Tag Archives | St. Paul

Saint Paul’s Nice Ride Failure Shows Need for Downtown Bike Lanes

I saw my first NiceRider this week, an Asian student crossing the Wasington Avenue bridge on the University of Minnesota campus. It seems that, barring massive snowstorms forcing the bright green bikes to scuttle back to their hibernation caves, the Nice Ride season is upon us. They’re even expanding again, adding 24 new stations along [...]

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Mis-structuring employee parking charges: An example from a local university

Parking in a structure is the quintessential private good. It is excludable (no pay, no park), and it is rivalrous (if I park in a space, you cannot). Someone at Metropolitan State University does not understand this, and is instead trying to get all employees and students to pay for a parking structure at the [...]

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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 [...]

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Lowertown’s Parking Challenge

This map sparked a few disparaging tweets, including a small #twitterwar with a City Council member. As it turns out, people get riled up about parking. It is as if they feel they are entitled to parking and the benefits thereafter. These blue spaces represent off-street surface parking lots and parking garages; but do not [...]

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Don’t be Misled by Parking Space Economics

Donald Shoup’s famous parking policy book arrived the mail last week. Even though I’m about 5 years late to the party, the book still seems revolutionary. I still remember the first time I realized that parking dominates local neighborhood conversation. I was young and naïve and just starting to pay attention to Twin Cities’ urban [...]

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The Streets.MN Rundown

I’m going to steal a little something out of the Strong Towns Playbook (e.g.: Friday News Digest). Sorry Chuck, I’m stealing your idea! How does the saying go? Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery? Here we go … Sidewalk sales? Yes, please!, on Star Tribune Minneapolis is looking to change an ordinance to [...]

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Podcast #25 – A Green Future for Saint Paul with Mayoral candidate Roger Meyer

This week’s podcast is a conversation with Roger Meyer, the Green Party candidate running for Mayor of St Paul. Roger Meyer is a longtime activist in the Merriam Park neighborhood, and has worked as a consultant for the YMCA and many district councils on issues ranging from mental health, transportation, to education. Fellow Streets.mn author [...]

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I Love St. Paul

As a lifelong Minneapolitan I’ve lived a scant 1.5 years in St. Paul. They were wonderful, and nowadays I frequently visit St. Paul for shopping, dining, entertainment and just to get perspective on my own city. St. Paul has a wonderful opportunity to create a new neighborhood and catalyze that through preservation of a piece of [...]

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I Love Rice Park

“This week (Valentine’s Week), we have challenged ourselves at Streets.MN to be positive, which is really much harder than complaining (you see, already I am complaining about having to not complain). So we have a theme, about which we are not entitled to be snarky, What I love about Minnesota.” – David Levinson, I Love [...]

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Newflash: St. Paul isn’t Minneapolis (and that’s a good thing)

If you were to read the City of St. Paul’s legislative wish list, you’d see a list of big projects such as: $14 million to improve the Children’s Museum $7 million for parking and transportation improvements at Como Park $32 million loan forgiveness tied to the Xcel Energy Center (in an effort to not pay [...]

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