Bill Lindeke

Saint Paul

Urban Geographer @ UMN. Skyway Don Quixote. Tread lightly on earth. he/him Author of "St. Paul: Urban Biography" https://t.co/gXjJZ2uMNq…

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Articles

Landmark Towers project is a welcome win for downtown St. Paul

1 week ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

The most predictable thing about urban downtowns is that they will change. Trends we take for granted today might reverse in a generation or two, and even the buildings could see unpredictable futures. To offer examples from downtown St. Paul: Today’s iconic Landmark Center, full of museums and event spaces, was originally a courthouse and post office. The Lowertown neighborhood of apartments and (still a few) art studios, was once uniformly warehouse, factories and offices.
Legislature should save highway law that could be a national model

2 weeks ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

The 2023 Minnesota Legislature did groundbreaking work, when the slim DFL trifecta combined with a large budget surplus to allow DFLers to pass a long-held wish list. As I wrote two years ago, this was especially true for transportation policy. After decades of struggles, some involving gubernatorial veto overrides, the state finally passed forward-thinking, fiscally sustainable transportation policies. Unfortunately, 2025 seems to be the year when some of these key accomplishments get abandoned.
Reasons for optimism over new transit plan for St. Paul's W. 7th St.

1 month ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

Frankly, I’m a bit tired of writing about transit planning on West 7th Street in St. Paul. The saga seems never-ending. An idea for a bus rapid transit (BRT) line along this street was first pitched in 1989 and funded in 2000 before running into neighborhood and/or bureaucratic opposition and dying on the vine. A similar thing happened again in 2015 with Metro Transit’s proposed B Line arterial BRT, which could have been up and running almost a decade ago. It was nixed by Ramsey County planners.
Why a Washington Avenue Bridge fix should be a legislative priority

1 month ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

For years, I’ve crossed the Washington Avenue Bridge daily as part of my job teaching urban studies and geography classes. The quarter-mile-long piece of infrastructure is an iconic, if unglamorous, link between the two sides of the main University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus over the Mississippi River. Built in 1965, and a staple of media photos ever since, the bridge is showing its age.
Uptown vote is another failure by powerful Minneapolis Park Board

1 month ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

“I feel bad about it,” Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board commissioner Tom Olsen told me. “It’s one of those things where you can work really hard, make all the rational arguments about good governance, about following our plans, our Park Board values and goals… The plan that we had was completely in line with that.
In urban America, abundance framing can actually be a good thing

1 month ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

I found myself at a large airport the other day, pleased to discover the perfect in-flight book waiting for me on a shelf in Concourse A. It was Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s new book, “Abundance,” a text that had (however briefly) captured the imagination of pundits. That’s about what you want an airport book to do.
Why northeast Minneapolis should embrace one traffic roundabout

1 month ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

Roundabouts are old news in Minnesota by this point. They’ve been around (get it?) since 1995, since the state’s first was built in the midst of some Brooklyn Park culs-de-sac west of Edinbrook Elementary School. Since then, they’ve grown more common, spreading like memes over the last 10 years. By now, many drivers either love them or hate them, but they gradually seem to be winning over people’s hearts and steering wheels.
What most people don’t realize about downtown St. Paul’s woes

2 months ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

Once again, people are fretting about the state of downtown St. Paul and, given the litany of bad news, concern is warranted. There’s the closing of the last grocery store, the abandonment of a key office tower and the slow drip exodus of businesses, on top of the usual urban complaints. On the other hand, people have been worried about downtown St. Paul since at least the late 19th century. Downtown St. Paul has been dead, dying or, at the very least, sleepy for my whole lifetime.
Garbage truck station or river walk?

2 months ago | minnpost.com | Bill Lindeke

It’s hard to look at the dirty expanse of land at 540 Randolph Ave. in St. Paul and see much value in it. Until recently, the 5-acre piece of fenced-off land had been used as a tow truck storage yard, full of old cars in various stages of entropic decline. Randolph Avenue doesn’t even have sidewalks, and a massive grain elevator — still in use by the Archer Daniels Midland Company — towers overhead.
Groups offer free loaners, training to demystify useful cargo e-bikes

2 months 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.