urbanMSP

As long as the Best Western Plus Normandy Inn & Suites continues to grace downtown, any nearby hotel - no matter how shoddy - seems like an architectural masterpiece to me.

The city is going to have to come up with some significant new funds to maintain all of these protected bike lanes they want to build. It's going to be much more involved and expensive than the old bike lanes they're replacing. How much more expensive is it to maintain a protected bike lane compare...

The bump-outs and trees can't come soon enough. Even the shortest distance on foot in downtown east somehow lasts a psychological eternity. The visual interest of the mega-construction underway temporarily relieves the monotony, but generally the streetscape is terrible. Glad it's improvement is bei...

Because the developer owns this property, and not the one across the street? Good point. Still, I'd guess that a developer would have better luck attracting renters when the street life remains vibrant. It's a good point to a certain extent. On the other hand, the developer presumably paid value fo...

Two realistic ways to improve this project come to mind: 1. Keep retail on Marquette . The blinds to those living rooms are always going to be shut tight; it'll be an uninviting scene. 2. Retain the Facade . Instead of demolishing ALL of 1004 Marquette, at least retain the original facade instead of...

Bitter and ironic to tear down a historic structure when there's a parking lot across the street and an ugly parking ramp kitty corner. I'm sure demolishing 1004 Marquette will add to the charm. Also a bit arbitrary and irrational to say the building isn't historic just because the Arts and Crafts G...

I did write that it wasn't wise to put any permanent seating areas, including picnic tables. It would become a permanent bedroom for drunks. Why? That doesn't seem to be a problem at Government Plaza or Gold Medal Park, both only a couple blocks away. This park won't attract very many people if the...

That picture raises a question I've always wondered: Why did the early 1990's BRW renovation rip out all the trees? They were fairly mature by that point (25 odd years or so). Seems like a pretty terrible decision in retrospect.

What are the advantages of streetcar over enhanced bus? It's certainly not construction costs, operating costs, construction impacts or transit travel time. You are certainly correct about capital costs. I would also agree about construction impacts, but it is important to note that this literally ...

If the current aBRT proposals don't represent the core area that MetroTransit should be serving, then boy I don't know. Would you say that the 3 miles of NIcollet Ave S of downtown is the only thing Metro Transit should be focusing on? No. I think the "A" line and "C" line propo...

Nobody's talking about building a 40 mile aBRT line straight out of the core, we're talking about a network that is in total 40 miles long. I know. But to my mind, the more Metro Transit can reduce it's scope to a core area and focus on providing excellent service in that core area, the more likely...

But yeah, there is no real reason to build three miles of streetcar rather than forty miles of aBRT that could be retrofitted with streetcars later. But there is an excellent reason: compactness. Transit works best when it is compact. When we blow it apart across the landscape, we run into serious ...

The funny thing is we're actually not implementing anything close to what Munich has. Munich [doesn't] have mixed traffic streetcars. But Munich does have mixed-traffic streetcars. Lots of them! For instance: http://eriksmail.de/Templates/dso/SWM2202BarerStrasse200713.jpg or http://philipshane.file...

But at the same time, copying everything Europe does because Europe does it is Cargo Cult urbanism. Copy Europe because they have a solution to a problem we're having, not because "Europe." That linked example is a track that curves around a roundabout, it has no stops, and it doesn't hav...

It's European. Much like the Nicollet streetcar it has marginal value as transportation infrastructure. How bizarrely condescending. Perhaps it's not patriotic to say so, but I doubt our transportation system here has much to teach Munich. The 'Red Line'? The 'Interchange'? Northstar to Big Lake on...

Unfortunately, the limiting factor is that turnouts shouldn't be placed in curves.

It is possible:

http://www.m-luftbild.de/luftbild/obeli ... tz-128.jpg

Hopefully the real-time bus arrival screens actually display the times instead of merely saying "Please Check Schedules".

I think it is safe to assume that because we haven't heard anything about this project, that Ryan has completely forgotten about it and hasn't done anything with it in the last several months. Probably some stern posts from us will remedy that situation. And another ZING! :P The city certainly can'...

It's a real bummer no one is holding Ryan's feet to the fire on this project. The Vikings stadium is going to be iconic in design, and getting close to half-way finished and there are still no details on what is going up here. I agree. If nothing gets decided, there will simply be a monstrous parki...

I believe the intention would be to use that clear an cars in the driving lane :D Also I think this may be the best pictoral evidence of why shared lane streetcars are bad: https://i.imgur.com/r5ZSAkv.png It's a funny image, but also misleading in the current context. Accidents dramatically slow al...