urbanMSP

Huh, ridership shouldn't be a primary metric of a transit agency? The Red Line cost $115 million to build in 2013 dollars and now has fewer than 350 riders per day. There's got to be some connections to spending millions of dollars and the number of people who will ride the service. Maybe this regi...

The Red Line had the second most ridership of any MVTA route in 2021. Oh, ok, then MVTA shouldn't exist. Agreed, but for other reasons. Ridership is not the primary metric for a transit agency. The Twin Cities have a sprawling metro that needs coverage. There are still transit dependent people, and...

The Red Line had the second most ridership of any MVTA route in 2021.

Oh, ok, then MVTA shouldn't exist.

It would be the easiest thing in the world to send Red Line trips to downtown Minneapolis now, stopping at 46th and Lake and using Orange Line infrastructure. Something tells me we'd need a decade long environmental process to do that though :roll: . If that means we'd have to halve the frequency on...

Only sports teams enjoy this privileged status. I don't think that's true though. We subsidize lots of private development with TIF, tax breaks and financing for housing developments and corporate HQs, and other public monies for for-profit ventures. We do that because we recognize that there are s...

So how does our region compare with how much the average taxpayer is paying for them? I know every single person in Hennepin County is paying for the Twins Stadium every time they buy anything other than food or clothing even if they don't like baseball and never even go downtown, but how does that...

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2023/11/14/united-properties-senior-co-op-edina-public-works.html?csrc=6398&utm_campaign=trueAnthemTrendingContent&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0c2QRh3Fio428ebOXM7jayo76d30FoAncMBffomV8vwGO3F4PyEv81zbc Another propo...

Don't kill the messenger, but maybe the most under-covered local news story imo is how the Timberwolves/Lynx and Wild all have leases expiring in 2035. If (when) Minneapolis considers publicly funding a shiny new arena with a bunch of new premium seating, there is a very real possibility that a dea...

I think a lot of the reaction against stadiums comes from the feeling that so many were replaced from 1990-2020 (and truly many were), but that was because so many stadiums built from 1950-1990 were cheap junk. A lot more stadiums built today have the feeling that they're designed to be the permanen...

Haven't there been study after study that show that sports teams don't actually generate any new taxes, but mainly shift taxes from other things? After all, if you're buying a Wild ticket chances are your food, clothing and shelter are paid for. If you don't spend it on a Wild ticket chances are yo...

Like any project it depends. What will they spend the money on within the stadium. Do they improve the outside to make it more usable besides when a game is happening. Better connection to downtown. Can we make a deal where the state spends X but then the owner invests X amount in that area of down...

I feel like I'm the only progressive on Earth not offended by public investments in stadiums. I get that there are probably better ways to spend $200 million, but that doesn't change the fact that I see stadiums as public infrastructure that therefore deserve public investment. I also think the side...

The problem is that there's only one train a day. Union Depot is doing other things 90% of the time because it's not really a train depot at all. It basically is an event space that a train happens to stop at, not a train station you can get married at. Until there's enough revenue from trains and p...

Hennepin County board passed a resolution today declaring its intention to close HERC. 2028 to 2040 timeframe

imo not gonna do much unless they reconstruct it so people will feel more comfortable driving slower. heck I think I remember reading somewhere that lining the street with some big ass trees right along the curb was enough to get drivers to slow down a bit. Oh yeah, I'm under no delusions that it w...

I wonder if there's state appetite to reduce the residential speed limit to 25 statewide (it is 30 currently, right?) I know after a study, cities can set it to 20, but it should probably be allowed without a study. I know there's good reason to evaluate any government change before it's implemented...

Not that I'm a supporter of free-fare transit, but I think it's worth noting that most American arguments in favor of free-fare transit are usually predicated on it being an issue of social justice, not necessarily reducing traffic or mode shifting transportation, though those are also good reasons;...

Community Engagement on this project has given us: A better alignment avoiding Lyndale A transitway on 10th ave and 21st (The 21st one is a huge test case for future residential transitways that could open up a lot of new possibilities for rail in the future). An added station by Cub on Broadway Al...

For anyone who attended - any new information presented? Not really. I think they moved the light rail alignment from the southside of 10th to the northside of 10th? But that's it. Just a lot of NIMBY fighting. I talked with the director of the West Broadway Business and Area Coalition last night t...

As far as freeway projects go, this one seems about as justifiable as they get. Hard to look at a road like Highway 65 and argue that a freeway conversion wouldn't be an improvement. With better urban planning or transportation policy, a rural highway like this was forty years ago would have never b...