Transit
Journey to Detroit
Sometime in the not too distant future, John wakes up in suburban Chicago on a Saturday morning and heads to a White Sox game...in Detroit. Join him on a 300 mile journey to Detroit's Comerica Park as he experiences the transportation options of the future: a neighborhood electric car share program, smart phone ticketing, high-speed rail, and connecting light rail. This clip is brought to you by America 2050 as part of its "A Better Tomorrow" project to visualize America's future communities and transportation systems.
Beyond The Motor City
Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City examines how Detroit, a symbol of America’s diminishing status in the world, may come to represent the future of transportation and progress in America. Watch it here. Read more >
Central Corridor is a go, but will lawsuits stop it in its tracks?
Like it or not, the Central Corridor LRT line got the much needed federal push that it got last week from our president. Now that is seems to be moving forward will the three lawsuits tie up construction and the actually building of the line for years to come? The University of Minnesota, MPR, and Rondo residents all have three seperate lawsuits stating that Metropolitian Council has not taken their concerns, and mitigation, into account with the line.
Many feel that these lawsuits are the chance for at least two large institution to grab the mitigation funds which is leaving nothing left over to address the concerns of residents and small businesses. Should MPR and the U back off? Are we really going to delay the line because of these suits? What you think?
Transportation facts: Minnesota
A snapshot of transportation-related facts for Minnesota, from Transportation for America > Read more >
Egalitarian Streets: Market Street 1905
This short film, shot from a streetcar on Market Street in San Francisco in 1905, shows a street screen in sharp contrast to what we experience today in most cities and towns across the United States. This scene may seem chaotic, but it seems to work well because all of the various road users are moving at roughly the same speed and all of the users must yield to each other.
Fast forward to 2010 and we find ourselves having traded this more egalitarian, shared space, street design for one that favors the speedy movement of one single mode of transportation (the private automobile). One might describe our contemporary street design as undemocratic (by giving priority to a single class of road users) in contrast to the scene on Market Street in 1905.
Closer to home, a similar street scene could be experienced on the streets of downtown Minneapolis and downtown Saint Paul during the early 1900s. Would we be better off with a similar scene today (without the horse drawn carriages, of course)? Are we currently living with undemocratic streets in Minneapolis Saint Paul and the rest of our cities across the United States?
What the Twin Cities needs to pass
I read this over on Streetblogs and how imagine how great it would be to have this law in the Twin Cities. I for one would love to have indoor or at least secure covered parking be mandated by law even if it goes against my libertarian roots.
Enjoy
Streetcars, Anyone?
It seems that streetcars are making a comeback. This post over at the infrastructuralist shows that 45 cities have plans for extending or creating streetcar line(s). This is great news, but yet will make competition for $130 million funding even more difficult.
Again, PDX, who had the political will and capital to put in a streetcar years ago is planning to expand the service over the river to finally create the streetcar loop.
Just in case you didn't know, Minneapolis has its own plans for a streetcar network that should hopefully supplement the bus, LRT, and BRT (down the road) network we currently have. Plus here is the work done around the planned streetcar along our beloved Greenway.
An engineering eye on European transportation
Fascinating observations, by a Minnesota professional traffic engineer, of transportation system and city characteristics of several countries in Central Europe (including Germany, France, and the Czech Republic). Includes discussion of roadway lane widths, rail network, and urban form.
Excerpted from the newsletter of the North Central Section of the US Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE).
100 years pass
I was at the downtown Minneapolis library yesterday when a large map caught my eye. It was a 1910 ariel map with all the transit lines included. As a new Minnesotan I was shocked to see that at one time you could get to Stillwater or Hopkins on mass transit (that was not a bus).
It was a great reminder that not so long ago we had the plans and capital in place to move people around our region that was not based on expressways, but rather mass transit. Here is the old map (1910) and the new map (2020). A lot has changed in 100 years, but I find looking at these two maps educational to say the least.
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