Best of Craigslist

Here at Grand Forks Streets HQ, we have a pretty low bar when it comes to the “best” local online posts and stories.  So rather than a list of recent articles you may have seen in the Herald anyway, here are some local Craigslist postings relating to streets:

NPA and Toeds team up to provide third END-SURE checkpoint

(zoomable map here, miles count down to finish, 1.5 mile out-and-back at CP2 is not included)
Northern Plains Athletics and Toe’ds have teamed up to provide a third checkpoint for END-SURE: the Extreme North Dakota Sandhills Ultra Run Experience…and what an experience it’s going to be!

Together with Toe’ds executive chef Ted Bibby, I’ll be hauling gear in (on foot or via snowmobile) to the most ‘wildernessy’ part of the 31-mile END-SURE course to set up a checkpoint and aid station between six and seven miles from the finish line.  Unexpected amounts of snowfall have made the finish time estimates grow longer and longer the closer we get to the race.  The impending storm tonight into tomorrow will add insult to injury, and perhaps finally convince some of the racers that they’d like to be wearing snowshoes (for those not in the loop, gear has been quite the debate).

If you’d like to follow along with the race, we’ll be tweeting from @nplainsathletes, sharing the hashtag  with the two other checkpoints and the finish line.  Check out the roster to see if you know anyone in the race, and feel free to tweet us some messages to pass along.  An extended 6.5 hour cutoff to reach CP2 at mile 18 means a potentially longer finishing time, so who knows how long we’ll be out there.

Cycling through the Blizzard

Eight inches of snow?  No problem:

The Grand Forks Herald has a thing for putting winter cyclists on the front page–check out this one of Chase Christenson from January 2010:

 
Updated: Here are a few more (I’ll keep updating below).
 


Matt Burton-Kelly waits for traffic at the intersection of University Ave. and N. 25th St. as he bikes to work at EERC
Tuesday. (Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald) (1 Dec 2015)
 

Professor Gordon Iseminger of the History Department at UND pedals across campus during Thursday’s snowfall. (Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald) (15 Jan 2016)

 

 

News Comments: A Topical Aside

Although this topic may not seem to immediately affect the streets of our fair city, it does affect a related aspect: community.

The Grand Forks Herald, after several months of allowing fewer and fewer articles to be commented upon, has finally removed all functionality on streets, etc.)?  
And now that this particular community has been removed, how and where to rebuild a bigger and more inclusive one?
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*Since I have no information on the reasons for the change, I’m forced to speculate.  Obviously, if comments are hurting the company financially (paying someone to moderate, hosting fees, etc.), then there is no reason for Forum to keep them on at the Herald.  I’m not asking for the Herald to keep free comments up if it is not helping them make money.  Based on other AreaVoices comment sections remaining active, however, that doesn’t seem to be the reason.
**I have a theory that by allowing people to show off what they know through comment systems or message boards, we could get a better “oral history” of the area than we would if we relied only on people who want to edit Wikipedia.  Wikipedia requires citations, comments do not.