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The case for (and against) public subsidy for public transport

By on April 22, 2013 in Economics, Transit

This post is co-authored with David King (a displaced Minneapolitan who lives in New York, and who blogs at Getting from here to there) In most of the United States and much of the world, public transport is publicly subsidized. Everyone in an area pays for transit whether or not they use it. This was not always the [...]

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Minneapolis Buses

NIMBY: Park and Ride? But Think of the Children!

By on April 11, 2013 in children, Land use, Neighborhoods, Parking, Transit

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. [...]

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Inducing demand for sustainability

By on March 15, 2013 in Featured, Infrastructure, Transit, Transportation

The idea of induced demand is a strange one. You would think that building a highway or widening a road would alleviate congestion by spreading out the existing traffic across more space, and that would be the end of it. Toss in a little extra width in anticipation of population growth, and it should be [...]

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Six Less Obvious Benefits to Streetcars

By on March 12, 2013 in Streetcars, Transit

Streetcars are trending in North American cities these days. Portland, Seattle, Toronto, Charlotte and Cincinnati are all on board. Minneapolis has a streetcar plan for Nicollet and Central Avenues, and Saint Paul is just a step or two behind. Still, though, whether or not it’s a good idea to build streetcar systems is one of [...]

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A view of the US Capitol

The National Bike Summit’s Legislative Record: Progress or Hype?

By on February 28, 2013 in Advocacy, Bicycling, Featured, Infrastructure, Transit, Transportation, Walking

The National Bike Summit, sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists, is scheduled for next week — March 4-6, 2013 — in Washington DC. As happens every year, the NBS is the “most important one yet!” where attendees voices are needed to maintain the “momentum” of the bike movement. It’s the “advocacy event of the [...]

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I love the U of M

By on February 15, 2013 in Featured, Land use, Neighborhoods, Transit, Walking, What I love about Minnesota

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 [...]

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I Love Accessibility

By on February 12, 2013 in Accessibility, Featured, Infrastructure, Land use, Streets, Transit, Transportation, What I love about Minnesota

Last year on streets.mn, David Levinson wrote about a study which projected what accessibility in the Twin Cities might look like in 20 years under a variety of planning scenarios. I think accessibility is pretty great, and so I was very happy to get to work with David on another accessibility-focused project. “Access to Destinations: Annual [...]

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A transit solution in the sky

By on February 7, 2013 in Air rights, Transit, Transportation

Since we won’t build rail transit investments where they are really needed, and we can’t even study better bus service because we might build slower streetcars, we have to get creative if we want transit improvements in Minneapolis’ densest and least car-dependent neighborhoods. Enter 32 Magazine and Frog Design, with the urban gondola.  32 Magazine [...]

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Poll Shows Support For Sales Tax Hike to Fund Public Transit

By on January 21, 2013 in Featured, Governance, Media, Plans, Polls, Transit, Transportation, Trends, Uncategorized

A new statewide poll conducted by Minnesota’s three largest Chambers of Commerce—Minneapolis, St. Paul, and TwinWest—shows for the second year in a row that support for expanding the transit system in the metro area is strong. Seventy-nine percent of respondents said that Minnesota “would benefit from having an expanded and improved public transit system, such [...]

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Seeking the transit-friendly highway

By on January 18, 2013 in Featured, Infrastructure, Transit

As I first started exploring Metro Transit’s bus network in college, I was struck by how much freeway mileage in the Twin Cities doesn’t carry any transit service.  Having grown up near Rochester and typically only visiting or driving through the metro area a few times per year, my mental map was mostly built up [...]

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