Twin Cities Streets for People

Policy Link’s Executive Director, Angela Glover Blackwell, puts it best, “Transportation policy is, in effect, health policy – and environmental policy, food policy, employment policy and metropolitan development policy.” (The Transportation Prescription) Read more >

The Union Depot which is undergoing a major renovation and transformation back into a transit hub, with the construction of the Central Corridor Light Rail. The way in which people will be arriving to the Depot will soon begin to shift from vehicles to mass transit (predominantly light rail) Read more >

The Minneapolis Downtown Council recently released "Intersections" a plan for Downtown Minneapolis. I had nothing to do with this plan, and so am free to comment. The plan is organized according to 10 major initiatives for 2025 Read more >

View Urban renewal in the I-94 corridor in a larger map

There are two buildings near the corner of Rice Street and University Avenue in Saint Paul that are the only remnants of a huge neighborhood bulldozed for urban renewal and the construction of Interstate 94.

Anyone who has followed the Central Corridor light-rail project has heard of Saint Paul's old Rondo neighborhood and how that community was displaced in the 1950s. The story goes that businesses and homes were torn down in the corridor between St. Anthony Avenue and Rondo Avenue (now mostly known as Concordia Avenue) in order to make way for the Interstate. The spectre of Rondo has weighed heavily on planners and transit advocates who don't want to see past mistakes repeated along the Central Corridor line. However, it's clear that many people involved have been unaware of the truly massive scale of what happened in the 1950s and 1960s. For example, did you know that all of the land in the map above had been leveled in the 1950s?

Many buildings outside of that zone were also taken down, but typically in a more fine-grained manner, one or two at a time. But Rondo got painted with a broad brush and saw block upon block torn down. Read more >

There is an opportunity to create a more humane, livable Hiawatha Avenue, and, to try out a metaphor, now may be the time to step out in to the intersection and begin our journey across. Hiawatha Avenue should become an urban boulevard that unites neighborhoods rather than divides them, particularly near light rail stations where pedestrian counts have steadily increased since light rail service began and development continues to occur. What’s nice is I’m not the only one who believes this. Read more >

Crossposted at streets.mn and transportationist.org

When I was growing up (in suburban Maryland), there was an ad on local TV from Crown Books. Founder Robert Haft asserted "books cost too much", which led him to create Crown Books, and helped put independent booksellers out of business decades before Amazon became villain #1 among the literati.

Transportation costs too much. Read more >

An overview of Bogotá, Colombia's Transmilenio BRT, and discussion of benefits relating to travel times and quality of life for transit-dependent residents of that city.

Transitional urbanist. That’s me.

First of all - I am a hypocrite. While advocating almost all things urban, I live in a single-family house in a neighborhood of mostly single-family houses. My surroundings were built at various times between the 1880s to the 1950s and range from historic Victorian farm houses to run-of-the-mill ramblers. The intermingled housing styles look vastly different, but have one connection; their function as a single-family house. Read more >

This is “open space”- between the rear of the Super Target and the parking lot for the pancake house. It has a bike path that connects virtually no one to no where. It’s convenient if you want to bike from the Original Pancake House, behind the Target, down a quarter of a mile of big box loading docks, past the Chucky Cheese to the Office Max. Read more >

Metro Transit is holding three public meetings in October to discuss/present/solicit comment on their study of concepts for Arterial Transitways. Read more >