urbanMSP

Here are a few shots of the first building. The panels for the first residential floor above the grocery area are mostly in place. The ground floor is quite tall, though it's down the slope a ways from the existing shopping center buildings, so it's only now reaching the same height as the (false?) ...

Does anyone know the current status of this? I walk past it regularly, and it seems like the stored construction signage and other materials have been slowly disappearing from the site, but I'm not sure if that means anything.

They're doing foundation work at 3801 Hiawatha, though they're somewhat shallow compared to what I usually expect to see in MN. First two shots from April 20th when they were digging trenches. Yesterday (April 26th), it appeared the base layers had already been poured and mostly set. https://live.st...

The Holiday station at 46th and Hiawatha that was built to replace the one that burned during the unrest following George Floyd's murder was open when I went by on Sunday. Construction fencing is still up around much of the site except for the driveways. It was beginning to snow a little, so I didn'...

I think Andover is probably skipped because there had been thoughts it would have been included in the "Bethel Corridor" commuter line that was studied back in the late '90s/early 2000s (despite the name, it could have gone as far north as Cambridge), where it was being looked at alongside...

There was some fencing up around the site when I went by today.

Is anyone aware of efforts to require some amount of charging infrastructure in apartment buildings, either in specific cities or statewide? The last place I lived at least had some standard 115V wall outlets, and there was someone who had a Tesla using it fairly regularly. At 2-4 miles of range per...

Keep in mind that Northstar's high subsidy per rider is partly because people are traveling such long distances. Looks like the average ride was almost 25 miles in 2019, versus only about 4 miles for trips on Metro Transit's overall bus and light rail network (that's per individual hop, not counting...

I really have to say that whatever people think of Northstar, that should translate almost exactly to the way we think about commuter buses in the region, which have also seen a massive hit to ridership. Lots of those routes also have this bonkers service pattern of having nearly all trips going int...

One idea I'd like to see pursued is the possibility of running the train somewhat slower so it can fit between freight trains more easily rather than needing to overtake them, which would ideally make BNSF more amenable to letting it run more often or over longer distances. And ideally, it would be ...

Yeah, there are at least two in the city already, in Dinkytown and Stadium Village

"USMCA railroad" doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "NAFTA highway."

Oh fun, we have our own filibuster-y rule, huh? I was not aware of that. I hope this could pick up votes from several outstate senators who live along the various routes that would be able to go into full study/planning if there's enough money left over for that.

I'll give this thread a bump since it looks like there are bills lined up in both the MN House and Senate that will provide $160 million in overall bonding money for intercity rail projects in MN. SF1962 is authored by the Republican Senate President, Jeremy Miller of Winona (a city which would bene...

Well, I saw a news article saying that MN Senate President Jeremy Miller (R-Winona) had introduced a bill to cover this (SF1962, with HF1639), so I looked it up. It's actually for $160 million and allows the money to be spent on multiple routes beyond the second train, including Northern Lights Expr...

There is a section of 110-mph track on the Lincoln Service between Chicago and St. Louis, but I think it's still not much more than the initial 15 miles they inaugurated between Pontiac and Dwight, IL a long time ago. They're pretty low on excuses now, though it kind of sounds like the remaining han...

Yeah, I'm pretty confident that most of the route has the 79 mph limit. Trains don't necessarily slow down simply because they're passing through towns, but there are often switch points for sidings or yards located in towns that cause reductions in speed in/near them, along with curves and bridges ...

The time savings from these particular upgrades are pretty minimal, since I've already been on Empire Builder trips that have taken 7.5 hours, but of course every little bit helps. I often think it's a mistake to compare the train to air travel, since the default is traveling by car anyway. It's a p...

The Noko Apartments and Lunds & Byerly's development is nearing completion, with signs up saying the grocery will be open this spring. It's been tough to get motivated to take any pictures of this one since I usually go by on weekend mornings when the sun is behind it, and you have to be on the ...

Amtrak announced yesterday that the Empire Builder will be one of the first four long-distance routes to restart service on May 24th, then there will be 4 more each week on May 31st and June 7th. https://twitter.com/samjmintz/status/1369765607353286661 I watched the Red Wing town hall meeting for TC...