The Argus Leader has a great, long article about how the city of Sioux Falls wants to encourage more people to commute via bicycle, how to ride in traffic, and coverage of the two recent cycling deaths. Plus: bike share in the future? In Fargo, Eric Christeson laments the loss of neighborhood schools to which walking or bicycle commuting by students is safe.
Greenway Trail Users Advisory Group Meeting tonight
Just a quick reminder: Recently, discussion on Green Lanes (bike lanes striped with different colors to differentiate them from motor vehicle lanes) has been occurring at these meetings. If you have any thoughts about this project, you might want to show up. I think the other group involved is the Grand Forks-East Grand Forks Metropolitan Planning Organization.
You can read old meeting notes in the archive.
Greenway Trail Users Advisory Group Meeting
7 PM Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Grand Forks Park District, 1210 7th Ave S
Saturday Grab Bag 2013-04-06
Some things that have been on my radar lately. First, in today’s news:
- More mixed commercial-residential development coming on 42nd Street. Is three a trend? We now have the Dakota Textbook Company building, Northern Heights at Griggs Square, and this new project as examples of mixed development in locations that in the past would have been either strip malls or apartment buildings. Downtown counts as well, so maybe we should quantify what the difference in these locations versus downtown represents?
- Tina Rakowski writes in to say “the rent is too damn high!” Not in those exact words, but what are we doing in Grand Forks to examine the reasons for rent going up across the board?
Second, it’s been a positive week in the American streets blogosphere:
- Cycling advocates so polite they might actually be Canadian install bike lane pylons in Seattle. How cool is this? Not only is the city completely polite in return, but they offer to return the pylons…in essence allowing the group to stage a protest at another location in he future.
- Old people get to have all the fun–when they get old. The question is a great one: why wait until retirement to live in a place that lets you walk and ride where you need to go in complete safety?
- College was awesome, not only because you didn’t have to drive anywhere. It’s argument by nostalgia, but even if you didn’t go to college (or didn’t live and eat on campus), there are a lot of things to be said for 1) lots of time off and 2) having good food close by.
- Accessibility as a replacement for mobility (scroll down to “Moving green”). A short piece about interconnectedness versus disconnectedness in a longer article about greening cities.
Thirdly, some of the recent local/regional articles you may have missed (copies available on request):
- Columbia Road widening project is pushing ahead (2013-04-02)
- Central parking ramp to be repaired (2013-04-02)
- Drunk driving is mostly victimless, so why should it be illegal? (2013-03-23)
- We need Arts and Entertainment zones in Grand Forks (2013-03-17)
- Speeding tickets are just a money grab (2013-03-02)
- It’s no longer weird to ride your bicycle in the winter, in Winnipeg at least (2013-02-15)
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:
SeeClickFix: Let the city know what needs fixing
New website for the “South Forks Bypass”
A group in favor of building a bridge over the Red River of the North at Merrifield Road (County Road 6 / 12 Ave NE) has a new website to organize support: http://southforksbypass.wordpress.com/. A letter to the editor appeared in the Grand Forks Herald today.
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.
Sidewalks as a Sedimentary Analog
Came across this example from Callan Bentley at Northern Virginia Community College and thought it was an interesting way to help students keep thinking about geology, even while they’re walking around campus.
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:
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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.
**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.