Twin Cities Streets for People

Well, at least the city is listening. They installed those familiar orange plastic wands sporadically along 1st Avenue, to try and better mark the limits of the bike-only zone.

 I went down there this week to see what it was like, and it didn't take me very long to find many cars parked way over the line. In fact, as I was taking a photo of one black SUV parked in the bike lane, another (even larger) black SUV started to park directly within the bike lane. 

I went up to the woman and informed her where the parking was, and she snipped back, "OK, you can go now." 

Clearly, the city hasn't quite reached the point where its self-evident to drivers where to park. They're improving, but at this point, 1st Avenue is still a half-baked bike lane.   Read more >

St. Paul has completed its parking study. From the looks at the PowerPoint (attached) we are going to be stuck with the sea of off-street parking we have become accustomed too. The motto is the "most livable city" in the US, really? With some changes we can take the next step to becoming the most livable city.

Please make sure you take the time to review the new parking study. We need to start catering to pedestrians, cyclists, and mass transit and need parking regulations and code that reinforce this. The new parking study only reinforces old norms that off-street parking is a must for any commercial or residential development taking place in St. Paul. Valuable square footage in the city will be set aside for cars, not people. Read more >

Since we're talking rooftop car parking, here's a couple of other examples. Read more >