urbanMSP

I do wonder if they could have chosen a location on the Blue Line closer to downtown so the whole line didn't need to be shut down, but I'm not sure what other location has the capacity for parking and security screenings. Also, since the MOA is included in Super Bowl activities, it makes sense. Th...

What about Northstar as the branding for commuter rail in general ? It's a solid brand (perhaps a bit tainted by the current low ridership) but there's no obvious reason it should be associated with St. Cloud, given that it's derived from the State's nickname. At some point it's gonna be needless ov...

The reason this comes up in all the new-construction threads is because our system already has lots of routes that blur the lines between service classes, and the major projects in the works only raise new questions. Riverview is basically LRT but with a brief segment in mixed-traffic, shorter train...

Well, basically we have: Nicollet - frequent stops, mixed-traffic ROW Midtown - frequent stops, dedicated ROW Riverview - infrequent stops, partially mixed-traffic ROW Existing LRT - infrequent stops, dedicated ROW Each of the three projects differs in some way (other than just vehicles and station ...

That article is arguing a deeply flawed premise. It's kind of dangerous in my opinion that American politics is so obsessed with arguing about whether "regulations" are good or bad, on an abstract or even moral level. It's an utterly meaningless debate that goes back, basically, to our nat...

I think we'll probably see something of a hybrid. I do think that Riverview will be part of Metro and Nicollet/Central won't, because of the stop spacing/capacity/frequency tests. But I could see a situation where Nicollet/Central and the aBRT lines get "promoted" and start showing up more...

There are basically two standards that are relevant here: - Are self-driving cars completely safe? - Are self-driving cars demonstrably safer than human drivers in equivalent situations? The former is clearly too restrictive--millions of people get on airplanes every day, despite the fact that they'...

Voting based on your perception of the candidates' popularity and likelihood of winning, or to prevent a disliked candidate from winning, is considered strategic voting. The goal is to get at least the first-choice to be everyone's sincere preference, whereas people might use the second and third ch...

Yeah, I agree. Lots of people will be excited about self-driving cars, but there's going to be a very, very long tail on standard cars. Some people just want to get point A to point B. Others want to do so but demand their own hermetic compartment. They're good candidates for self-driving. But there...

The maps themselves have immense cultural significance, but what they're protecting just doesn't. It's infrastructure, and not a particularly noteworthy example of it. Any cultural context about historic railroad usage is rather laughable, because the modern usage and surroundings don't even remotel...

The idea that the freight rail corridor by the impound lot can have historic protection is like something out of the Onion. Some of this project's struggle has been self-imposed, but a lot more has just been all kinds of weird or unnecessary external circumstances and red tape. I feel for the folks ...

Driverless cars are a race with a ridiculous number of runners, who have varying degrees of funding, talent, seriousness, and expertise. Unless the mistakes and accidents we see are coming from the biggest players, I wouldn't read into them too much as a read on how close the tech is to market. Pers...

The benefit is making elections more competitive, and it's been quite successful at that. IMO the big story of this election is that lots of voters broadly agreed with Hodges ideologically but didn't think she was effective in her role, and that type of candidate would struggle to break through agai...

Writing a tabulation script is indeed trivial. Complying with election law is not. Some pertinent questions are: - Does there exist an RCV-compatible ballot reader which is certified by the state and federal governments? - Does it output data in a format compatible with your script, with a sufficien...

I mean, at some point, someone's going to be disappointed, right? We could force everyone to rank every candidate and then write that the winner had "100% support!" but it would obviously be kinda hollow. The incentive to vote strategically does still exist with RCV. It usually makes sense...

With the current system of three choices and 15 candidates, there are 2730 possible ballots. With six choices there are 3,603,600. Hand counting with six will be a time suck, but very easy for a computer to do. The number of possible combinations of ballots has exactly zero to do with the algorithm...

To the point of how many choices we should allow: I wouldn't expect to see 15 candidates, and 5 serious candidates, in most elections. We had an unusual amount of interest given the national political climate, and an unusual amount of anti-incumbent sentiment for a variety of reasons, including a hi...

Yes, the US is truly federalist while most European countries are centralized. Even most provinces in Canada are more centralized, which has made it possible for provinces to pull off similar mergers, with mixed results. Toronto - success. Montréal - failure. And a mixed bag elsewhere. I realize I'...

Projet Montreal, a sustainable urbanism party, defeated the incumbent to win the mayor's seat in an upset last night. Valérie Plante is also the city's first female mayor. Their biggest campaign pledge was a new 29-station, TBM-built metro line . http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-montrea...

The moment any city gets the Amazon pick, if they don’t buckle down and start building housing at an emergency rate they will be complicit in causing their housing crisis.

Agreed, but also, I think Amazon is kind of a red herring because most of our major cities are already in this boat.