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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Midwinter Poetry Slam

There's something about winter that really intensifies my love/hate relationship with transit. My patience is short, but my ride is pre-heated. I never have to scrape a windshield or move for plows, but my toes have some frostbite damage.

In any case, I'm a Mac grad living in Minnesota in January. And that can only mean one thing - I'm doing a J-term project. Bus haikus.

back door! back door, please!

pushing doesn't help, lady

touch here to open

a bird in the hand
better than 2 on NexTrip
should have made that bus

seven years riding
fare card works inside mittens?
just occurred to me

I should always wait
I can outwalk the 16
where is my 50?

I just ran five blocks

don't shake your head at me, sir

open the damn door

sitting a bit close

are you reading my facebook

over my shoulder?

why do the people

from suburban park and rides

like the queue so much?

number 63

is impossibly quiet

that is just not right

I'm making sure that
you're looking at me looking
at your badge number

It's almost too easy once you get started. Post your own! I will carve the best ones into the back of the seat in front of me. (Uh, just kidding, Metro Transit!)

Video Roundup

If a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine how much a time lapse video is worth. $957 million dollars, perhaps? Here are two of my favorites to recap the 2011 season.

Post from the Future

I hope the new year finds you well. In my office, last week was so quiet that it prompted some speculation about best pranks to pull on our out-of-town coworkers. Needless to say, this list came up.

In the spirit of Jim's "fax from the future" and all the new year's season predictions, I imagined what Future Me might say to 2012 Me about this whole light rail thing.

Post from the Future: circa New Year's Day 2015.

To: Transiteer
From: Future Transiteer
Subject: LRT is awesome

Took the #50 train today and it is so much better than the stupid #50 bus. For one thing, the stops don't move every ten minutes. Remember construction? That sucked. Put on a brave face, friend.

Always seeing people on the train who used to call it a boondoggle and a blight rail. I joke with them that I might push them out the shiny automatic doors and onto the tracks for being so hypocritical, but of course they know I am kidding. Or am I?

Also, at 8 a.m. tomorrow, someone poisons the coffee. Do not drink the coffee. More instructions will follow.

Don't tread on me

University Avenue has changed. Gone are the days of the ambiguous 15' shoulder. But it seems that people are having a hard time coping with that reality. The solution? To park on the sidewalk. I saw three trucks do it this morning. Cough. Contractors. Cough.

It seems hard to imagine, that you would need to remind people that cars belong in the street, not idling on the precious 10' reserved for humans. It also wish it was more apparent that we just spent millions of dollars on those new curbs, sidewalks, and fancy paver stormwater systems. Maybe some ticketing would make that more obvious. I guess it's back to the construction hotline.

P.S. Contractors: opening both lanes of traffic and parking work trucks on the sidewalk doesn't count as construction being done. But I applaud your ability to think outside the box. You sure are getting more creative!

TGID

Thank goodness it's December. Ha! Never thought I would say that in Minnesota.

But it's official, and kind of adorable.