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Development pattern productivity, continued further
Last week, I anticipated the Northfield City Council’s discussion of amendments to the Land Development Code by comparing the tax revenue from a selection of different development patterns around town (thanks to David Delong for mentioning Community Resource Bank – 3 stories on the highway with less than minimum parking – a variance was granted to […]
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Daylighting at the Library
I didn’t know there was a term for this, but apparently I’ve been thinking about daylighting at the corner of Washington and 3rd Streets and at the bottom of the hill at Division and 3rd Streets right by the Northfield Public Library for many years. Here’s a little video from Streetfilms explaining “daylighting.” Daylighting: Make Your […]
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Development pattern productivity, continued
“No additional financial impacts are anticipated,” claims the staff report accompanying proposed revisions to Northfield’s nightmare land development regulations. Yet the proposed changes will change zoning around Northfield’s downtown to make lower density, less compact development the default pattern and this does have financial impacts for the City of Northfield. The motivation for the changes […]
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Crossing the highway one intersection at a time
Crossing Highway 3 in Northfield (on foot) should get somewhat easier soon. Tonight, March 3, the Northfield City Council will vote whether to order plans and specifications for a redesign of the intersection at 3rd Street and Highway 3. Good for pedestrians This will be a big improvement for people on foot (and perhaps motorized […]
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One small breath of fresh air at the DOT
Strong Towns recently highlighted this video from the Tennessee DOT which is worth 4 minutes for anyone who thinks about land use and transportation issues. In the video, Tennessee DOT Commissioner John Schroer says: “A lot of cities did a poor job of long-range planning in how they did zoning and how they approved projects […]
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Dear Mayor Graham – Bike and pedestrian safety edition
Dear Mayor Graham, I hope you’ve been thinking about joining Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx’s Mayor’s Challenge for improving safety for bicycle riders and pedestrians of all ages and abilities this year. Northfield is so well-positioned to make significant progress on this issue already that your strong leadership of the Council and city staff in this effort […]
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Soup and Cycles 2.0
The 2nd Annual Soup and Cycles event will be Thursday, January 15 at 6 pm. The inaugural Soup and Cycles event was organized by Councilmember Suzie Nakasian in November 2013 as “an information gathering and brainstorm for representatives of Northfield area bike clubs and bike-interested groups, community leaders and educators.” The event was intentionally broad […]
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Passenger Rail to Northfield?
Although freight trains move through Northfield daily, it’s been about 45 years since the last passenger train passenger trains stopped at the Northfield Depot. Now grassroots efforts to restore passenger rail from the Twin Cities to Northfield and points south are gathering steam. Even talking about taking the train to Northfield has been difficult. From […]
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No fun urbanism
Sarah Goodyear doesn’t want us to have fun. She complains fun urban tricks like swings, slides and games are “dangerously beside the point” of making cities safer, cleaner and more livable. I think this criticism misses the point. Swings and slides are not “design solutions” and I don’t believe they’re intended to solve big city […]
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Near misses and other cycling data
Recent news about cycling safety (more accurately described as cycling danger) warns cycling deaths are on the rise (…or not). Reporting on deaths and injury-causing collisions/accidents shapes the public sense of cycling for non-cyclists because these are the numbers we have. As a get-around-town sort of cyclist, I don’t worry about dying when I go to […]