Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Minneapolis

How Two Regions Reined in Job Piracy — And Two Others Failed

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 11, 2014 | 6 Comments

They call it “intra-regional job piracy” — when one town uses tax breaks to lure employers from neighboring towns. Job piracy is very common in regions across the United States. And it almost always results in employers moving farther from the central city. As the D.C.-based think tank Good Jobs First has shown [PDF], this job […]

Talking Headways Podcast: Rondo Revisited

By Tanya Snyder | Jun 20, 2014 | 1 Comment

Finally, there is a light rail line connecting the Twin Cities. The Green Line, running 11 miles from Union Depot in downtown St. Paul to Target Field in downtown Minneapolis, cost $957 million and took decades to build. The process of choosing stations was contentious but eventually incorporated the proposals of low-income communities that wanted […]

More Mayoral Results: Minneapolis, Houston, Boston

By Angie Schmitt | Nov 7, 2013 | 2 Comments

This week’s mayoral elections yielded good news for transit and safe streets in both Houston and Minneapolis. In Boston, meanwhile, the results are less straightforward. Transportation reformers in Minneapolis are generally pleased about the election of City Council member Betsy Hodges (runoff votes are still being counted, but the second-place contender has conceded). Hodges is […]

Twin Cities Region Grows While Car Use Shrinks

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 30, 2013 | 1 Comment

Residents of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Region are letting their feet off the gas. According to the Twin Cities’ Metropolitan Council’s decennial travel behavior survey [PDF], vehicle trips in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region dropped 18 percent between 2000 and 2010. People who reside in the area are making almost 1.5 million fewer car trips a day […]

How to Sell Developers and Employers on Transit-Oriented Development

By Tanya Snyder | Aug 27, 2013 | 3 Comments

Developers and employers think transit access is great. But if the hurdles are too high, they’ll forgo it — choosing locations that shackle people to car dependence. That’s the finding of a recent report by University of Minnesota researchers Yingling Fan and Andrew Guthrie. Fan and Guthrie propose a number of policy changes for the […]

Minneapolis-St. Paul: Ripe for a Highway Teardown?

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 12, 2013 | 13 Comments

When I was a college student in the Twin Cities, I moved between Minneapolis and St. Paul on the 21 bus or the 16 bus or by bike, traversing vibrant corridors like Lake Street and Washington Avenue. I rode past art cinemas and pancake houses and Mexican supermarkets and puppet theaters. Or I didn’t ride […]

Show More Stories