central Corridor Light Rail, Northstar Commuter and Amtrak in late-stage construction or in operation — and with other lines under consideration. Trains are not toys. Yet, they are absolutely and totally toys. [...]

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child in rear-facing car seat

Kids, Carpools & Walking: How a Safety Mentality Creates Unsafe Spaces

By on January 30, 2013 in children, History, Housing, Infrastructure, Land use, Neighborhoods, Parking, Streets, Transportation, Walking

In the long-ago days of my misspent youth, I lived in an absolutely flat suburban community named for one of the seven hills of Rome. As children, we all walked to school, crossing two moderately busy streets along the way. On days when it unexpectedly began hailing sideways during the school day, a parent or [...]

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How a chance encounter in St. Paul almost prevented World War II

By on December 31, 2012 in Aviation, History

The first manned flight may have been in 559, when the Emporer’s son, Yuan Huangtou of Ye, China was forcibly strapped to a kite and set airborne from a tower. Yuan Huangtou was later executed, and this experiment did not lead to any follow-on. The French Montgolfier Brothers designed and took off in a hot-air [...]

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When You Plan, You Begin With A B C

By on December 3, 2012 in Featured, History, Neighborhoods, Plans, Streets, Transportation

I was driving through Uptown with a friend in 2004 when it hit me: these streets are in alphabetical order! As a visitor I was impressed by such orderliness; a month later I moved to Minneapolis (not because of the street names—or at least, not entirely because of them). I learned about the second alphabet while visiting [...]

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Location, location, location

By on July 6, 2012 in History, Infrastructure, Transportation

I’ll start this off by mentioning that Metro Transit is accepting comments on their Central Corridor Transit Service Study until this Monday, July 9th. When I attended a meeting last week, many concerns circled around the reduction of route 94 bus service. I’ve slowly been convinced that this is a reasonable idea, since the projected [...]

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Night Traffic in Minneapolis, 19 Feb 2009 (2)

Fix the Hennepin/Lyndale Bottleneck

By on June 28, 2012 in History, Infrastructure, Transportation

Did you know that Minneapolis has an 11-lane street?  Did you know that some of our most picturesque places, some amazing architecture, and one of the most heavily traveled bike routes in the city sit cheek-to-jowl with what is effectively an at-grade freeway?  It’s true.  It’s called Hennepin Avenue, it’s called Lyndale Avenue, it’s called Highway 55, [...]

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Soda motor exterior

The Motor Line and its fireless soda locomotives

By on May 18, 2012 in History, Infrastructure, Transportation

  One strange technology that gets mentioned in passing in histories of the Twin Cities streetcar network is the “soda motor”.  When I first read about it, I was sure it must have just been a play on words: soda must have come from the tail end of Minnesota, right?  Further reading explained that no, [...]

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How the neighborhoods got their shapes

By on April 27, 2012 in History

Once upon a long, long time ago, Minneapolis didn’t have any neighborhoods.  Well, of course the city had neighborhoods, but they were the sort of organic shorthand referring to important intersections, like Cedar-Riverside or Chicago-Lake, you know, the kind of place that in the old world would have been called a square and given its [...]

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Tracing the UMN’s Inter-Campus streetcar line

By on April 20, 2012 in History, Infrastructure, Transportation

View UMN intercampus streetcar line in a larger map Many people in the Twin Cities are familiar with the University of Minnesota bus transitway connecting its Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses (the latter actually being in the suburb of Falcon Heights). Since the 1990s, its exclusive access has allowed buses to shuttle quickly between campuses—parts [...]

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