This is Richfield
This is Minneapolis
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Sean Hayford Oleary
@sdho
Richfielder, web developer, and transportation geek. Love to ride my 
Sean Hayford Oleary’s posts
Hennepin County voters elected Moriarty to make these decisions by a 15-point margin. If we do not think she's making appropriate and just decisions, we can elect somebody else, or even recall her.
Voters' will should not be undermined by the AG and governor.
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#BREAKING: Gov. Tim Walz has appointed Attorney General Keith Ellison to take over a high-profile murder case from Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty amid backlash over a plea deal for two minors. startribune.com/ag-ellison-to-
Driving to the gym today, I saw a pedestrian nearly get taken out by a right-turn-on-red driver on 66th. The driver didn't remotely stop before the crosswalk.
It got me thinking about the casual lawlessness of driving that we broadly accept... 🧵
This is a new tree 10 years later.
My yard was once shaded by several elm trees and a black walnut. The black walnut fell in a storm in 2010, so in 2013 we were starting over from zero shade.
Here are my tips for helping a new tree along to grow as quickly as possible 👇
Love to successfully block a bus lane to maintain my free customer parking and then skip town anyway.
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Breaking news for Minneapolis cat lovers: Cafe Meow, the city’s first and only cat cafe, is leaving Minneapolis for Roseville
Weird way to say "semi-driver failed to yield the right-of-way and ran a stop sign, resulting in the death of this bicyclist" but OK.
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Bicyclist Timothy Stangel killed in collision with driver in northeast Minneapolis cbsnews.com/minnesota/news
before Neoliberalism, a simple railroad worker could afford this home on a single salary
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before Neoliberalism, a simple Venetian laborer could afford this home on a single salary
Calling a 100% affordable apartment building — replacing a vacant office building — "gentrification" tells you everything you need to know about how that term is used to reflexively oppose new housing.
wsco.org/176robertgroun
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There's a false timeline in a lot of urbanist discussions — where a lot of people seem to think the 50s and 60s was peak era of suburbia.
But (despite rapid growth of tract housing) the suburbia of the 1950s looks a lot more like its prewar urbanism than modern suburbia. 🧵
Getting increasingly annoyed at flagrant tab violations.
May 2021 was 24 months ago.
Really struggling to comprehend the idea somebody can get their license reinstated when they're not even halfway through their sentence for *putting someone in a coma while driving*.
Another tragic example of not taking violence seriously when the weapon is a car.
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Derrick Thompson, charged in a fatal Minneapolis hit-and-run that killed 5 women, injured a woman in a California crash so badly that her medical bills exceeded $2 million by the time she sued him. But Thompson complained he was charged too harshly. startribune.com/after-hitting-
I feel like drivers parking this winter are just... not even trying.
Come on guys.
Glad Minneapolis led on this (and St. Paul has followed suit), but it's time for the remaining 80% of the Twin Cities to take this on.
Yes, most people drive in your suburb. Most people drive in the central cities too! Parking minimums are still bad policy in suburbs too.
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Ending minimum parking requirements was a policy win for the Twin Cities, writes @zyudhishthu (Commentary) minnesotareformer.com/2023/08/31/end via @mnreformer
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IMPORTANT EXCEPTION: Although it is broadly socially acceptable for a 3-ton SUV to roll a stop sign, it is a matter of urgent public safety if a 20 lb bicycle does this. Be sure to write an angry comment online about it.
/s
It's wild how much better we were at designing starter homes... 83 years ago.
A welcoming, attractive front of a house shouldn't be 60% garage door and 4% window.
So I have a "maintenance plan" with a local HVAC company to check furnace, AC, and water heater once a year. They checked my water heater recently and quoted me $270 to replace my T&P valve.
Pleased to report that with no experience and a $40 part, I did this in 15 minutes.
Guys do you realize when our parents were our age, society just operated without carry-your-own water bottles.
I think I speak for all Minnesotans when I say:
If they fully rebrand Holiday Stationstores to Circle K, I'm switching allegiance to Kwik Trip in short order.
The thing that really gets me about parking minimums is: almost everyone loves places that were built without parking minimums. They're charming, they're memorable, they're destinations.
Yet it's illegal to build these places in almost all American cities.
What's with all the negativity about Taste of Minnesota.
I missed it, but it seems good to have festivals like this to bring more people downtown?
This is not true, and please don't vandalize cars — call them in.
When you post recreational disinformation as a joke, it should at least have a punchline? Really sucks to see people sharing this credulously.
I was a lifelong liberal Democrat. Then referred to Richfield's Menards T-Bell as being in Bloomington.
City of Minneapolis's plan to
1. clean up this site,
2. provide necessary public services,
3. bring more union jobs that don't require a college degree to the neighborhood,
4. AND still provide space for an urban farm
is, in fact, not colonialism. twitter.com/StreetsMN/stat
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So far the reviews from Facebook complain that these sticks are in the way when they're most wanting to drive aggressively — and that kids these days are just too soft in this "nanny state" culture where we try to avoid cars hitting them.
So I guess they're working as designed.
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Replying to @sdho
The crossing condition at 70th and Elliot is dramatically better.
Drivers frequently ignored their obligation to stop for pedestrians here, endangering kids. This is intended to make it a lot more obvious and to provide a refuge median.
This might be one of the worst pieces of coverage on a new bike lane I've ever seen. This does a disservice to viewers and readers
This new two-way bike lane / sidepath on 36th Street in St. Louis Park looks pretty good.
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Speed limits are an especially relevant example of the culture of lawlesness when driving, because the entire core of how to set speed limits is based on the idea that drivers won't necessarily follow the law.
In most jurisdictions, if enough drivers speed, limits go up.
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1. Right turn on red
What the law says: driver must stop behind crosswalk, and can complete turn only if clear and yielding ROW to all traffic.
Casual lawlessness: whip through the crosswalk, yield before travel lane. Stop only if conflict requires.
Geese have taken control of downtown Richfield.
📸 Pat Paulson / Facebook
Check out this cool walkshed map Richfield staff made for grocery stores. About half the city is within a half-mile/10-minute walk of a grocery store.
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This is 62nd Street at 16th Ave. Most of the Richfield - Mpls border is covered by Crosstown, so this is a rare spot you see a side street straddling the line.
Yes, typically cities will try to coordinate but I guess Mpls wasn't ready to do their half when Richfield was repaving
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4. Blocking the box
What the law says: Cars must stop behind a stop bar (if present) or a marked crosswalk at a stop sign or signal.
Casual lawlessness: Act as though you can't see the pavement markings. Stop where it feels "natural", even if blocking for no reason.
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3. Crosswalks (especially unmarked)
What the law says: Pedestrians have right-of-way at all intersections, including those without crosswalk markings.
Casual lawlessness: stop for a pedestrian only if a collision is imminent and certain. Stop at marked crosswalks sometimes.
If you've never demineralized your shower head, you don't know what you're missing.
Hey guys in only three hours we can roll these (carefully) on bike for the first time ever.
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6. Parking in bike lane
What the law says: Parking in bike lane is never allowed unless signage explicitly permits it
Casual lawlessness: It's fine if it's inconvenient to park in the parking lane, or you're just stopping for a sec.
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I don't know nearly enough about the nuances of juvenile prosecution to have an opinion of her decision — certainly I can see why people think it's too light.
But it is a terrible precedent to have charging decisions altered like this from media and political pressure.
In Joe Biden's America, you'll pay $45 for a meager surface parking spot on the edge of downtown Swiftieapolis.
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2. Speed limits
What the law says: The posted speed is a maximum allowed speed for ideal conditions. It shall not be exceeded.
Casual lawlessness: Rough guideline. Go as fast as conditions allow, usually treating +5 to +15 (depending on context) as the de facto limit.
These are the actual trade-offs that parking minimums silently force. Most people would probably rather this new building have more parking.
But that's not the question. The question is: would they rather have more parking than housing? More parking than small business space?
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Replying to @sigma_47
So in Richfield, that building would have required ~28 spots. They built 5. You could:
1. Knock down the two houses to the south and build a big asphalt surface lot.
(or)
2. Build the building without the office space and with half the apartments, renting at a higher price.
Preview of an article for this week: a pedestrian cannot live on compliance alone.
Both of these sidewalks in Hopkins are ADA-compliant. One makes walking a dehumanizing chore. The other makes walking pleasurable and intuitive.
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5. Overtaking on shoulder
What the law says: Driving and overtaking on the shoulder is illegal.
Casual lawlessness: It's fine if you're using it to bypass a left-turning car, or to skip the line and make a right turn on red.
(You see this one all over Minneapolis)
Cities: we would like to have your permission to tax ourselves for community needs
House DFL: Too regressive idk.
Cities: could we have more state funding then? Since that can be progressive on income?
House DFL: nah but here's $100 million to divide among 855 cities.
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Compare with a modern suburbia example from Dayton. This house is worth about twice as much as mine.
Half the front yard is driveway. The garage door is the first thing you see on this house and every one of its neighbors, and the entrance for people is an afterthought.
There's a new way into Richfield, now (unofficially) open. 77th Street looking west toward into Richfield, underneath Cedar Avenue.
(Consider that 40 mph sign temporary - to be either 35 or 30 after our local speed limit changes)
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7. California roll (stop)
What the law says: A vehicle must make a complete stop at a stop sign (behind crosswalk) before proceeding.
Casual lawlessness: Stop signs are yield signs. If a complete stop is done at all, it will be well past the crosswalk.
Hot damn! They finished the Minnehaha Trail to Park Avenue connection!
This was originally to be built in the first Obama administration.
Rare one for Richfield: last week the City Council approved a small grocery store on Penn Avenue with more bike parking (8 spaces) than off-street car parking spaces.
One of my favorite houses in Minneapolis for sale! That iconic white modernist cube at Lyndale and Minnehaha Pkwy.
Friends with a lot more money than me: please buy and have me over for cocktails.
I have a new article article on @StreetsMN today: it's time to prioritize pedestrian dignity. Thread to follow 👇
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Immediate postwar suburbia was more centered on rapid growth of relatively affordable new houses. It did include some new styles (like the rambler), but it made simple retrofits for the car.
Post-1970s suburbia centers the car in every aspect of design.
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8. Cell phone use
What the law says: You can't touch your phone while driving, except one-touch actions designed to be done while driving.
Casual lawlessness: At a minimum, OK to change music. On the high end, OK to film Instagram stories while driving.
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Expired tabs:
1. Are illegal
2. Make it more likely you'll be pulled over
3. Make it so that your car can be impounded, *even from private driveway or parking lot*
Just renew them!
We're out painting a new in-street trail on 73rd between Bloomington and Old Cedar Ave.
This will be in place for about two years until we build a permanent sidepath. It's a popular walking route to Centennial Elementary.
Agencies design 55 mph surface streets through communities like this. Driver hits a child so violently as to reduce his helmet-protected skull to "mush".
But you know who we should really be blaming? The e-bike industry.
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This New York Times article is journalistic malpractice. The e-bike riders were killed by SUVs. Cars cause 43,000 deaths every single year, that’s the problem here. We’ve become so normalized to the death caused by cars that journalists are blaming the victims
This is a great thread. So much of politics seems to be about reducing someone to 100% good or 100% evil.
A lot of folks on here dislike Frey over policing or homelessness issues, and seem to find it unacceptable that they agree with him on urbanism issues. Great reality check:
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This tweet has been bothering me and I feel I need to push back on it. Frey has always been excellent on zoning policy, and I think it's counterproductive to our Housing Abundance goals to deny him credit for that. To call him "useless" on 2040 is absurd. He was great on it!
twitter.com/WedgeLIVE/stat…
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There is often major pressure to maintain limited access on major streets by road agencies. A higher speed limit can be maintained this way.
But the consequences are obvious. Your neighbor is just a couple houses away. Want to visit? 15 minute walk along high-speed streets.
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The inability to make convenient connections to major streets walking also means walk-up transit service is rarely viable.
The only way to serve areas like this well are with park and rides that waste space, generate no property taxes, and require millions in public dollars.
Hennepin County added bike lanes on Nicollet Avenue a couple years ago. But at 90th Street, the bike lanes drop to fit in duplicate driving lanes, ensuring cars maintain continuous high-speed flow through the light.
Here's what continuous high-speed flow looks like:
Concurrent roundabout and mixed-use building construction: the Sean agenda in action.
Please don't buy this car but I honestly resent how styling this is:
Hey what's going on with the north end of Van White Memorial Blvd? It's in a state of complete neglect between 7th and Olson Highway.
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As a patient, I would find this kind of frustratingly general health advice, and probably trust it less. Core strength, stretches, posture, ergonomics all seem more relevant than mild overweight or smoking.
Future home of ONE LESS PORKCHOP: the free right from 77th to SB Lyndale is being humanely dispatched as we speak.
You might wonder why I care about porkchops and free rights.
Short answer: they prioritize drivers' convenience over pedestrian and bike dignity and safety. They take the already-dangerous right turn on red and hit pedal to the metal.
Long answer 👇
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Future home of ONE LESS PORKCHOP: the free right from 77th to SB Lyndale is being humanely dispatched as we speak.
Council and staff got to tour this new Habitat for Humanity house on 66th Street today! It's nearly done and residents close next week.
18 homes were removed to widen 66th in 2015. Of those, two were double lots where a buildable parcel remained. This is one of those!
New native plant garden going down in back. Trying a plant kit by / Blazing Star Gardens. 18 plants and suggested arrangement in one package.
Hope they take!
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I chose these examples because they're not exceptional. If you saw a driver doing any of these, you wouldn't be shocked at all, because it's completely normal. Inevitably I do some of these myself.
Yet they're all illegal, and they're all varying degrees of dangerous.
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Just checkin' the replies here:
Stiffing government = good, righteous
Suggesting on Twitter that you not stiff the government = literal murder
Which are you most looking forward to doing for the first time ever on August 1, 2023?
- Rolling a stop sign on62.4%
- Consume marijuana37.6%
194 votesFinal results
One small pedal stroke for Sean, one giant wheel revolution for mankind:
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The report doesn't say which intersection, but says the cyclist was going downhill behind Columbia and California, so presumably westbound and the collision at Columbia.
Sightlines are excellent at that location, and the cyclist was not likely going faster than cars on parkway
This is how Minneapolis could look if there were a nice tower at this vantage point instead of a drive-thru White Castle.
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20 years ago to the day, I got to march in the children's parade for Syttende Mai (Norwegian Constitution Day) in Oslo. Today I was back, with the whole family. 🇳🇴
Tonight: Richfield City Council will be discussing local speed limits. In October, staff proposed a mix of 25 mph and 30 mph.
They are now proposing 25 mph for all city streets, except 76th/77th. (Speed would go from 40 to 35 on 77th east of Lyndale.)
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This is brutal, but sorta impressed the "proper use" album includes both an unhelmeted casual cyclist, and a cyclist doing a track stand in lieu of putting a foot down at a stop sign.
"Transit-oriented" development with an 83-space surface lot fronting one of Bloomington's two main streets.
It's honestly bizarre in the 2020s to see new apartment construction with only 30% covered parking. It's bad urban design, but it's also a bad tenant amenity.
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Bloomington City Council has approved plans for a new 99-unit residential building, offering a mix of market-rate and affordable apartments. bizjournals.com/twincities/new
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Garage size and placement is the most obvious. My house is a common story-and-a-half rambler style. The front door is obvious, and the garage isn't visible to the street at all.
It happens to have a 2-car garage, but most homes were built with 1-car.
This seems like a deliberately distorted claim. Do Starbuckses with drive thrus typically have 5x the revenue of those without?
Or does the presence of a drive-thru cause 80% of customers to idle in their car instead?
One's growing the pie, one's not.
tcbmag.com/the-long-bitte
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I think you misunderstood the purpose of these in your video — basically all of downtown Minneapolis includes walk cycles by default. The "beg buttons" in this case are just to trigger audible pedestrian signals for the blind. They do not affect the signal cycle.
One weird trick for domestic bliss: all matching towels.
Preferably in white so you can bleach weekly without fading. You're never disappointed you didn't get your favorite towel, and it gives a slightly spa-like feel.
This is Richfield! 78th St — now 494 — and Cedar Ave.
Via "Flashbacks of Bloomington, MN and Surrounding Area" group on Facebook.
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First off, it's amplifying a single resident's disgruntlement without any context. Is this design safer? Has it been effective in other locations?
Who wants to ride the new Safe Routes to School demonstration project on 70th Street?
I grew up in a rural residential subdivision on the edge of Northfield.
As a teenager, I didn't think it should require 1.7 miles of hilly riding on a 55 mph highway to bike to a location 100 feet away.
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What is your bike advocacy origin story?
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Why do it this way?
✅ Not open-air, reduces odors
✅ Less access for rodents
✅ Uses less open space
✅ Tends to be better-maintained by property owner than dumpster on far end of the parking lot
✅ Nearly eliminates dumping and overflow
An Edina resident emailed me today to ask if I'd support removing 13 houses on the Richfield side of Xerxes to add a long auxiliary lane.
No, I definitely would not support that, but I gotta say I like the moxy. The citizen-transportation advocates aren't just bike people!
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The coverage misleads the public as to what the change was: "He says the bike lane creates confusion for drivers and squeezes vehicle traffic to one lane in each direction ..."
It was always one vehicle lane in each direction! Just with a gigantic undefined shoulder.
Metro Transit has this extremely rigid naming convention for BRT stations of "roadway it runs along x cross street".
How far do they take this? The 50th & France E Line station is "France and 50th". There literally could not be a more established brand for a stop.
