Tag Archives | car

2035 Predictions for Washington Avenue Offer Precision Without Accuracy

Yesterday, Brendon Slotterback (my colleague here on Streets.mn) tweeted something that caught my brain. It was about the plans for Washington Avenue through downtown Minneapolis: The comment was a reaction to a debate taking place online this week (in admittedly small circles) about the recently released Hennepin County study on over traffic projections and alternatives [...]

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What To Do with Pro-Car Populism?

I was catching up with an old friend the other day, an economic geography professor who moved away for a job at a big West Coast university. We were eating dinner and swapping stories. “What are you working on now?” I asked. We exchanged little bits about our lives, homes, friends in common. Somehow as [...]

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Pedestrians prohibited north of the light rail station

Most metro area cities content themselves with ignoring pedestrians. A couple of cities have taken the unusual step of at least paying lip service to the idea that bipedal transportation should be safe, convenient, and comfortable. Bloomington, on the other hand, is trying to make a name for itself by actively discouraging pedestrians from using [...]

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2012 Best Opportunity to Do Something Useful: Dinkytown Trench

Is usefulness useful? Broadly speaking, the definition of usefulness as applied to transportation was set in stone a zillion years ago as meaning the movement of as many vehicles as possible as quickly as possible. But those of us whose communities all those vehicles are moving quickly through, or who have lost loved ones to [...]

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Crosswalk Creeps: An educational filmstrip

This is Edward G. Robinson; I’ve been torn from my eternal slumber to warn you about a dangerous new wave of degeratism sweeping across this country.  But first, some rules: No talking during the filmstrip. No sleeping during the filmstrip. If you have to go to the bathroom, be sure to get some ice for [...]

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Five Years After the Bridge Collapse, Transportation Priorities are Even Worse

Today is the five-year anniversary of the 35W bridge collapse, and stories about it are all over the news.  Entrancing tales of plummeting, accidental heroes, and seemingly random acts of engineering whirl about. But I’m interested in something else: what have we learned from the bridge disaster? Short of a Hollywood apocalypse, the image of the [...]

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Parking meter in Uptown

The challenges and benefits of permit parking

Permit parking is one of those things that people seem to love or hate. Love because it provides parking to those who live or work on a crowded street who now get preferential parking or can keep certain livability issues away. Hate because it might push parking congestion a block away or is a hassle [...]

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Why urbanists and others should love the coming of the robot car (Part 2)

In this second and final post in a series, I’m responding to Bill’s reservation about robot cars.  In my first post, I responded to Bill’s objections to robot cars.  Now I want to draw attention to some benefits I think he (and others) overlook.  So here, in no particular order, is a list of some of the [...]

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An alternative design for Park and Portland

The Minneapolis Bike Coalition has put forward their preferred design for a redesigned Park & Portland (for background on these streets, see here and here).  Full disclosure: I helped with the street rendering. From the Bike Coalition blog: Key features: Remove a traffic lane that isn’t needed. The core of this proposal is transforming one of [...]

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Why urbanists (and others) should love the coming of the robot car (Part 1)

Much has already been written on the robot car, but streets.mn’s own Bill Lindeke posits that they “will not save us“, citing three problems.  While I agree that we probably can’t be saved (from what exactly I can’t say, there are many options), but in my opinion Bill and other urbanists should welcome the robot [...]

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