Californians idle in the nation’s worst traffic jams on interstates surrounding major metropolitan areas but they are far from alone — 52 percent of these urban stretches of highways are congested, according to a new study released on Thursday… One Midwestern state, Minnesota, and two East Coast states nearly matched California’s sorry showing.
Read the whole [...]
The online magazine Grist has a great little article/post about “What Bike-Friendly Looks Like” which, in addition to detailed information about how more progressive cities treat this issue, brought my attention to a visually inspiring photo gallery which graphically illustrates ways a community can incorporate multiple means of mobility into their infrastructure.
I wonder if we’d [...]
Yesterday’s Star Tribune also had an editorial about the importance of sustainability and smarter spending for development. The governor and legislators working to pass House and Senate bills establishing a bipartisan Sustainable Growth Working Group whose tasks would include agreeing on principles for guiding Minnesota’s growth.
The nation faces an unstable energy future, as petroleum supplies [...]
February 3, 2007 – 12:40 pm
We’ve started inviting a variety of community leaders to submit commentary pieces here on Locally Grown. The first to respond is former Dundas mayor Glenn Switzer, co-owner of Switzer’s Nursery and Landscaping.
He sent us this audio commentary, touching on the Dundas Business and Professional Group, the County State Aid Highway 1 (CSAH 1) Corridor [...]
November 4, 2006 – 10:58 am
We have a winner. The first person to submit an audio comment via our new submit an audio comment gizmo is none other than Dundas Mayor Glenn Switzer. The prize? We’re working on it.
Click Glenn’s photo to get a better view of him modeling the new Dundas Historical Society t-shirt which says “Been Dare? Dundas!” Hizzoner [...]
November 3, 2006 – 6:02 pm
Kathleen Doran-Norton commented on my blog entry (”Now Where was that Transportation List?‘) by raising the Rice County Transportation Plan’s study of an east-west corridor study, mentioned by Tracy Davis in an earlier blog entry (”But Where does the Bridge Go?“). Kathleen’s comments actually raises an even bigger issue…the State’s transportation plans may have passed [...]
October 24, 2006 – 11:31 am
On last week’s Locally Grown show, Tracy and I discussed transportation, particularly east-west vehicular connections and its relationship to an upcoming Rice County corridor study. I had mentioned a list of community priorities, summarized below, and several people have asked me about the source. It’s basically my summary from Chapter 8 of the Comprehensive Plan.
To [...]
October 24, 2006 – 9:24 am
Bill Ostrem was our guest this week, discussing Northfield’s bicycle/pedestrian infrastructure — both the problems and the opportunities. Click photo to enlarge.
Bill posted a detailed story on Northfield.org recently about bike transportation expert Steve Clark’s recent visit to Northfield. He’s also got a blog, Northern Letter, A voice from the Upper Midwest. And he’s one of the people behind the [...]
October 23, 2006 – 9:26 pm
Northfield has a well-deserved reputation for community I.Q. (I’ve heard it said that we have more Ph.D’s per capita than anywhere else in the country.) But if we’re so smart, how come it seems like we’re always behind the curve on planning and development issues? Maybe all the smart people are isolated [...]
October 17, 2006 – 7:46 am
The focus of this week’s episode was transportation, specifically, County Highway 1 and the Corridor Preservation Study for Rice County. See Tracy’s But Where Does the Bridge Go? post last week for background, links, and a map. “The idea behind the study is to identify potential routes for an east-west arterial road south of Hwy. [...]
October 13, 2006 – 4:45 pm
Rice County, along with its “study partners,” including the City of Dundas, City of Northfield, Bridgewater Township, Northfield Township, and the Minnesota Department of Transportation, have initiated something called the CSAH 1 Corridor Preservation Study. The idea behind the study is to identify potential routes for an east-west arterial road south of Hwy. 19, [...]
Locally Grown has been chosen to test an innovative project called Representative Journalism (RepJ). Bonnie Obremski is the RepJ reporter/journalist currently assigned to Northfield.
RepJ stories by Bonnie Obremski