Bill Lindeke

1 month ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

I’m an admitted cargo bike convert by way of my almost 4-year-old daughter. As a parent, being able to avoid steering wheels and car seats and, instead, riding together on a bicycle is magic. Enjoying the outside air, looking for dogs and flowers, chatting and making eye contact, or stopping at a moment’s notice have remained a profound liberation from the constrained society of traffic.

1 month ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

From time to time, I meet someone new to Minneapolis or St. Paul who intends to try out the transit system. It might be an incoming college kid, a transplant, or an older person who downsized and moved to an urban area. I tell them that transit is great, but using it can be harder than they think. Without a few tips and tricks, the experience can quickly sour. For example, always board the front car of the train when taking light rail.

1 month ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

The fact that, in the year 2025, a significant amount of money is spent to remind people to buckle their seat belts is wild to me. First unveiled by Volvo in the late 19th century, the seat belt is an astoundingly efficient and life-saving safety invention. Yet after generations of formed habits, seat belt usage , leading to thousands of annual fatalities.

1 month ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

Unfortunately in the U.S., there’s never a great time to talk about high-speed rail. There have seemingly always been political, institutional or legal barriers to building the kinds of trains that are common throughout the wealthier parts of Europe and Asia, and which are not at all found in the United States. That said, I read a sentence the other day that captured my imagination.

2 months ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

Years ago I compiled a list of favorite streets for walking in Minneapolis and St. Paul, put together on what would today be called “vibes.” These were streets with an ineffable sense of place, corridors I’d fallen for after years of fine-tuning my inner flâneur. The top five list — Selby and Payne in St. Paul, Nicollet, 13th NE and N. First avenues in Minneapolis — seemed right to me but, other than a vague sense of scale, I didn’t really know why.