The architecture of the Minnesota Vikings Stadium: take it or leave it? Personally, I think it looks like a cross between a laser jet printer, a drunk Frank Gehry and something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is not a compliment. However, be this as it may, preference on architectural styling, no one should [...]
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Too Little Parking? It Does Happen, In Fact
I’ve written previously about the angst and mayhem surrounding the parking situation at Blaine’s Lakeside Commons Park. To recap the history of this park and its parking situation: Lakeside Commons Park was opened in 2010 and built using standard set-aside land and monies from housing development in Blaine. The park has many features and amenities, [...]
Why Beards are like Good Urbanism
I always enjoyed a good challenge. “A man doesn’t grow a beard. A beard grows a man” – Internet Proverb A beard isn’t something you grow overnight. Neither is a city. Both these seemingly unrelated entities need to mature, fill in and be properly groomed, yet still maintain their distinct ruggedness. But why when it comes [...]
Reconsidering the Nicollet Mall Redesign
There is a $20 million sum of state money that may be dedicated to redesign Nicollet Mall. While $20 million could bring some impressive changes to the pedestrian mall, these funds would represent an unfortunate misapplication of limited resources. We need to reconnect Nicollet Avenue- not redesign Nicollet Mall. Nicollet Mall, the nation’s first pedestrian transit way, [...]
NIMBY: Park and Ride? But Think of the Children!
Now, sure. In general, parking lots are an urban blight. Streetsblog is doing a March Madness bracket of parking craters. Streets.mn has repeatedly covered the issues of subsidizing parking over investing in responsible alternatives. Meanwhile, in the suburbs? We learn that Park-and-Ride lots make intersections less safe, and apparently invite predators to watch baseball practice. [...]
March 32nd, 2113 – Met Council releases new long-range plan, called DriveMSP 2140
(Headline from the Minneapaul Star-Pioneer) It seems like the glory days of the 1950’s aren’t gone entirely, after all. After years of changing the form, density makeup, and streetscape of Minnesota’s largest population base, the Metropolitan Council has released their long-range plan, DriveMSP 2140, must to the excitement of the general population. “It really [...]
Big Roads, Big Clinics, Entertainment Districts & Class A Office Towers
What’s happening around the Twin Cities and Minnesota … Here is the Streets.MN Rundown! Bipartisan support for I-94 Expansion between Maple Grove & St. Cloud [Star Tribune] You know what we need? More lanes on I-94 to St. Cloud. “Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, backed by a bipartisan cohort of about three dozen lawmakers, local elected [...]
Welcome to Stadium Village: The 21st Century Dinkytown
It is a local myth that Bob Dylan’s 1965 hit “Positively 4th Street” was written about our own little University commercial node. The well-known shopping, eating, and party-spilling area of Dinkytown does indeed have a strong history, starting as its own streetcar node before the University was the true engine it is today and essentially [...]
I love the U of M
I love the University of Minnesota. With 50,000 students plus large contingents and staff, it is a city within a city, and one remarkably distinct from the rest of the Twin Cities. There’s a tremendous degree of pedestrian activity each day, particularly between class periods. The better parts of campus are highly permeable, with small [...]
I Love Gardens
As we’ve moved through our week-long streets.mn lovefest, a variety of human made and natural features have been lauded, ranging from the very human parks (Rice Park) and cities (St. Paul), and the very natural features of trees and the Mississippi River. Today, I’d like to laud that intersection of human and nature: the garden. [...]
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Bikes and Businesses Must Unite
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Minnesota Vikings Stadium Needs Better Urban Design
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Washington Avenue proposed layouts are posted
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Why I’m proud to be “offended” by the judgemental map of Minneapolis
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SPUD
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Podcast #35 – Twin Cities Greenways with Dacia Durham and Matthew Hendricks
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The Yard at Downtown East
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Minnesota Vikings Stadium Needs Better Urban Design
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Clarifying the Minneapolis Event Rate Meter Parking Debacle
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Podcast #34 – The Future of Car Sharing with Christopher Bineham
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Jeremy Bergerson: What about the fact that cyclists lost a reliable,...
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Bill Lindeke: Incidentally, I spend a lot of time down at the SP...
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Brendon Slotterback: If meters are free (or cheap) you are less likely ...
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Justin Foell: Better ways to go to a Vikings game:
1) Take Pu...
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Bill Lindeke: Everyone (including Justin):
Feel free to comm...
From the network
- Riding Minnehaha with Kids. Or not.: A few days ago, I was out for a ride with Isaiah's dad, Michael. You might remember Isaiah. He's the now 10-year-old who rode 150 miles in two days as a fundraiser for the Coalition. O...
- Friday News Digest: Four days on the road is about the max for me before homesickness becomes overwhelming. At least, if "on the road" is without my wife and kids. I feel really fortunate to have been able to spend the p...
- Pedestrians prohibited on streets.mn: Today on streets.mn I examine Bloomington’s latest bungle. Bloomington is the suburb I lived in the longest, it has some really nice topography for the Twin Cities that great parks like Hyland,...
- 2012 Nice Ride flows revisited: For the last two years, I’ve mapped the flows of the Nice Ride bikes. I’ve always been slightly dissatisfied with the results, since bikes were obviously shown taking routes that any san...
- Minnesota Vikings Stadium FAIL – We need better urban design: The architecture of the Minnesota Vikings Stadium: take it or leave it? Personally, I think it looks like a cross between a laser jet printer, a drunk Frank Gehry and something out of 2001: A Space Od...
- Has There Ever Been a Streetcar Feasibility Study That Found Streetcars Unfeasible?: I ask this as a serious question: Does a streetcar study exist that concludes that a streetcar is unfeasible? Check out the studies that show up from a Google search (link). Without spending too much...
- 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...
- So, You're Addicted to GeoGuessr...: Don't worry. You're not alone....OK, that's a good point. You actually are alone, technically speaking, in the sense that you're sitting in your room staring at your computer, taking a break between r...
- We Need Transit and the Urbanism that Surrounds It: Kate Wolford’s Star Tribune commentary calling for more transit was spot on. Our peer cities (Denver, Portland, Charlotte, Salt Lake City, hell, even St. Louis!) are ahead of us in terms of buil...
- Why must I travel, why can't I tele-conference: Two times in two days last week I was asked to fly to an east coast city for a half-day meeting. The meeting organizers offered to pay my travel expenses. I asked to save the travel money and tele-con...
- MN Blog Cabin Roundup, 5/17: If the DFL wants to impress, leave earlyfrom Wry Wing Politics by Joe Loveland…of all the things that DFLers could do to impress Minnesota the swing voters who will determine in 2014 which party rem...
- Bikeway Functional Class: I’ve been reading a lot of bike plans lately, and there seems to be a pretty wide variety of frameworks used by agencies to categorize bikeways. In particular, I’m intrigued by the variet...
