urbanMSP

[groan for starting this thread]

Wanted a place to dump this tour of the Tilikum Bridge that's opening up this year. http://bikeportland.org/2015/03/17/tour ... tos-135666

For those not aware, it's a $136m bridge that will carry only LRT, buses, bikes, & peds (eventually streetcar service). It's part of a much larger new LRT project opening this year as well.

By my count, AADT will be: LRT ~20,000 (22.6k in 2030 for the line in total, tough to say how many will cross the river on day 1), 14,000 bus riders (acc to Wikipedia), plus however many bikes/peds (cannot find it, but I'll assume around 2-3,000).

Sounds a bit familiar... *cough* Washington Ave *cough*

But I guess that was converted and not built exactly like what it is now. And it doesn't have streetcars. But hey good for Portland

Sure! At $21m for the retrofit, it was quite the steal. I would say the new Washington Ave Bridge is my favorite bridge in all of Minneapolis.

But yeah, like everything, good for Portland.

This is not the Portland you are looking for.

I'm sure we have some things to learn from that city in Maine, though.

Funnily enough, I had dinner at Heartland in St. Paul two weeks ago, and our waiter mentioned that they're working with an aquaponic farm in Minneapolis to grow giant crayfish that will be nearly as big as lobster. We may have some unique inland seafood yet.

Also, I'm currently posting this while I sit at Director Park in Portland, Oregon.

The first odd thing that I saw upon arriving was a little kid picking up a hypodermic needle in the bushes at the LRT stop by Union Station. But I had to laugh when my hotel clerk wished me a "Happy brunch" when she called to tell me my room was available.

Far fewer bikes than I expected, at least downtown. They show up more along the periphery of the city center and in the SFH residential areas.

TriMet opens the MAX Orange Line:

http://www.masstransitmag.com/press_rel ... line-opens

Along with that, they open the first transit/bike/pedestrian-only bridge in the United States (according to the article). Pretty cool!

Also, they have 2 Park and Ride stations (boo!) that have a total of 446 "secure" bike parking spaces (yay!)

They were starting to do testing on this bridge when I visited in May. It's one of the only places where light rail and streetcar services share tracks, though it seems like the designers tried to split the tracks up again as quickly as possible on either end of the bridge. And I see that just east of the bridge, there is a grade-level crossing between LRT tracks and a freight rail spur that extends down to Milwaukie.

Looks like Portland is going consolidate streetcar stops to improve service.

http://portlandstreetcar.org/

http://bikeportland.org/2016/11/22/city ... nes-195809

Portland adds 5.6 miles of buffers to its bike lanes "with about $80,000 that was left over from larger capital projects that came in under budget." Probably the most interesting part:

Before I confirmed all this with PBOT, I mentioned the new striping to a friend of mine who works at the agency. The employee just smiled and said, “It’s because we have a good director.”

Interesting video about an abandoned and almost completely forgotten state park about 15-20 miles south of portland
https://youtu.be/uRPu9_Nf1TU
Am actually curious now if there's any forgotten state parks around the cities, could be a interesting thing to spend a few afternoons looking up.

There's Pig's Eye Regional Park which is still pretty inaccessible.

Interesting video about an abandoned and almost completely forgotten state park about 15-20 miles south of portland
https://youtu.be/uRPu9_Nf1TU
Am actually curious now if there's any forgotten state parks around the cities, could be a interesting thing to spend a few afternoons looking up.

I don't know if it's "forgotten," but I don't know anyone who's been there but me: Grey Cloud Dunes SNA in Cottage Grove. I really loved it when I visited, though I definitely recommend pants.

How about parks that nobody knows are parks? According to the trust for public lands this is a 8.9 acre park.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/AGAPE ... 8?hl=en-GB

Or a short distance away is this park.

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9554127 ... 2?hl=en-GB