urbanMSP

You can't make any sort of contradictory statement of neighborhood character with these people or they will begin recounting stories of how they personally beheaded every single crackhead that invaded in the 80s and how that gives them the right to tell everyone else how it is.

I agree with Froggie's routing. Routing on West 7th between 35E and Randolph would likely add a lot more to the cost than it would to accessibility. It's just over a mile between 35E and Randolph, so you really wouldn't want to squeeze any more stations in, and the only one of the three that would b...

Obviously. But most of them lived in Denver before their West line opened too.

I've never been to Denver, but it seems like the West line would be a lot more useful than their previous lines. That said, I've known a lot of people who've lived both in Denver and the Twin Cities who thought that their system was better (pre-Green Line). As for the East Line, that seems to basica...

Given that this block is a PUD, I find it odd that they didn't plan it to maximize the park frontage. I'd think it would have been pretty low-risk to include a one-story podium on Zenith that came to the lot line and could have created a continual street wall when the adjacent lot was developed. But...

I'm surprised there hasn't been comment here on the 26 "North Minneapolis circulator. Connects with both Penn Ave and Van White Green Line stations. 30‐minute service from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Possible elimination of Route 5F service on 26th Ave N." They project 1100 daily rides. It looks lik...

The 4 is heinously unreliable and needs to be split. My gut would tend to feel that it would be better to split off the ends of the routes into suburban locals and keep the central segment intact as one through-running route. My understanding is that there is a documented ridership gain from interli...

It looks like the owner of the strip mall at Franklin & Chicago ("which was developed with City support back in 1992" (!)) wants to replace it with a mixed use building with street-facing retail and 80 units of apartments. The City Council will consider granting exclusive development r...

I think it first became public as the designs for the Interchange became finalized, but I have to imagine it had more to do with Bottineau and how it would cross the intersection of 7th & Olson than with the other two projects. Why would they rebuild the frontage road that Royalston becomes as i...

Many prominent people, including the Downtown Council, the Star Tribune editorial board, and the shadowy elites behind Plan-it Hennepin agree on the need for more downtown green space. I believe that anyone who's been to a number of North American downtowns will agree that Minneapolis has less than ...

OK, fine, call it a plaza, whatever. The north end of the CBD needs a visible gathering space accessible in a 5-10 minute walk from the officebot cubes. Cancer Survivors is not that, Gateway Park is not that, the river is not that. It wouldn't need to be the whole block, but it should be big enough ...

So this means there'll never be a nice park on this end of downtown, right? Great planning for a planning department.

Speaking of weaving, one of my concerns about the plans as they've been shown is it looks like they are considering having the streetcar follow the curving nature of Nicollet Mall [Mile]

This will also be very loud.

The current funding paradigm couldn't handle such a large project anyways. If we want to be serious about subways, we have to convince the Met Council, etc, that they are necessary, and get them in the next TPP. That's a major shift in policy and culture and could take a decade or so to do. Seattle...

It's also looking like the budget is probably going to exceed $250MM, which would make it ineligible for Small Starts, so the starter line is going to have to be shortened even further.

Is there new information on this or is it your extrapolation from the recently-published street layout?

It may be useful to keep in mind that infrastructure and services can be mixed and matched. For example a downtown transit tunnel under Nicollet Mall could accommodate the ten thousand users of bus service as well as the potential several thousand projected daily streetcar service users. The convers...

How do you guys think ballot question #2 will do? I haven't been in town much lately, but when I've been here I haven't seen much campaigning either way for it. I would tend to be concerned for the success of a ballot measure that doesn't have an extensive campaign behind it just because uncoached v...

I agree with Goodman here. We have poured enough money into the dubious investment of convention business. The city shouldn't be actively working on any uses downtown except affordable housing. That is the one thing needed for a successful downtown that isn't rolling on its own at this point. If a v...

At the same time, it's really common for one person to drive up to the cabin separately after someone else has already hauled up the seadoo, etc. This could be served by transit to regional centers, with the last mile being served by rides from the ones who already drove up. But it makes Minnesotans...

A parking facility is a conditional use in the c2 district. I think he'd have a hard time getting it approved but technically code would allow him to tear down the structure and replace it with a lot as long as he gets a CUP. More likely is mndible's scenario I think. Edit: duh this is regarding gre...