Secrets of the City

City of Lakes Urbanism looks at some new art proposed for the extension of the lightrail line: The Central Corridor LRT project will allocate $2.8 million of its $914 million budget to station art at the 15 new stations originally planned (I am not sure what will happen with station art at the 16th station at Western Ave., which the city of St. Paul agreed to fund). At the October 12th meeting of the Met Council’s Transportation Committee, preliminary artwork designs were submitted for review.

Via the Strib: After nearly 30 years as one-way streets, Hennepin and 1st Avenues in downtown Minneapolis are set to be converted to two-way traffic on Oct. 10.

Pencil Thin has a little postcard about the change.Good idea, or can we expect to see groups of rock fans outside First Avenue creamd by CHiPS -style multi-car pileups?

From MPR: Minneapolis will launch the first large-scale bicycle sharing system in the country next year, designed to improve public health and increase transportation options.

I know it’s not exactly an unbiased environment, but my fellow bus drivers have had little good to say about their experiences with the free State Fair shuttle service. In one instance, a driver whose daughter is in a wheelchair was told that the buses servicing their park-and-ride were not handicap accessible. (All Metro Transit buses are equipped with either lifts or ramps.) According to the Star-Tribune, maybe it’s not just the grumblings of a bunch of people who suddenly can’t double their paychecks with overtime this year. kc! and I didn’t have a terrible experience when we went with the private providers, but it wasn’t very smooth, either. Have you taken the free shuttles? How were they? How many years should the private providers be given to get their act together?

MPR today is reporting a Nov. 16 starting date for the Northstar, Minnesota’s only commuter rail service. Unlike light rail, this train will use existing tracks to move commuters from the northern ‘burbs to downtown Minneapolis, near the new Target Field. According to the St. Cloud Times, the train is expected to have 3,400 riders every weekday.

What happens when you have $15 billion to spend on roads, but they are going to cost $65 billion? That’s the question MnDOT is faced with, and, apparently, the answer is that “roads get worse.”

47 passengers enjoyed an all-night stay aboard their airplane in Rochester due to storms in what one passenger descriped as a “nightmare”; Strib has the deets: “This was a sardine can, with a single row of seats on one side of the plane and two rows of seats on the other. And they’ve got about 50 people inside, including babies, for the whole night.”

What is your worst flight experience?

MPR reports that Jim Obsertar is getting impatient: “It is disappointing that after eight years of a Bush administration that said no to robust investment in transportation now the Democratic administration says ‘well not now … 18 months,” Oberstar said. “The nation doesn’t have 18 months for a head start program in transportation for the planners at the White House. People need jobs now.”

Abdt takes a look at the Hennepin Ave bike lane, which is having its own funeral tonight before its transformation: It is the only place I have ever been blown off my bike by a gust of wind. … On Hennepin, a tremendous rain storm kicked in out of nowhere, and the attendent wind went whipping through the buildings in way I’ve never experienced here before. A particularly strong gust knocked me ass over end onto the street, where I sat dazed on the pavement for a second, then picked up and headed off.

What are your experiences with this bike lane?

Avidor, if I’m reading this correctly, provides a sketch of the white bicycle that has been left about a hundred feet from where I am sitting now. The bicycle memorializes Dennis Dumm, who was killed by a semi-truck back in May. Anybody else notice the white bicycles? Have they done any good in dramatizing the fact that, while the streets are getting safer in general, they’ve gotten more dangerous for bikers?