urbanMSP

Here's a shot of the Midtown Corner project from May 29th, almost exactly a year after the previous structure burned down https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51211620291_523724be73_z.jpg PXL_20210529_230450140 by Michael Hicks , on Flickr May as well add photos I took the same evening of Wendy's and...

The project at 3801 Hiawatha Avenue is now known as CityLine Apartments. This continues to be somewhat strange for a residential building, since I'm seeing steel beams and supports. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51206620385_8b1e9611f5_z.jpg PXL_20210527_001426679 by Michael Hicks , on Flickr h...

This photo is almost two weeks old now, but RS Eden's Amber Apartments at 4525 Hiawatha Ave (across from the 46th St. LRT station) is topped out.

PXL_20210522_143144372 by Michael Hicks, on Flickr

Hmm. I wouldn't be surprised if it's temporary and only intended to be used while Noko was going up, though you'd think they would have hooked into that by now.

Some exterior pictures from last weekend. They were still working on the apartments a bit, but Lunds was open: Looking south from Longfellow & 47th: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51195668096_4d5ee1345e_z.jpg PXL_20210522_131501712 by Michael Hicks , on Flickr https://live.staticflickr.com/...

CN is less visible in MN, since their main line passes through Duluth rather than the Twin Cities. Their Wisconsin Central subsidiary has a line that roughly parallels Union Pacific's line to Eau Claire, but runs about 10 miles north of it and runs through Chippewa Falls before reaching the CN main ...

The grocery windows have signs up saying the Lunds will open on May 20th at 8:00 am.

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.