A fine mess

I said it before - it would be ok with me if we skipped Leap Day altogether. It's snowing slush.

Location:11th Street

March-ish

When the contractor said they'd restart construction "no sooner than March 1," I think what they meant was "the last few days of February don't really count anyway." That's ok, I suppose, especially since tomorrow is Leap Day, which barely counts on anyone's calendar. It's kinda sorta close enough. If I squint at the bottom of my calendar, it looks downright Marchish.

This morning construction was back in swing. I could tell because there were two large utility trucks in the White Castle parking lot (don't worry, White Castle is probably going to make it through construction ok.)

Medians are being peeled away.


Temporary bus stops are popping up (this one's at Lexington).


And cars are starting to do ridiculous things, like driving up next to large machinery in order to avoid having to go another block to turn left.


Belinda tells me to expect snow, wintery mix, and up to an inch of rain today. It's not really fair that I have to lug snow boots and carry an umbrella, but we'll take it over a foot of snow.

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Location:University Ave.

An Alternate Universe

The U of M is a strange world. Anyone a few years out of college might have forgotten - people actually use Macs, heaps of bikes cause bike traffic jams, and wearing a backpack all day is socially acceptable. In fact, at one point I said, "look - that guy doesn't have a backpack! Suspicious." It's a weird place.

Anyway, there is another anomaly at the U. They are tearing out a giant street - a street with a river bridge no less (gasp!) - to give over to transit and pedestrians. How often does that happen?! Never. It NEVER happens.

So let's call this one "before."



I'll be back in a year or so with the after photo...

It's baaaack

Mark Twain once said that the coldest winter he'd ever spent was a summer in Duluth. Oh how far we've come.

Today, in what seems to be the new norm, we topped off at a blistering 41 degrees. I'll have you know that's only 6 degrees off my personal flip flop tolerance. You see, 47 feels like 74 after a long winter - once the puddles are gone there's no reason to continue putting yourself through the agony of wearing socks. It's all relative in Minnesota...normally.

And then there's this year. Wait, are we having better weather over our winter construction break than we had last summer? It was so tropical this week that crews were pouring concrete on the downtown Central Station, with what seems to be an excessively tall concrete spewing bendy straw machine (technical name).



Please insert LRT here:



In a couple weeks, we'll be back in the swing of tearing up the Avenue and putting in more rail. Construction officially restarts March 1st. Yikes.


p.s. Love that the 4th & Cedar construction site appears to have some sort of internal parking problem - that's so Central Corridor!



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